Recognize This! – Talent is indisputably fluid. So are business objectives. HR must deliver a way to align fluid talent with fluid business needs.

I’ve just finished reading a very interesting report from Knowledge Infusion CEO and Co-Founder Jason Averbook and President Heidi Sprigi. In “HR Tech Predictions & Prescriptions for 2012,” Jason and Heidi make eight distinct predictions (and associated prescriptions).

Across those eight predictions, I see four continuous themes:

1.  Global, mobile and social “just simply is.” You can’t work around them, legislate around them, or ignore them. You must find a way to incorporate global, mobile and social appropriately into the workstream.
2. Software as a Service (SaaS) is the killer app. “HR is a department, but HCM is a strategy.” And to implement that strategy, HR needs an agile “delivery platform” not just a technology. That platform is SaaS.
3. Reporting on metrics and analytics that matter is fundamental going forward. “Metrics, analytics and dashboards are the things business leaders care about because they present integrated data in a useful way.”
4. Fluidity of talent is necessary to meet ever changing business needs and priorities. I saved the best for last. This theme runs throughout all 8 predictions because it’s the new reality of the workforce today. “HR must understand where the business is going, which talent is needed to support that direction, and which decisions will need to be made get there, before thinking about HR processes and technology.”

The challenge with this reality of fluid talent – and fluid business needs – is this: How do you find the specific talent you need when you need it? You need faster, deeper, real-time talent insight – knowledge about your employees, where they reside, and what their current skills and abilities are – than you can get from a traditional performance review or skills assessment.

You need to pull in the wisdom of crowds and let your entire organization tell you, perhaps, who your most consistently innovative employees are so you can pull them together to get a new product designed and developed ahead of your competition.

How you do that is what Globoforce announced today in with its new “Talent Maps.”

Through data populated by peer-to-peer recognition across the company, HR and business leaders can see firsthand who the top performers and influencers are within teams, departments, and the company. This knowledge and data can be used to identify high potential, high performance individuals for succession planning, flight risk assessment, and leadership development. In addition, managers gain actionable data for more effective day-to-day team management and individual performance assessment.

Averbook agrees. He commented in the press release:

“HR leaders have long needed a better way to understand the true performance of individual employees and teams. Globoforce addresses this need with its latest release. Through its social DNA, intuitive reporting, and performance alignment, peer recognition can play a significant role in talent and performance management. The next couple of years will be fun to watch as social recognition fully enters the stage of must-have HR technologies.”

What are you seeing as your major challenges on the horizon? Can you find the people you need when you need them?

How to Organize Your Small Business Information

apps (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

(Cross-posted on Sanera Camp on 5/15/2012)

One of the toughest things for a small business owner to manage is the flow of information, whether it is business or personal.  If you aren’t careful, you can swiftly get lost in a swamp of personal contacts,  vendor payment information, IRS forms, and human resources transactional information like home addresses, number of dependents, and more.  Throw in all the calls from everyone about getting your business on social media platforms, and things can suddenly look really overwhelming.

The good news is that most business people also carry a very powerful resource around in their pocket. This would be your mobile phone – which you can transform into a powerful information management tool by simply downloading some simple low cost  programs.

10 Must-Have, Small Business Apps

Here’s a list of  ten very powerful, mostly free tools that will help you keep your life and business information properly sorted . The apps on this excellent  list , as well as one of the apps listed here were gathered by my friends at Projections, an Atlanta-based company specializing in creating employee communications programs.

