" Need for cognition " makes people highly charged and innovative

Do You Have a "Need for Cognition"?

When time pressure eases, employees often lose their driving force for innovation – but that's not the case for individuals high in what's known as the need for cognition, which is essentially a dispositional tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking, says a team led by Chia-Huei Wu of the University of Western Australia. In a study of 179 employees working in a Dutch research and consultancy organization, the researchers found that a need for cognition is associated with innovation behaviors, most notably when there’s an absence of other innovation drivers such as time pressure and high job autonomy. People with a need for cognition tend to feel positively about novelty, complexity, and uncertainty; are better able to engage in information processing; and develop higher confidence in their ideas, the researchers say.

Get Buy-In for Your New Idea

Get Buy-In for Your New Idea

When introducing a new idea to a potentially resistant audience, you need to invest as much energy in what you say and how you say it as you did in coming up with the idea itself. There are a few ways to increase the likelihood that your idea will get a fair hearing. Start by connecting the idea to the existing strategy and making analogies to current products, services, or processes. Building on what people already understand will make your idea more relatable. And discuss how your idea meets the needs of a key stakeholder. Sometimes you need to borrow someone else’s clout to give your idea the extra oomph it needs to get over the threshold.

Self-Made Billionaires Are More Charitable than Those Who Inherit Billions

Self-Made Billionaires Are More Charitable than Those Who Inherit Billions

Research Fact : 

Compared to billionaires who have inherited their wealth, billionaires who have made their own wealth are three to four times more likely to sign the Giving Pledge (a global public pledge to give away at least half of one’s fortune during one’s lifetime) and to enter the Philanthropy Top 50 list of biggest pledges. 

 Self-made billionaires are also 28% more likely to be on the Million Dollar List (those who have given grants of $1 million or more since 2000) and to give more.

Courtesy : a study by Tom Coupe at Kyiv School of Economics and Claire Monteiro at Georgetown University.

Keep Everyone on Task After Your Next Meeting

Keep Everyone on Task After Your Next Meeting

To make sure productivity doesn’t slow down after you walk out of a meeting, send out clear and concise meeting notes within 24 hours and follow up on the commitments made. These notes should state each topic you discussed, the key takeaways, and a list of specific actions along with who will do them and when. Use the notes to keep everyone on track until you meet again. Assign someone to check in with the group at appropriate intervals to ensure that the commitments are all being kept as promised or reevaluated if something unexpected comes up.

Broadband Internet Helps Some Workers but Hurts Others

Broadband Internet Helps Some Workers but Hurts Others

Broadband internet access improves the labor market outcomes and productivity of skilled workers but worsens that of unskilled workers, according to a study by Anders Akerman at Stockholm University and Ingvil Gaarder and Magne Mogstad at the University of Chicago. Analyzing several Norwegian data sets, they found that a 10-percentage-point increase in broadband availability in a municipality raises wages of skilled workers in that market by about 0.2%; by comparison, it leads to a decline in wages of low-skilled individuals but has no significant change on their employment rate. The evidence suggests that broadband adoption in firms both complements skilled workers in executing nonroutine abstract tasks and substitutes for unskilled workers in performing routine tasks, say the researchers.

Paradigm shift in scientific research

Paradigm shift ( I think Joel Barker would be gladly nodding in agreement at this research) 

'Do Star Scientists Impede New Ideas?'
Researched Fact : 
After a star scientist dies, their COLLABORATORS publish FEWER articles in the star’s field. 
However, articles by non-collaborators INCREASE  by 8% on average.  
These additional contributions are disproportionately likely to be HIGHLY cited, and they are also more likely to be authored by scientists who were NOT previously active in the deceased star’s field ! 

Reason ? 
The results suggest that outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive.

Turnover in leadership enables the injection of fresh ideas into the field — but only when THOSE WITHIN are willing to support and accept new ideas ( but usually, they don't ! People within the sytem has a vested interest in the Status Quo ; they built it. ) 

Courtesy : Research study led by Pierre Azoulay at MIT Sloan School of Management ; HBR 

How to Build relationship with your project manager abroad !

Build a Relationship with Your Virtual Boss

Working virtually requires taking a proactive approach for building a relationship with your boss. To develop trust, ensure clear communication, and establish accountability:

• Set rules for communication. People on virtual teams assume that connecting more often solves the problem of distance. But this usually leads to information overload. Instead, set an appropriate cadence of communications: Is it a daily call or a weekly call?
• Build interpersonal trust. Commonalities bind virtual teams together. Send an email to your boss sharing more about who you are. Have regular personal-professional check-ins at the start of meetings by spending 30 seconds or so sharing what’s going on personally and professionally in your life, including happy events and challenges.
• Go overboard to help your boss. Generosity accelerates emotional bonding and shows you care about your boss’s success.
• Agree to be candid. Don’t be conflict-avoidant – it’s one of the most destructive attributes of many company cultures.