ការសិក្សា៖ ស្រែ​មួយ​ចំនួន​​​ក្នុង​ប្រទេស​ កម្ពុជា ​​មាន​បញ្ហា​សារធាតុ​អាសេនិក

ការ​សិក្សា​មួយ​ដែល​ចេញ​កាល​ពី​ចុង​ខែ​ មករា ​បង្ហាញ​ថា ​​ស្រែ​មួយ​ចំនួន​ក្នុង​ចំណោម​ស្រែ​ក្នុង​ប្រទេស​ កម្ពុជា ​​មាន​បញ្ហា​សារធាតុ​អាសេនិក​ដែល​អាច​​បណ្តាល​ឲ្យ​​ខូច​ហ្សែន​​របស់​មនុស្ស ប៉ុន្តែ​តំណាង​ក្រសួង កសិកម្ម​និង​តំណាង​ឧស្សាហកម្ម​នេះ ទទូច​ថា មិន​មាន​អ្វី​ត្រូវ​បារម្ភ​នោះ​ទេ។
ការ​សិក្សា​នេះដែល​ធ្វើ​ឡើង​ដោយ​ Yumei Kang មក​ពី​សាកល​វិទ្យាល័យ Kochi ​ផ្នែក​កសិកម្ម​ក្នុង​ប្រទេស​ជប៉ុន បាន​រក​ឃើញ​សារធាតុ​​អាសេនិក​នៃ​ប៉ាន់​គំរូ​អង្ក ដែល​លើស​កម្រិត​ទទួល​យក​បាន ហើយ​​លើស​រហូត​ដល់​ ៣ ​ដង​​ក្នុង​ខេត្ត​ចំនួន ៥ ហើយ​ខេត្ត​ដែល​អាក្រក់​ជាង​​គេ​គឺ​ខេត្ត​ កណ្តាល។
ដោយ​លើក​ឡើង​​អំពីការ​សិក្សា​​ស្រាវ​ជ្រាវ​​ឆ្នាំ​ ២០១៣ ​​​ក្នុង​​រដ្ឋ​ West Bengal ​ប្រទេស​ ឥណ្ឌា Yumei Kang បាន​កត់​សម្គាល់​ថា ការ​ទទួល​ទាន​រយៈពេល​យូរ​នូវ​អង្ករ​ដែល​មាន​​សារធាតុ​​អាសេនិក​​លើ​កម្រិត​ អតិបរមា​​ដែល​កំណត់​ជា​អន្តរជាតិ មនុស្ស​នឹង​​ស្ថិត​ក្នុង​ហានិភ័យ​នៃ​ការ​ខូច​ខាត​ហ្សែន។
បើ​តាម​ស្តង់​ដារ​​ដែល​កំណត់​​កាល​ខែ​​ កក្កដា ឆ្នាំ​ ២០១៤ ដោយ​អង្គការ​សុខភាព​ពិភព​លោក​ ​និង​អង្គការ​ស្បៀង​អាហារ​និង​កសិកម្ម​​របស់​អង្គការ​សហប្រជាជាតិ អង្ករ​មួយ​គីឡូ​​មិន​គួរ​មាន​ជាតិ​អាសេនិក​លើស​ ០,២ ​មីលី​ក្រាម​នោះ​ទេ។ នៅ​ក្នុង​ប៉ាន់​គំរូ​អង្ករ​ក្នុង​ខេត្ត​កណ្តាល​គឺ​មាន​​ជាតិ​អាសេនិក​​រហូត​ ដល់​ ០,៦៤៩ ​មីលី​ក្រាម​​ក្នុង​មួយ​គីឡូ។
ខេត្ត កំពង់ធំ គឺ​ជា​ខេត្ត​ទី​ពីរ​ដែល​មាន​​ជាតិ​ អាសេនិក ​​លើស​កម្រិត​ទទួល​យក​បាន​​​ស្ទើរ​ទ្វេ​ដង​គឺ​​ ០,៣៧១ ​​មីលីក្រាម​​ក្នុង​មួយ​គីឡូ​ក្រាម។ ខេត្ត​បន្ទាយ​មាន​ជ័យ​ ​បាត់​ដំបង និង​ព្រៃ​វែង គឺ​មាន​ជាតិ​អាសេនិក​​លើស​​កម្រិត​អតិបរមា ០,២ មីលីក្រាម​​ក្នុង​មួយ​គីឡូ​ក្រាម។
Yumei Kang បាន​អំពាវ​នាវ​ឲ្យ​ប្រជាជន​ដែល​រស់​នៅ​ក្នុង​តំបន់​​​ហានិភ័យ​ខ្ពស់ «យក​ចិត្ត​ទុក​​ដាក់​ឲ្យ​បាន​ខ្លាំងក្លា» ហើយ «បទ​បញ្ញត្តិ​បង្ការ​មិន​ឲ្យ​​អង្ករ​ដែល​មាន​ជាតិ​អាសេនិក​កម្រិត​ខ្ពស់​​ ចូល​ទៅ​ដល់​ទីផ្សារ​​គឺ​ត្រូវ​ការ​ឲ្យ​មាន»។