1. Dropbox is a free service that lets you  share files, photos, documents, and videos anywhere, even across several devices.
2. Evernote is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Stay organized, save your ideas and improve productivity.
3. HR At Your Fingertips is must have for any small business owner or HR professional. This app contains a glossary of HR terms, Federal laws and how to create an employee handbook.
4. Jobvite Facebook App for Recruiting allows you to effortlessly publish jobs to Facebook and reach a new audience with the Work With Us app.
5. Direct Report  makes tracking and recording employee feedback easy. You can use Direct Report whenever you need to instantly keep track of and support your employees.
6. Upward Mobility creates high end professional educational content for management development and test preparation, and makes it available through mobile apps. Our goal is to keep learners engaged with a mix of wit, humor and actionable takeaways while meeting our customer’s specific educational needs.
7. Rypple Mobile  can help make your team agile. It is the first social performance management platform you can access from anywhere.
8. Labor Stats application from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)- Download this App for your Android phone or iPhone and you’ll get immediate access to the DOL’s latest published numbers. You can track certain statistics and get the news releases about the numbers. Plus, you’ll be able to open the releases in browser and PDF format.
9. Wunderlist mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch will boost your productivity. Organize your to-do lists on the go and synchronize them with your free Wunderlist account.  Access your tasks anywhere, anytime
10. Labor Insider app from Projections allows you to get daily labor news and National Labor Relations Board petition info on-the-go.

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There's no such thing as a sabbatical though, in most jobs, and after 7 long years in the same job (and often even before then), employees commonly begin to lose interest and start looking elsewhere. This "7 year job itch" can affect people in any profession, in any economic climate, anywhere in the world. When it's time for a change, it's time for a change.

These strategies are like Anti Monkey Butt Powder with Calamine Lotion, but for employee retention. Stop the itch.
Flickr/djeo

Unhappy faces, reduced social interaction, and frequent tardiness are telltale signs of burnt out, 7-year itch employees. The discontent associated with the mundane can build into frustration that ends in resignation. Keen managers and HR pros will make sure that this never happens.

All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don’t participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background.

In contrast, a tiny minority of users usually accounts for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity.

A recent BBC survey of 7,500 people shows significantly different results.

Here we see that passive lurkers make up only 23% of participants; active (intense) participants have increased to 17%; and there is now an “Easy” group in the middle who, “ … respond largely to the activity of others. This includes replying, ‘liking’ and rating, all activities where there’s little effort, exposure or risk.”

Perhaps the most interesting finding is that many early adopters, those who used to be active online, are dropping out and are classified as “passive”. I’m not sure if they are actually dropping out or have just moved on to other media and communities.

One conclusion I would make is that in 2012 it is now easier to get people engaged in online participation, whether for work or pleasure. This is the Facebook effect, which I have noticed since the service became mainstream. With a concrete model of what a social network looks like, people can more easily understand online communities. Of course, there comes a saturation point which many of us have faced as we add social networks to our lives. The YASNS effect ["Yet Another Social Networking Service" ~ Clay Shirky] is also becoming ubiquitous.

If nothing else, this report indicates that social media are making people more social online. The medium is the message, or so it seems.

According to Tomi Ahonen, mobile is the fastest growing industry ever.  But just because everyone has one, what does it mean?  I think the implications are broader, but here I want to talk specifically about work and learning.  I want to suggest that it has the opportunity to totally upend the organization.  How? By broadening our understanding of how we work and learn.

The 70:20:10 framework, while not descriptive, does capture the reality that most of what we learn at work doesn’t come from courses (the ’10′).  Instead, we learn by coaching/mentoring (the ’2o’), and ‘on the job’ (70).  Yet, by and large, the learning units in organizations are only addressing the 10 percent.  They could, and should, be looking at how to support the other 90, but haven’t seen it, yet there’re lots that can be done.

The bigger picture is that digital technology augments our brain.  Our brains are really good at pattern-matching and extracting meaning. They’re also really bad at doing rote things, particularly complex ones.  Fortunately, digital technology is exactly the opposite, so combined we’re far more capable.  This has been true at the desktop, with not only powerful tools, but support wrapped around tools and tasks.  Now it’s also true where- and whenever we are: we can share content, compute capabilities, and communication.  And you should be able to see how that benefits the organization.

And more: it’s adding in something that the desktop didn’t really have: the ability to capture your current context, and to leverage that to your benefit. Your device can know when and where you are, and do things appropriately.

So why is this game-changing?  I want to suggest that the notion of a digital platform that supports us ubiquitously will be the inroad to recognize that the formal learning is not, and cannot, be separate from the work.  If we’re professionals, we’re always working and learning (as my colleague Harold Jarche extols us).  If a new platform comes out that’s ubiquitous yet relatively unsuited for courses, we have a forcing function to start thinking anew about what the role of learning and performance professionals is.  I suggest that there are rich ways we can think about coupling mobile with work.

