Managing to your employees strengths!

Managing to your employees strengths has a profound effect on employee self-efficacy and workplace productivity. As employees improve their skills and find confidence in their work they often begin to take charge of their own performance.

You will also notice an amazing impact on productivity when you assign tasks and responsibilities to people that have the skills to complete them. Hundreds of aligned tasks each day to the "right people" means less mistakes and saved time.

The key to doing this well is to avoid the natural urge to focus on the negative or deficiencies in skill. Your employees will appreciate that you appreciate their abilities. You have the added benefit of an empowering environment​ that not only develops employee skills but also requires less micromanagement.

Self-efficacy and confidence comes from mastering new skills. Each time an employee uses their strengths to complete a task they feel empowered and more confident in their ability to take on new tasks.

Confidence has a lot to do with motivation and their desire to engage in new work responsibilities. Less foot dragging and passive aggressive behavior occurs when they think positively about their ability to reach goals through task mastery.

Teaching Ethics through Novels and Narrative

Business ethics can be tough to teach as many of the ideas don't translate into something the student can remember and relate with. Much of ethics is based on how we feel about ourselves, our values, and the way in which we live and exist in society. According to an article in the Academy of Management Learning and Education, using narrative helps students to remember ethical values when they analyze and discuss those ideas on a deeper level (Michaelson, 2016).

Learning comes from discussion and gaining new insight and understanding. In courses we often just brush over ethical concerns and this leads to an "easy forget" mentality once the class is over. However, by reading ethical novels and having a deeper analysis we are able to help students remember what they learn.

It is important to understand that values are often created through our memories. To help students create memories it is necessary to engage their brains as much as we can. The more they engage their brains, the more memories they create and the more memories they create, the greater the recall.

What is the advantage of this? When students are faced with an ethical challenge in their lives they often fall back on the values they created through their memories. If a story has been embedded deep enough they can look for the answers on how they are supposed to act and what leads to doing the "right thing". Incorporating novels, narratives, and longer discussions through deeper analysis thoroughly embeds these ideas for later use.

Michaelson, C. (2016). A novel approach to business ethics education: exploring how to live and work in the 21st Century. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 15 (3).



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Staying Focused on Simple Goals

The key to eloquence is simplicity. Whether your goals are personal or professional, success comes from simplicity. Having a few goals and focusing on them each day makes a big difference in whether you are able to achieve them.

We may have lots of things to  accomplish but only have limited time. With this in mind, we have to keep our goals succinct and to the point. We don't have the resources to accomplish everything so we should try and put our energies into things that have the highest returns.

Let's say you have many goals but can't seem to squeeze in enough effort to get them all done. It is much better to put your energy into a few than waste energy on many. For example, my goals might be career, business, health, and social.

No doubt these are a lot but the hope is to create a well diversified life. In order for me to do these I will narrow them down and seek to combine them as much as possible. Business and social can go together in some activities and I should seek out these activities that shoot two birds with one stone.

Each day you engage in the activities that lead to greater achievement of these goals. Hit the gym in the morning, focus on exceeding expectations and raising awareness in your career, and connect with people at events a couple times a week.

The best advice I can give is get rid of all other distractions and streamline.

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How Hiring For Empathy Leads to Stronger Customer Service

Empathy is the ability to intuitive see and feel something from another person's perspective. This natural gift allows us to be aware of our surroundings and emotions of another person. When empathy allows us to understand our customers we have a better chance of serving their needs and retaining them as a valued patron of our organizations.

When customers are upset it is because they feel their needs are not being met. Somewhere in their contact with the organization they were left feeling like an implied or overt process wasn't realized. They feel like they didn't receive the full benefit they paid for and if the feeling stays for long it becomes associated with the company itself.

When negative feelings arise due to a service interaction or defective product it is important to "make right" the situation as quickly as possible. This requires the intuitive and empathetic understanding of how the customer feels and what is going to alleviate those feelings.

An empathetic person reads faces better and picks up on cues better than those who are not empathetic. They understand and match the feelings of the customer and through their discussion of possible solutions know whether that resolves these feelings. They have a social brain that can be used to suggest solutions and resolutions in a way that keeps the customer calm.