អ្នក​នាំ​ពាក្យ​ក្រសួង​កសិកម្ម លោក អៀង សុផល្លែត មិន​បាន​ដឹង​ច្បាស់​អំពី​​ការ​សិក្សា​​ស្រាវ​ជ្រាវ​របស់ Kang ប៉ុន្តែ​លោក​បាន​បញ្ជាក់​ថា ​អង្ករ​របស់​កម្ពុជា​​មិន​មាន​បញ្ហា​​អាសេនិក​ទេ។
លោក សុផល្លែត បាន​ថ្លែង​ថា​៖ «ស្តាប់ ​ខ្ញុំ​អាច​ធានា​អ្នក​ថា ​​មិន​មាន​សារធាតុ​នេះ​នៅ​ក្នុង​អង្ករ​កម្ពុជា​ទេ ​ពី​មុន​ពេល​យើង​នាំ​ចេញ ​វា​ត្រូវ​ឆ្លង​កាត់​​ការ​ធ្វើ​តេស្ត​ ​ហើយ​ប្រសិន​បើ​មាន​សារធាតុ​នេះ ​វា​នឹង​មិន​ត្រូវ​បាន​អនុញ្ញាត​ឲ្យ​នាំ​ចេញ​ទេ»។
លោក​បាន​បន្ថែម​ថា ​ហើយ​ចំពោះ​អង្ករ​សម្រាប់​ប្រើ​ប្រាស់​ក្នុង​ស្រុក​ក៏​មាន​នីតិវិធី​ដូច​គ្នា​នេះ​ដែរ។
លោក​បន្ត​ថា​៖ «​​យើង​មាន​នាយក​ដ្ឋាន​​​ដី ​ការ​ស្រាវ​ជ្រាវ ​និង​គ្រប់​គ្រង​ ​ដែល​យើង​ធ្វើ​តេស្ត​ទៅ​លើ​សារធាតុ​​ដី​​​និង​ជាតិ​ពុល​នៅ​ក្នុង​ដី​។ ​ប្រសិន​បើ​មាន​ភាព​មិន​ប្រក្រដី ​ពួក​គេ​នឹង​រាយការណ៍​ ​ហើយ​យើង​នឹង​ចាត់​ការ​ទៅ​លើ​បញ្ហា​នោះ​»។
លោក សុង សារ៉ន អគ្គនាយក​ក្រុមហ៊ុន​ AMRU ​Rice ​បាន​ថ្លែង​ថា ​​ខណៈ​លោក​ទទួល​ស្គាល់​​ថា សារធាតុ​អាសេនិក​​គឺ​ជា​ក្តី​បារម្ភ​ចម្បង​ ​លោក​ទទូច​ថា ​មិនមាន​បញ្ហា​ជាតិ​អាសេនិក​​នៅ​ក្នុង​អង្ករ​កម្ពុជា​ទេ។
លោក សារ៉ន ​ថ្លែង​ថា​៖ «​ខ្ញុំ​ធានា​អ្នក​ថា ​ក្នុង​ប្រទេស​កម្ពុជា យើង​ល្អ​​បើ​ប្រៀប​ធៀប​​ទៅ​នឹង​​តំបន់​»។
ទោះ​យ៉ាង​ណា​ក្តី ​លោក​អំពាវ​នាវ​ឲ្យ​រដ្ឋា​ភិបាល​​​ប្រុង​ប្រយ័ត្ន​ចំពោះ​បញ្ហា​នេះ។
លោក​បាន​បន្ត​ថា​៖ «​​វា​នៅ​ក្នុង​ខ្យល់​អាកាស​ ​នៅ​ក្នុង​ដី នៅ​ក្នុង​ទឹក។ ​ដូច្នេះ ជា​ធម្មតា វា​ពិបាក​សម្រាប់​កសិករ​​ការ​ពារ​មិន​ឲ្យ​មាន​​​​កម្រិត​អាសេនិក​​នៅ​ក្នុង​ ​អង្ក។ ​ប៉ុន្តែ​យើង​​ត្រូវ​​ការ​ប្រើ​ដី​ដែល​ត្រូវ​បាន​ពិនិត្យ​​មើល​សារធាតុ​នេះ​ »។ «​​រដ្ឋា​ភិបាល​គួរ​តែ​ពិនិត្យ​រាល់​ផលិត​កម្ម​ស្រូវ​ទាំង​អស់​ ​ហើយ​ប្រសិន​បើមាន​កម្រិត​ខ្ពស់​ណា​មួយ​ ​​រដ្ឋា​ភិបាល​គួរ​តែ​​ព្រមាន​ទៅ​កសិករ​​ជា​មុន»៕