Why do I suggest that courses on a phone isn’t the ideal solution?  You have to make some distinctions about the platform.  A tablet is just not the same as a pocketable device. It has been hard to get a handle on how they differ, but I think you do need to recognize that they do.  For example, I’ll suggest that you’re not likely to want to take a full course on a pocketable device, however on a tablet that’d be quite feasible.

To take full advantage, you have to consider mobile as a platform, not just a device. It’s a channel for capability to reach across limitations of chronology and geography, and make us more productive. And more.  So, get on board, and get going to more and better performance.

William Lepiesza, Associate Director

Yes, the executive search business is one of the surest ways to meet the best and brightest professionals, on the top of their game…but as the law of averages suggests, there’s never a shortage of counter-balancing examples that leave us questioning the basic intelligence of humanity. Here are a few recent encounters that left us shaking our heads, and wondering: “Why???”

• Everyone has their own unique story, and part of that story is one’s family – the people who helped shape their early years, helped inform their choices, and continue to influence who they are today. We got a bit too much of the family picture, however, when my colleague – while on an interview trip through Germany – had a candidate arrive for his initial interview, arm-in-arm with spouse! Both proceeded to join my colleague at his table in the lobby, presumably for a “family meeting.” Taken aback, my colleague first chalked it up to a cultural misunderstanding, but took decisive action to cut things short when the spouse flagged down a hotel employee and ordered appetizers…

• Speaking of food, it’s understandable when candidates submit modest meal expenses in addition to flights, taxi and hotel, for an international or cross-country interview trip…but I’m still not sure why one candidate thought he should submit a receipt for a post-interview lunch when meeting with a company five miles down the road from his office.

• Referring to yourself in the third person when writing is occasionally acceptable, with the risk of coming off as pretentious, but during an in-person meeting (“turnaround expert” candidate staring me straight in the eyes and pointing to himself): “When the impossible needs to happen, they call Steve!” – downright crazy. 

• While it’s understandable to have a mint, or a stick of gum prior to an interview, the first mistake one candidate made was introducing himself to my colleague while still chomping on a whole pack of Trident, the second was when he then offered her a piece as well!

• Passion and enthusiasm for one’s work is a key trait that most top-notch executives naturally exude. However, if your “enthusiasm” (after being asked: what do you think of your competitor’s contrary view) causes you to stand up, wave your arms, and literally begin screaming at the executive search consultant meeting with you, it may be to your detriment…my colleague thought better of making a “switch to decaf” joke, and instead focused on finding the nearest emergency exit.

• I enjoy reading when I have the time – and can sympathize with others who find that they just don’t have enough hours in the day to do so. I thought it was a bit much, however, when I came back to the table with my Starbucks coffee, and found the candidate I had just introduced myself to, head down, engrossed in the latest best-seller, as he waited for me to return.

And on that note, to my colleague – after we were escorted to the boardroom, and told our CEO client was running a few minutes behind – a belated apology for suggesting you not take out the iPad, and that Scrabble would “always be there.” Clearly, during those precious few minutes, you needed to take advantage – as you did – of that game’s fleeting, meteoric existence in our world...yes, occasionally search consultants do the darndest things as well.    

1) Local TV station ran a story about customer service. The owner of the business tells the reporter that if a customer complains directly to the company, they get less attention then if they post the same complaint on social media. In the same breath, we as organizations tell us that it is paramount that we cut off the conversation by limiting employee access to social media during work hours.

2) I for the most part shy away from discussing politics but there were several reports of misguided acts by politicians which had direct impact on the society in which we live. But in each case the acts were essentially thrown under the carpet.

3) The reports surfaced this weekend about the actions of the trade office of JP Morgan Chase. The CEO said that the Dodd-Frank legislation  was too restrictive yet they did exactly what caused the 2008 downturn in the first place. It was primarily caught because of the financial reforms put in place because of these types of actions

As leaders of our organizations, the expectation is there that we will function in an ethical manner with our customers, our vendors and just as important or employees In this 21st century it is no longer possible for us to expect that our employees will do what we expect when we tell them one thing and then do just the opposite.