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ICERI2017 (10th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation)

ICERI2017 (10th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation)
Seville, November 16th-18th, 2017
Website: http://iated.org/iceri

Deadline for abstracts submission is July, 13th, 2017 (included)
Abstracts submission is already open at http://iated.org/iceri/online_submission

OVERVIEW
You are invited to participate at ICERI2017. This conference will provide the ideal opportunity to present your projects and experiences to an international audience. Also, it will offer participants an overview of the current situation of education, research and new learning innovations.

After 10 years, ICERI has become an annual meeting point for lecturers, researchers, professors and technologists.
Every year, ICERI brings together over 700 delegates from 80 different countries.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
There will be 3 presentation formats: Oral, Poster or Virtual.
You can submit your abstracts proposals until July, 13th, 2017 (included)
Abstracts should be submitted on-line at http://iated.org/iceri/online_submission

PUBLICATIONS
- ICERI2017 Proceedings will be submitted for their inclusion in the ISI CPCI(Web of Science). Previous editions are already indexed.
- A DOI number will be assigned to each accepted paper.
- All accepted contributions will be indexed in the IATED Digital Library to form part of our database of innovative projects in Education and Technology.

TOP 5 REASONS TO ATTEND ICERI2017
- Present your paper in one of the largest international conferences on education
- Publish your paper in ICERI2017 Proceedings
- Interact with international educators and technologist for future cooperation
- Meet 700 participants from more than 80 countries
- Learn about education innovations and strategies in 70+ thematic sessions

VENUE
Seville is certainly one of the most beloved places by visitors to Spain. It is the home of Andalucian tradition, flamenco and bullfighting. It is universally famous for being a joyous town, with narrow and medieval streets, romantic hidden plazas and heritage of art and architecture (Roman, Islamic, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque).

Also, it is the perfect city to enjoy. Take yourself time to visit this historical monuments, enjoy its tasty traditional tapas or just relax at a Flamenco bar. From Madrid, you can take a high-speed train that will bring you to the centre of the city in less than two and a half hours.

Do not miss the opportunity to come to this 10th anniversary of ICERI. We look forward to welcoming you!

Enquiries: iceri2017@iated.org
Website: http://iated.org/iceri

Tips for Small Business Start Ups

Individual Rights and Government Influence Help to Start Economic Clusters

Government administrators often wonder how to foster business within their cities and improve overall economic development. The debate between more or less government influence has been raging since the beginning of the country. A study of socio-economic clusters in the Applied Economics Letters helps us understand the government influence in the beginning of cluster development is helpful while it may not be as helpful later on (Huskinson & Lawson, 2014).

Capitalistic societies desire to have a "hands off" approach to government while socialist societies want more government influence. Using K-means clustering helps us identify that the free market capitalistic system along with social policies can help get clusters going. At least in the short run, social-democratic systems outperform liberal systems. The reasons might be based in the need to set the "right" conditions for economic growth.

They used a K-means cluster analysis to determine their results. The method is to take observations (data points) and then associate them to the nearest cluster mean. Each new piece of data is added to the closest cluster and helps recalculate the mean. The method can be done by hand but often uses statistical software.

They used an EFW index, with data for five areas:
(1) size of government,
(2) legal system and property rights,
(3) sound money,
(4) freedom to trade internationally and
(5) regulation.

What they found was that the most free nations earned higher incomes, had larger GDP, and life expectencies. However, social based nations had higher civil rights and civil liberties. The essential mix seemed to focus on how those nations where government protects individual rights and the freedoms of individuals had higher cluster development.

This would make sense if we consider a cluster a mini-economy. One doesn't need to adapt a socialist system but simply protect individual rights within the cluster and ensure the right elements are available when a cluster begins. As clusters are innovative by nature it is beneficial to protect and allow for maximum freedoms for individuals to be entrepreneurial within the system.

Thus the study found that the free market system along with protections of individual rights have a significant impact on cluster growth. It doesn't elaborate on why. However, one could put forward the idea that setting the right elements in place based on taxes, development zones, recruiting businesses, etc.. require a collaborative effort to get clusters going in the beginning but may not be as important later on as the cluster businesses find "footing" and their own efficiency. Still, protecting individual rights continues to allow for the maximum freedom of individuals to maintain their entrepreneurial activities.

Huskinson, T. & Lawson, R. (2014). Clusters of Economic Freedom. Applied Economics Letters, 21 (13-15).