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History of the Scholarship

by Colette Gunn-Graffy

In his 1877 “Confession of Faith,” the 23-year-old Cecil Rhodes proclaimed that, the “chief good in life” was “to render myself useful to my country” (Flint 1877, 248). At the time, he envisioned himself posthumously creating a secret society dedicated to the expansion of the British Empire; however, in Rhodes’ last will, written nearly a quarter of a century later, this vision had been refined to the provision of education for “young Colonists at one of the Universities in the United Kingdom” in order to “[give] breadth to their views for their instruction in life and manners and [to instill] into their minds, the advantage to the Colonies as well as to the United Kingdom of the retention of the unity of the Empire” (quoted in Kenny 2001). That this education should take place at Oxford University was no surprise.  Rhodes was fascinated by the prevalence and prestige of Oxford graduates in British public life.  An Oxford man himself, he believed the university’s residential college system played a vital role in the personal and social development of the student.  Rhodes believed it essential the Scholarship be given to those who would “esteem the performance of public duties [their] highest aim” as opposed to mere bookworms.

At his death in 1902, Rhodes had provided for 52 Scholarships per year: 20 to be allotted to countries that were (then) part of the British Empire and 32 to the United States (two every three years for each then existing State). In a codicil to his will, Rhodes allotted an additional five Scholarships to Germany, it being his belief that “an understanding between the three great powers [would] render war impossible and educational relations make the strongest tie” (Kenny 2001, 5).  The terms of the will called for an award of £300 per year to be awarded to Scholars for three consecutive years of study at Oxford.  In 1903, the first twelve Scholars from Germany, Rhodesia and South Africa arrived at Oxford.  The following year, all constituencies were represented.

Much discretion was left to the Scholarship trustees as to how the selection of Scholars should be regulated, and whether new Scholarships could be created.  Since 1904, the list of Scholarship jurisdictions has grown to include India, Pakistan, Kenya, Hong Kong, Bermuda and the Commonwealth Caribbean.  The Scholarships originally granted to the former country of Rhodesia have been reallocated to present-day Zambia and Zimbabwe.  The Scholarship was opened to women in 1977.  Scholars are now able to pursue graduate degrees.  The typical term time for a scholar is two years, although, depending on the degree program chosen, the Scholarship may also be held for one or three years.  The Rhodes Trust pays the entirety of each scholar’s educational and travel costs, as well as a maintenance allowance to support the scholar both during term time and over vacations. 

For Information : 

http://rhodesproject.com/history-of-the-scholarship/

 

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Over the past 40 years, fewer English majors but more journalism majors

By Catherine Rampell

College is still generally a good investment, when you compare the job prospects of those with and without bachelor’s degrees. But if college students really want to maximize their earnings, they might make some different choices about what they study.
Here’s a comparison of the distribution of bachelor’s degrees awarded in 1970-71 (the earliest year for which data are available) and 2011-12:

Source: National Center for Education Statistics.

You’ll notice some big shifts in undergraduates’ choices of majors over time, and the shifts don’t always reflect where the jobs are.
Among the disciplines that have lost share in total degrees awarded: education (21% of degrees awarded in 1970-71, 5.9% in 2011-12); English (7.6% vs. 3%); social studies and history (18.5% vs. 10%); math and statistics (3% vs. 1%); physical sciences and science technologies (2.5% to 1.5%); and foreign languages, literatures and linguistics (2.5% to 1.2%).
My hunch is that the decline in education degrees, in both raw numbers and as a share of all degrees, reflects both changing career opportunities for women, as well as perhaps changes to teacher licensing requirements. (Readers, do you know?) I don’t know how to explain some of the others. Mathematical science occupations are projected to grow rapidly in the next 10 years, yet the country is graduating fewer math majors today than it did in 1971 — in raw numbers, not just percentage of all degrees. Four decades ago, 25,000 bachelor’s degrees went to people who studied math and statistics; today the number is just 19,000, even though college enrollment overall has grown.
The majors that have gained the most share: business (13.7% in 1970-71 vs. 20% in 2011-12); health professions and related programs (3% vs. 9.1%); and communication, journalism, and related programs (1.2% vs. 4.7%).
Isn’t that kind of crazy? That means almost one in 20 bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2011-12 was in communications/journalism. Why, I have no idea. Probably not because of the hot job prospects.