Our organizations rely on our clients to provide the mechanism to keep the organization running. When we tell them "Hey if you broadcast to the world your problems with us, we will give it more weight then if you just call or write about your problems what picture are you delivering?

 We need to remind ourselves that shortly our organizations will be run by a different generation and for the most part the lack of  transparency and ethical behavior will not be tolerated.

Email (keeping up to date inside the organization)

Since email is the number one method of keeping up to date, find ways to make it easier or replace it with a world without email.  Using internal blogs for any multi-recipient email is a start. That way it’s visible, in one permanent place, with all the comments attached.

In-person conversations (keeping up to date inside the organization)

Create space for people to talk. Regular company coffee breaks can be supplemented with white boards or flip charts to encourage knowledge sharing. Take pictures of what’s going on and post them. Photos can encourage conversation. Small nooks with comfortable seating invite conversations. Changing office layout can change behaviours and even encourage inter-departmental conversations.

At Pixar, east of San Francisco, [Steve] Jobs oversaw the design of the new building. Because the software jockeys worked in one area and the marketing folks worked in another and so forth, he decided to put the bathrooms in a central atrium. That way, employees had to run into each other each day.

Read blog posts/online articles (keeping up to date outside the organization)

Point out good reading resources. Aggregate learning resources and get input on the best sources, as we have done with Working Smarter Daily. Use social bookmarks to share what you’re reading.

Search the Social Web using search engines (solve problems)

Put together resources on how to search. You may be surprised how few people know how to search effectively. For example: Compfight for images; GoogleGuide; Tools for Search; Four Ways to Search the Social Web.

Connect with others in public social networks or in private groups or communities (keeping up to date outside the organization)

Participate in and recommend social learning communities that meet the needs of your organization. If you don’t have any private social networks, try some out, like Yammer or Socialcast.

These are all relatively simple and fairly inexpensive things that can be done to support workplace learning. It’s amazing how many Learning & Development departments do not get involved in these types of activities. Not supporting active, informal workplace learning will just make the formal training function even less relevant.

A reader recently asked me about social media short-cuts so I wanted to share with you a few things I use to stay productive when using social tools:

OUTLOOK – I know this might sound silly but I’m an uber organized person. And I start hyperventilating when my in-box is cluttered with a bunch of notifications. So to stay organized, I’ve set up folders and rules with social media sites. Get a new follower on Twitter? It goes to my Twitter folder and when I have a moment I look at it. Same with my LinkedIn group updates. Goes straight into a folder.

On a personal note, I also use this for shopping emails…so I’m not distracted by Living Social or Rue La La. Ha!

BROWSER ADD-ONS – The next place I rely is my browser. I use Chrome, so I can really speak more to what it offers. But every browser offers add-ons to make life easier. The one I really like with Chrome is Share This, which allows me to quickly send something to a social media platform or email it to a colleague. I can also send articles to my Box.net account – and later read them on my iPad.

BUFFER – It never fails that I will see a whole bunch of blog posts or articles that I want to share but I don’t want to bombard people all at once. Buffer gives me the ability to set up several status updates and send them throughout the day. You can set your account to feed Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

TWEETDECK – Being able to search and aggregate information in Twitter is its real value and strength. Here’s an example: I’m a total news and politics junkie. Tweetdeck allows users to curate their followers into columns. So I have a column with all of the news sources I enjoy. Think of it as a personal news feed.

Tweetdeck, like Buffer, allows you to schedule tweets. And you can manage multiple Twitter accounts.

HOOTSUITE – If you like the features of Tweetdeck but need something more robust, HootSuite is an option. It gives you many of the same features but also has the ability to analyze social media traffic. This could come in handy if you need to provide metrics surrounding a recruiting campaign. Some of their features are free and others have a cost.

This is a short list of the options available when using social media. There are many more. Got a social media short-cut you can’t live without? Share it in the comments.

Image courtesy of Nancy Newell [Simutis]

You May Also Like:

1. The Future of HR and Social Media
2. 3 Things I’ve Learned Being on Social Media
3. Social Media and Hamburgers

Reblogged from Leading in Context:

Global Guidance Beyond the Law

Laws serve as the minimum standards for society, but responsible leadership requires that we go well beyond those minimum standards.

This post explores resources that help us understand (1) what it means to be a globally responsible leader and (2) what kinds of learning opportunities help leaders develop a global sense of responsibility.

Who is the Globally Responsible Leader?

Read more… 920 more words

Ethical behaviour, understanding complexity and acting in a responsible manner are not discretionary, they are imperatives in the 21st century.

                                                                                                                            

“The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.”

            Rensis Likert, American Educator and Organizational Psychologist

Rensis Likert was one of America’s pioneers in the field of organizational behavior? Chances are good he offered these words above sometime between 1940 and 1960, a good while ago. They seem to me to be as true today as ever even when you consider the changes in the basics relationship between many employees and their employers. It is commonly said these days that there is no longer any loyalty shown by employers towards employees…was there ever, really, or were we confusing paternalism with loyalty? I think loyalty in its pure form may just be lying there waiting for us to pick it up and put it to use as a tool for building sustainable performance.

There is nothing normative or judgmental in the way Rensis Likert expresses the power of loyalty here. This is pure pragmatism and group dynamics. Believe it; for the most part our business is a social system with an economic purpose, a community intentionally developed for a purpose, pragmatism in action. We are loyal to our company and to each other because it works towards producing the results we are seeking.

“Showing Loyalty” as a practice is one key to the kind of power we are seeking as managers. The community that supports the business purpose is a function of satisfying many social needs. integrity, recognition, gratitude and loyalty among them. Each piece of this practice is intended to reinforce and acknowledge the interdependence that underlies the success of the larger enterprise.

Consciously recognizing that whatever success the business has experienced is the product of the actions of many, not just a few employees is the foundation for this practice of loyalty. When we can stay present to this “fact” it is easy to realize that giving credit to the contribution of others is a reinforcing act and power building practice in itself. Who doesn’t want to be around people who readily recognize our contribution and thank us for what we have provided?

“Showing Loyalty” is most powerful yet may be tested when those we may be speaking of or about are not present. Can we discipline ourselves to always speak of someone else as if they were with us? Wow! Wouldn’t it change how we felt about each other if we knew that no one would ever say anything about us that they would not say in our presence? Would we not also be quick to want to return that loyalty in kind?

Questions for Reflection:

1)      Scan your work group, peers, reports and manager. Are there instances where you have not been “true” to one or some of these people? Can you commit yourself to never speaking of or about them in any way other than how you would in their presence?      

2)      Scan your work group for opportunities that have been missed to recognize someone’s contribution and thank them for it. Take action if you do see the opportunity. Hint: often the last person we think of in this regard is our own manager. 

Peter Scholtes, who has researched and written extensively about performance, appraisal and pay, argues that such a performance ”management” regime is inherently the wrong thing to do because three faults are common to all variations on the theme:

• It doesn’t work.
• It’s wrong to focus only on individuals or groups, because most opportunities for improvement involve systems, processes and technology.
• Performance ”management” is judgment, not feedback; it’s a hierarchical dynamic.

W. Edwards Deming called annual performance appraisals one of the five deadly diseases of management. Performance ratings are nothing more than a lottery, Deming said in 1984. This pertains to all levels in the organization.

ANNUAL RATING OF PERFORMANCE

• Arbitrary and unjust system
• Demoralizing to employees
• Nourishes short-term performance
• Annihilates team work, encourages fear.

Perhaps the performance appraisal treadmill is keeping organizations from testing out and adopting better management models for the networked economy. How could anyone possibly show progress in 365 days? It also makes one wonder about the effectiveness of publicly-traded companies that get a “performance appraisal” from the market every quarter.

Performance appraisals are like academic grades and keep the focus on the individual. In the collaborative, social enterprise this is counter-productive. There is no place for this practice in doing net work. In today’s enterprise, work is learning and learning is the work, and it has to be done cooperatively. The wirearchy organizing principle provides an excellent starting point to get off this treadmill:

a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.