The share of degrees awarded in computer and information sciences has grown since 1970-71, but remember there were almost no computer majors back then. If you just look at what’s happened so far this millennium, both the share and raw number of BA’s going to computer and information sciences has fallen on net, though it’s crept up slightly in the years since the recession.

 From : washingtonpost

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27 myths about the developing world

I have a pretty embarrassing confession to make: I used to believe a lot of these myths.
Much of my initial experience with the developing world came from TV commercials of Westerners asking people to sponsor a child. It's an all too common story for people in my generation. The kids in these ads were always African and always portrayed to be barefoot and helpless. While there's no doubt that the NGO's who crafted these images had good intentions, this picture does not come close to telling the whole story. We're determined to change that.
Below are 27 myths about the developing world. Are there any that surprised you? Let us know in the comments.

 1.) There is an agreed upon way to decide what is a developing country 

Flickr: Sudhamshu Hebbar

There is no agreed upon metric for deciding which countries are considered "developing". The standard of living for a given country can be calculated a dozen different ways with different factors. There is even debate as to whether the term should still be used because it assumes a desire for Western style economic development.



 2.) When people say "developing world" or "third world" they mean Africa. 

Wikipedia Commons

Yes, there are many developing nations in Africa. And yes, most of the myths on this list apply to how people think of Africa. There are developing countries in North America, South America, Asia and Europe. And Africa isn't a monolith of poverty. This myth feeds into a lot of misconceptions about Africa like...





3.) Africa is a country.

Flickr: US Army Africa
It's not as though people don't know that Africa is a continent not a country. The problem is that people make sweeping generalizations about Africa. Whereas most people in the Global North have a clear idea about the differences between Germany and Italy, African nations often get painted with the same brush. In fact there are 54 different African nations all with different cultures, ethnicities, and economic statuses.

4.) Poor countries are just short of natural resources.  

Wikimedia: Alexandra Pugachevsky
This is one of the most damaging myths because it makes people believe that there isn't much that can be done to help. But it's simply not true. For example, about 400 billion dollars worth of resources leave the continent of Africa every year. There are a lot of reasons why developing nations can have a lot of poverty, but a lack of natural resources is rarely a big factor. This myth also leads people to conclude that...

5.) Developing nations don't have their own cultures or histories (because they have always been 
 poor).  

Wikimedia: Cordanrad

This one will probably seem obvious but there is a misconception that developing nations have no culture or history because they've always been poor and cut off from the rest of the world. Aside from the racist assumptions about poverty in tribal civilizations, this myth ignores the rich and powerful cities, kingdoms and empires that have existed in areas that are now impoverished. Look into the Malian Empire or the Mughal Empire if you don't believe me.

6.) The people in developing nations are all poor.

Flickr: Christophe

There are clearly poor people in developing nations. But there are also poor in developed countries. Worse, the belief that a developing nation is entirely populated by poor people erases the many success stories of the rising global middle class people. Only focusing on those in desperate poverty makes for ineffective policies and leads to false assumptions about how people live in other countries.


For the 21 more http://www.globalcitizen.org/Content/Content.aspx?id=2925b243-a89c-48a4-ae86-8e2f84a3b92f

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Why You Hate Work

By TONY SCHWARTZ and CHRISTINE PORATHMAY 30, 2014

THE way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep.

Increasingly, this experience is common not just to middle managers, but also to top executives.

Our company, The Energy Project, works with organizations and their leaders to improve employee engagement and more sustainable performance. A little over a year ago, Luke Kissam, the chief executive of Albemarle, a multibillion-dollar chemical company, sought out one of us, Tony, as a coach to help him deal with the sense that his life was increasingly overwhelming. “I just felt that no matter what I was doing, I was always getting pulled somewhere else,” he explained. “It seemed like I was always cheating someone — my company, my family, myself. I couldn’t truly focus on anything.”

Mr. Kissam is not alone. Srinivasan S. Pillay, a psychiatrist and an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School who studies burnout, recently surveyed a random sample of 72 senior leaders and found that nearly all of them reported at least some signs of burnout and that all of them noted at least one cause of burnout at work.