It strikes me that this is an era of pressing choices – personal and collective. Even die-hard conservative thinkers acknowledge that the times demand some action – even if the opinion is to retreat to old methods and ideologies.

How do we make complex decisions in the face of such pressure?

What tools do we need to create mindsets that can address the intricacies of problems that were unimaginable a generation ago? Polarization and tribalism, common to an era of great change, are freezing us into inaction in so many areas of our lives, work, society and business. There’s a general consensus that the deep divisions in thought we’re experiencing come at a high price.

Important questions that challenge existing models of leadership, corporate and government behaviors, climate change and income equality are being raised with greater urgency. Without critical thinking – challenging our own thought processes, beliefs, values and actions – we cannot move forward, especially in collaboration with others, to course correct and chart new paths forward.

Hope you will find this post from last year helpful in thinking through some of these questions.

“Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.” Graham Greene

I often hear people say, “We need more critical thinking in the world, we should be teaching it in schools.” I don’t disagree with those ideas. But I wonder if we understand how much change real critical thinking would bring – to our schools, to the workplace, to our cultures and to our personal lives.

I’m not an expert in the progress of pedagogy, but I suspect that the teaching of critical thinking isn’t at the top of most school lists in this “Age of Austerity” (at least for most). We don’t really understand critical thinking enough to know how much we struggle and suffer from a lack of it.

Most corporations and institutions say they need innovation, creativity, sustainability and trust to compete in the 21^st century.  They understand that the new worker is a knowledge worker and that continuous learning is the jewel in the crown of assets to get there. But I don’t think they really mean they want critical thinkers!

Critical thinkers ask questions. They must “live in the questions” as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote. To the critical mind, questions lead to more questions. Critical thinkers not only challenge the status quo, they shake it up. They turn the status quo on its head and always ask, “Is there another way?”  That’s not comfortable to those who have an “immunity” to change.

That’s why it’s tough for most institutions and organizations to really embrace the full meaning and possibility of unleashing critical thinking within their cultures. While we’re in the grip of a powerful cultural meme that says that governments stifle progress and growth and businesses free it – neither are true.

Critical thinkers pose a threat to norms, to the safe and the orthodox. Critical thinkers toss the moneylenders out of the temple. Their very essence is to challenge atrophied practices and outdated assumptions.

For critical thinking to thrive, it must operate in an atmosphere of trust. Power politics, organizational and personal,  shut down free thinking and the honest exchange of ideas – and are the enemy of critical thought.

The Essence of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is essentially the ability to think about thinking. Most people don’t think about their thinking, and it’s not a skill many of us have acquired. In a results-driven culture, thinking about thinking feels passive. But developing the skills of a critical thinker is anything but passive. In its purest form, it requires the present and active involvement and engagement of the thinker in every experience.

In defining critical thinking many people get negatively hooked by the word – critical. The critical in the context of critical thinking doesn’t mean disapproval or judgment.  In fact, the skilled critical thinker needs to have the ability to think with great clarity and neutrality. The critical thinker is not without opinion, but has the ability to view experience from multiple perspectives.

Sharpening the Skills of Critical Thinking

The classic core elements of critical thinking include: observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and meta-cognition. How we understand and define these tools is important to the development of critical thinking.