More broadly, just 30 percent of employees in America feel engaged at work, according to a 2013 report by Gallup. Around the world, across 142 countries, the proportion of employees who feel engaged at work is just 13 percent. For most of us, in short, work is a depleting, dispiriting experience, and in some obvious ways, it’s getting worse.

Demand for our time is increasingly exceeding our capacity — draining us of the energy we need to bring our skill and talent fully to life. Increased competitiveness and a leaner, post-recession work force add to the pressures. The rise of digital technology is perhaps the biggest influence, exposing us to an unprecedented flood of information and requests that we feel compelled to read and respond to at all hours of the day and night.

Curious to understand what most influences people’s engagement and productivity at work, we partnered with the Harvard Business Review last fall to conduct a survey of more than 12,000 mostly white-collar employees across a broad range of companies and industries. We also gave the survey to employees at two of The Energy Project’s clients — one a manufacturing company with 6,000 employees, the other a financial services company with 2,500 employees. The results were remarkably similar across all three populations.

Employees are vastly more satisfied and productive, it turns out, when four of their core needs are met: physical, through opportunities to regularly renew and recharge at work; emotional, by feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions; mental, when they have the opportunity to focus in an absorbed way on their most important tasks and define when and where they get their work done; and spiritual, by doing more of what they do best and enjoy most, and by feeling connected to a higher purpose at work.

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THE more effectively leaders and organizations support employees in meeting these core needs, the more likely the employees are to experience engagement, loyalty, job satisfaction and positive energy at work, and the lower their perceived levels of stress. When employees have one need met, compared with none, all of their performance variables improve. The more needs met, the more positive the impact.

Engagement — variously defined as “involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort and energy” — has now been widely correlated with higher corporate performance. In a 2012 meta-analysis of 263 research studies across 192 companies, Gallup found that companies in the top quartile for engaged employees, compared with the bottom quartile, had 22 percent higher profitability, 10 percent higher customer ratings, 28 percent less theft and 48 percent fewer safety incidents.

A 2012 global work force study of 32,000 employees by the consulting company Towers Watson found that the traditional definition of engagement — the willingness of employees to voluntarily expend extra effort — is no longer sufficient to fuel the highest levels of performance. Willing, it turns out, does not guarantee able. Companies in the Towers Watson study with high engagement scores measured in the traditional way had an operating margin of 14 percent. By contrast, companies with the highest number of “sustainably engaged” employees had an operating margin of 27 percent, nearly three times those with the lowest traditional engagement scores.

Put simply, the way people feel at work profoundly influences how they perform. What our study revealed is just how much impact companies can have when they meet each of the four core needs of their employees.

Renewal: Employees who take a break every 90 minutes report a 30 percent higher level of focus than those who take no breaks or just one during the day. They also report a nearly 50 percent greater capacity to think creatively and a 46 percent higher level of health and well-being. The more hours people work beyond 40 — and the more continuously they work — the worse they feel, and the less engaged they become. By contrast, feeling encouraged by one’s supervisor to take breaks increases by nearly 100 percent people’s likelihood to stay with any given company, and also doubles their sense of health and well-being.

Value: Feeling cared for by one’s supervisor has a more significant impact on people’s sense of trust and safety than any other behavior by a leader. Employees who say they have more supportive supervisors are 1.3 times as likely to stay with the organization and are 67 percent more engaged.

Focus: Only 20 percent of respondents said they were able to focus on one task at a time at work, but those who could were 50 percent more engaged. Similarly, only one-third of respondents said they were able to effectively prioritize their tasks, but those who did were 1.6 times better able to focus on one thing at a time.

Purpose: Employees who derive meaning and significance from their work were more than three times as likely to stay with their organizations — the highest single impact of any variable in our survey. These employees also reported 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and they were 1.4 times more engaged at work.

We often ask senior leaders a simple question: If your employees feel more energized, valued, focused and purposeful, do they perform better? Not surprisingly, the answer is almost always “Yes.” Next we ask, “So how much do you invest in meeting those needs?” An uncomfortable silence typically ensues.

How to explain this odd disconnect?

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The most obvious answer is that systematically investing in employees, beyond paying them a salary, didn’t seem necessary until recently. So long as employees were able to meet work demands, employers were under no pressure to address their more complex needs. Increasingly, however, employers are recognizing that the relentless stress of increased demand — caused in large part by digital technology — simply must be addressed.

Still, the forces of habit and inertia remain powerful obstacles to better meeting employee needs. Several years ago, we did a pilot program with 150 accountants in the middle of their firm’s busy tax season. Historically, employees work extremely long hours during these demanding periods, and are measured and evaluated based on how many hours they put in.

Recognizing the value of intermittent rest, we persuaded this firm to allow one group of accountants to work in a different way — alternating highly focused and uninterrupted 90-minute periods of work with 10-to-15-minute breaks in between, and a full one-hour break in the late afternoon, when our tendency to fall into a slump is higher. Our pilot group of employees was also permitted to leave as soon as they had accomplished a designated amount of work.

With higher focus, these employees ended up getting more work done in less time, left work earlier in the evenings than the rest of their colleagues, and reported a much less stressful overall experience during the busy season. Their turnover rate was far lower than that of employees in the rest of the firm. Senior leaders were aware of the results, but the firm didn’t ultimately change any of its practices. “We just don’t know any other way to measure them, except by their hours,” one leader told us. Recently, we got a call from the same firm. “Could you come back?” one of the partners asked. “Our people are still getting burned out during tax season.”

In his landmark Degeneration (1892), Max Nordau laid the blame for the exponential growth of mental disorders on the unnaturally accelerated...

Partly, the challenge for employers is trust. For example, our study found that employees have a deep desire for flexibility about where and when they work — and far higher engagement when they have more choice. But many employers remain fearful that their employees won’t accomplish their work without constant oversight — a belief that ironically feeds the distrust of their employees, and diminishes their engagement.

A truly human-centered organization puts its people first — even above customers — because it recognizes that they are the key to creating long-term value. Costco, for example, pays its average worker $20.89 an hour, Businessweek reported last year, about 65 percent more than Walmart, which owns its biggest competitor, Sam’s Club. Over time, Costco’s huge investment in employees — including offering benefits to part-time workers — has proved to be a distinct advantage.

Costco’s employees generate nearly twice the sales of Sam’s Club employees. Costco has about 5 percent turnover among employees who stay at least a year, and the overall rate is far lower than that of Walmart. In turn, the reduced costs of recruiting and training new employees saves Costco several hundred million dollars a year. Between 2003 and 2013, Costco’s stock rose more than 200 percent, compared with about 50 percent for Walmart’s. What will prompt more companies to invest more in their employees?

Pain is one powerful motivator. Often companies seek out our services when they’ve begun losing valued employees, or a C.E.O. recognizes his own exhaustion, or a young, rising executive suddenly drops dead of a heart attack — a story we’ve been told more than a half dozen times in just the past six months.

In a numbers-driven world, the most compelling argument for change is the growing evidence that meeting the needs of employees fuels their productivity, loyalty and performance. Our own experience is that more and more companies are taking up this challenge — most commonly addressing employees’ physical needs first, through wellness and well-being programs. Far less common is a broader shift in the corporate mind-set from trying to get more out of employees to investing more in meeting their needs, so they’re both capable of and motivated to perform better and more sustainably.

THE simplest way for companies to take on this challenge is to begin with a basic question: “What would make our employees feel more energized, better taken care of, more focused and more inspired?” It costs nothing, for example, to mandate that meetings run no longer than 90 minutes, or to set boundaries around when people are expected to answer email and how quickly they’re expected to respond. Other basic steps we’ve seen client companies take is to create fitness facilities and nap rooms, and to provide healthy, high-quality food free, or at subsidized prices, as many Silicon Valley companies now do.

It also makes a big difference to explicitly reward leaders and managers who exhibit empathy, care and humility, and to hold them accountable for relying on anger or other demeaning emotions that may drive short-term results but also create a toxic climate of fear over time — with enormous costs. Also, as our study makes clear, employees are far more engaged when their work gives them an opportunity to make a positive difference in the world.

The energy of leaders is, for better or worse, contagious. When leaders explicitly encourage employees to work in more sustainable ways — and especially when they themselves model a sustainable way of working — their employees are 55 percent more engaged, 53 percent more focused, and more likely to stay at the company, our research with the Harvard Business Review found.

Mr. Kissam, the Albemarle chief executive Tony first met more than a year ago, has taken up the challenge for himself and his employees. He began by building breaks into his days — taking a walk around the block — and being more fully focused and present during time with his family. He now sets aside at least one morning on his calendar every week for reflection and thinking longer term. He has also made it a practice to send out handwritten notes of appreciation to people inside and outside the company.