• Observation – I think of this as the constant development and refinement of our ability to not only be self-aware but to cultivate the neutral (non-judgmental) “witnessing” of our own experience of self and others. This is the foundational skill we use to build critical thought.
• Challenging Beliefs and Norms – Norms form around comfort. While comfort may feel good, it can also be a refuge from change. Unexamined beliefs form major blind spots to critical thinking. We cannot discern the evidence we need to substantiate certain claims and assertions, if non-factual beliefs dominate our thinking.
• Ask Deep and Engaging Questions – Questions are surely the crux of critical thinking, but learning to ask deeper and more engaging questions is the key. Most of us have been conditioned by rote learning and memorization and our questioning skills have been weakened in the process.
• Brain Integration – One major cultural assumption that limits critical thinking is the idea that emotions are the enemy of reason. Rationality (the thinking we associate with the neo-cortical functions of our brain) is nearly always considered the Supreme ruler of critical thinking. Truth is we need a greater ability to integrate and balance both our so-called thinking brain and our feeling brain to maximize understanding and heighten experience. Familiarity with the information from our feeling brain invites intuitive and sensual experience into the equation.
• Collaborative Thinking – Critical thinking is social thinking. Practices in all areas of culture, but especially in the workplace, continue to foster authoritarian, left-brain, hierarchical thinking processes. Collaborative thinking requires exceptional listening abilities and the willingness to let go of control in over-asserting our own positions.
• Information and Learning – The critical thinker understands that learning is a continuous process and is actively seeking and open to new ideas and experiences. The critical thinker seeks out information not as a means to an end but to understand more about other people, their experiences and the larger world.
• Becoming Literate in the Emotions that Support Critical Thought – All emotions are of value to the critical thinker, but some are particularly important to engage, promote and sustain critical thought. Courage, confidence, enthusiasm, excitement, fascination, passion, optimism, satisfaction, wonder, appreciation, empathy, compassion, acceptance, calm and curiosity – the great driver of critical thought.
• MetaCognition – A very spiffy term to describe the critical thinker’s automatic awareness of their own knowledge and their ability to understand and control their own cognitive process. So – learning more about how we learn serves the critical thinker in their continuous path of growth.

Our need for critical thinking is greater today than ever before. We need to find a way to step outside of isolated and polarized thinking. We must learn to question the assumptions, information and behaviors that have led us to where we are now.

Most of us would agree that tepid reforms won’t change our workplaces or our culture. Critical thinkers challenge the safe, the comfortable and the inevitable. They are always going for ideas that have greater impact and depth. They make connections between things that appear on the surface as unrelated. They seek out possibilities even when problems seem insurmountable.

If we want to truly unleash the power of critical thinking, we’ll have to overcome the barriers of fear and passivity; entrenched and informal power arrangements; bias and conformity and the willingness to tolerate uncertainty.

It’s a tall order – are we ready? What do you think?

As always, I appreciate your readership, comments, subscriptions, shares and tweets!

Louise Altman, Partner, Intentional Communication Consultants

There’s plenty of research surrounding the validity of self-reporting, indicating that it is only moderately trustworthy. Still, a nationwide survey like this, can serve as a “pointer.” 

Intriguing findings:

Only 3% of recent grads said they’d expect to stay at any given job for more than five years. A job offer with higher pay, from a dream company or in a dream city would result in a move for more than 50% of grads. (I’ve always recommended that staying in the same job more than 3 years is nonsense and usually unwise. So I’d want to know what the survey meant when grads were quizzed about staying at any “given job.”) 

A striking 91% of recent would only continue working at a job they didn’t like for up to a year. In fact, 1 in 5 would only stay for three months before leaving a job they didn’t like. Salary, benefit and perk cuts, along with work that doesn’t fit their interests are killer reasons for these stats. 

Recent grads expect to stay connected to personal life—even at work. Certain activities will prevent grads from taking a job that they might be otherwise interested in. The list of important connections is highly reflective of the technology bent of the generation.

• 23% wouldn’t stay if personal phone calls are prohibited.
• 20% wouldn’t stay if they were not permitted to check personal emails.
• 15% wouldn’t stay if they were not permitted texting.
• 12% wouldn’t stay if they were not permitted to visit social media websites.

Nearly 30% of recent grads report that their parents are in some way involved in their job search process—and in some cases, very involved.

• 13% use parents’ personal network.
• 11% parents locate job listings for grads
• 9% parents rehearse job interview.
• 8% parents forward resume or cover letters for grads. 

More than half of recent grads report that parents help pay living expenses. The assistance is significant.

• 32% of parents help with cell phone expense.
• 21% of parents help with food.
• 20% of parents help with health insurance.
• 17% of parents help with rent.
• 17% of parents help with utilities.
• 13% of parents help with student loans.
• 12% of parents help with transportation. 

Students who graduate from college and are in that 22 to 26 year-old group are a very select group. It suggests that parents are very supportive of a huge proportion of college grads. I’m curious to know what you think about these statistics?