Mr. Kissam has also championed a comprehensive rethinking of his organization’s practices around meetings, email, flexible work arrangements, conflict resolution and recognition. By the end of 2014 more than 1,000 of his leaders and managers will have gone through a program aimed at helping them more skillfully meet their own needs, and the needs of those they oversee.

“I can already see it’s working,” Mr. Kissam told us. “Our safety record has improved significantly this year, because our people are more focused. We’re trusting them to do their jobs rather than telling them what to do, and then we’re appreciating them for their efforts. We’re also on the right path financially. A year from now it’s going to show up in our profitability. I saw what happened when I invested more in myself, and now we’re seeing what happens when we invest in our employees.”

Tony Schwartz is the chief executive of The Energy Project, a consulting firm. Christine Porath is an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a consultant to The Energy Project.

For more : Go to New York Time 

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If I Were 22: You Want to Change the World, Do You? Then Unlearn These 3 Things Now

post by Elliot S. WeissbluthInfluencer

This post is part of a series in which Influencers share lessons from their youth. Read all the stories here.
If you’re 22 today, you’re likely more concerned about making the world a better place than I was at your age. According to every recent poll, study and interview I’ve seen, today’s 22-year-olds just care more than those of us who grew up on John Hughes films and the boom boom “greed is good” ’80s.
While I may not have started my professional life with the audacity to change the world, I am one of the fortunate few who is actually doing it. And what we’re finding today is that Millennials want to work for organizations that support and drive innovation, because to them it’s a natural means to drive positive change. And they’re not wrong.
“Innovation” is a buzzword now like “culture.” I remember seeing a cartoon where a CEO instructs his HR director, “Yeah, culture, we need some of that.”
Plenty of businesses talk a good game, but don’t really understand innovation.
So, if you want to be an innovator, challenge your assumptions about what “innovation” really means. Here are three lessons you need to unlearn:
Unlearn Lesson #1: Innovation results from major shifts in thinking.
Uh, no.
Actually, innovations tend to be very modest, and often not very sexy changes. But, boy, are they powerful.
Consider four-time Iditarod winner Susan Butcher. Susan was a champion dogsled racer and the second woman in history to win the Iditarod. She won not because she reinvented the wheel (or in this case, the sled) but because she did a few things differently—and they were the right things.
Susan reexamined her relationship with the race itself. Instead of following the traditional pattern of running her dogsled team for twelve hours, then resting for twelve hours, she shortened the interval. Her dogs ran in four-to-six hour spurts, then rested for the same length of time. It was a small change that yielded a tremendous impact on performance. Her approach forced her competitors to adapt—and permanently changed the sport.
Unlearn Lesson #2: Innovation is driven by thinkers, not doers.
I love the charlatan CEOs who say, “I’m a visionary CEO. I do all the big picture thinking.” That’s complete crap. Real innovators are actually tinkerers. They like to build.
I grew up on tinker toys and LEGOs and to this day, if I find myself at a dinner party and my hosts’ kids have a LEGO set, you’ll find me on the floor working on a lunar landing pad rather than cocktailing.
Getting an MBA is the death sentence for tinkering. Nothing drives out the pleasure of experiment like a business degree, and the better the school, the worse the impact.
Back when members of the class of 2014 were still a couple of years away from getting their drivers’ licenses, Peter Skillman, a Vice President of design for Palm, gave a TED talk on an exercise he developed that today is known simply as “The Marshmallow Challenge.”
Skillman tasked teams of four with constructing the tallest tower they could out of 20 uncooked spaghetti noodles, a meter of tape, a piece of string and a marshmallow (the marshmallow had to go at the top). They had 18 minutes.
In a follow-up TED talk, Autodesk fellow Tom Wujec shared which participants do well and who does poorly at the challenge.
Perhaps not surprisingly, recent business school grads do the worst on average. They spend the most time talking, strategizing, laying out a vision for the completed tower, jockeying for authority, planning and sketching their creation. They focus on getting the spaghetti to stand up, and then, as time runs out, they plop the marshmallow on top and hope for the best. All too often, the whole structure collapses.
Who does well? Kindergarten students. They aren’t interested in being “right” or “in charge;” they just get down to it. And unlike the business school grads, they start with the marshmallow and build underneath it. Their structures may collapse, but they gain instant, ongoing feedback, while having enough time to improve their results.
Unlike the MBD students who focus on a linear plan with lots of "strategery", the Kindergarten students start with the end - get the Marshmallow on top - and work backward.
Innovation happens when you try something, fail, learn from it and try again. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go to business school; I’m saying that if you want to solve a problem, or innovate, stop talking about it, roll up your sleeves and do the work.
Unlearn Lesson #3: Mire yourself in expertise.
Ignorance is not the enemy of innovation: complacency is. Failing to recognize and adapt to change is tantamount to a death sentence, whether you’re a frog in a gradually warming pot of water or a business in the modern era.
The best ideas—true innovations— come from people working around the edges of their expertise. They know enough to be informed but not enough to be constrained by the “old way” of doing things.
I've named this approach the “Smart Stranger,” where fresh perspectives provoke new ideas.

Delta just introduced “innovation class,” an exclusive program that seats “big thinkers and innovators” together on flights to encourage mentorship in industries like entertainment, fashion, financial services, sports and advertising. The airline says it aims to “bring the ones succeeding in their field together with people who aspire to follow them."
But, if they really want to encourage innovation, they would be better off pairing up seatmates in different fields who have little in common. Otherwise, it’s just networking at 35,000 feet.
Millennials, your inexperience is your most valuable assets.
Your skepticism will guide you to better answers.
And the fact that you are the first generation in many to enter a workforce and economy that is not handing you success on a silver platter gives you the motivation not just to survive, but to excel.
Congratulations – now get to work and change the world.
Elliot S. Weissbluth is the Chief Executive Officer of HighTower,an industry leading financial services firm. Today marks the beginning of the firm’s 3-day innovation conference, HighTower Apex: Foothold to the Future, in Chicago. For more information and to see highlights of the event, visit http://www.hightowerapex.com/
Photo: Author as a lifeguard at 22.

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6 Books That Will Change The Way You Think For The Better Read more

Reading is important to me. Not only is it one way to fill in the gaps left by my formal eduction but it is a meaningful way to better myself.
Reading alone, however, isn’t enough. What you read and how you apply it matters. In the past year, I started reading over 300 books and finished 161 of them.
Reading what everyone else reads is good for conversation, perhaps, but it’s not going to help you to think differently. And if you can’t think differently, you’re always going to be a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

With that in mind, here are 5 books that you’ve (probably) never heard of that will help you see things in a new light.

1. "Collected Maxims and Other Reflections" by La Rochefoucauld

Deceptively brief and easy to read, La Rochefoucauld’s unflattering analysis of human behavior will stay with you for a lifetime. His maxims and reflections influenced people like Nietzsche, Voltaire, Proust, de Gaulle, and Conan Doyle. “The reader’s best policy,” Rochefoucauld suggests, “is to assume that none of these maxims is directed at him, and that he is the sole exception. …. After that, I guarantee that he will be the first to subscribe to them.”

2. "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene

I’ve never read this book in a cover-to-cover sense but I’ve read each of the laws. More than that, I’ve broken each of the laws. I’ll give you an example. The first law is “Never outshine the master.” Once I worked directly for a CEO. I worked as hard as I ever have to show off my talents and skills and at every turn it backfired over and over again. The lesson — “make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.” I wish I read this book earlier in my career, it certainly would have been helpful.

3. "Xenophon’s Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War" by Xenophon

This book sat on my shelf for a year before I picked it up recently. This is the biography of Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, who made the oldest known declaration of human rights. The book is full of leadership lessons. Here’s an example. “Brevity is the soul of command. Too much talking suggests desperation on the part of the leader. Speak shortly, decisively and to the point–and couch your desires in such natural logic that no one can raise objections. Then move on.”

4. "Letters From a Self-Made Merchant to His Son" by George Horace Lorimer

This no nonsense collection of 20 letters from a self-made man to his son are nothing short of brilliant as far as I’m concerned. This is a great example of timeless wisdom. The broad theme is how to raise your children in a world where they have plenty but the lessons apply to parents and non-parents alike.

5. "Models of My Life" by Herbert Simon

An autobiography of Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon, a remarkable polymath who more people should know about. In an age of increasing specializing, he’s a rare generalist — applying what he learned as a scientist to other aspects of his life. Crossing disciplines, he was at the intersection of “information sciences.” He won the Nobel for his theory of “bounded rationality,” and is perhaps best known for his insightful quote “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
And one more… just for good luck.

6. "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius

Ok, this is a bonus pick as I figured a many of you might have read this already. It was, after all, on the 2013 Farnam Street reader’s choice list. If you bought it and haven’t read it, consider this a nudge. The best way to sum up this book is: A simple and powerful guide to life. This book was never intended for publication it was for himself. How many people write a book of epigrams to themselves? Get it. Read it. Live it.

Read more: http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2014/04/5-books-that-will-change-your-life/#ixzz30SnQL1lO

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