All of us have experienced communication meltdowns. By the time you walked away from the conversation, you could have cut the tension with a knife. And your agenda didn’t play out the way you were hoping. You ended up carrying the conversation with you. It weighed heavily on your mind, adding more stress to your workload. For most people it can take a lot more time and effort to recover from a breakdown in communication than to avoid one in the first place.  Our review of research and company examples suggests there are three things you can do to avoid communication breakdowns like this.

https://hbr.org/2017/02/in-a-difficult-conversation-listen-more-than-you-talk

When we’re starting out on a new goal, we’re full of energy and enthusiasm. We eagerly make changes and take steps in our new direction in the first few weeks. But as time goes on, the newness wears off. Our energy drains, and we lose sight of our goal. Ultimately, we slide back into the status quo.

No matter how sophisticated your strategies to rid yourself of bad habits and create good ones, you’re less likely to succeed if you don’t track and review your progress frequently. Noting your improvements each day encourages you to keep going. And by identifying where you’re falling short, you’ll notice patterns and make adjustments, so you won’t feel stuck in habits that feel unnatural or aren’t producing real change.

https://hbr.org/2017/02/break-bad-habits-with-a-simple-checklist

Few topics have received more attention in talent management than motivation, defined as the deliberate attempt to influence employees’ behaviors with the goal of enhancing their performance, and in turn their organizational effectiveness. Indeed, other than talent, motivation is the key driver of job performance, for it determines the level of effort and persistence employees will exert. It is also clear that top performers tend to stand out as much for their motivation as for their talents.

However, while the science of motivation is robust and well-established, it is rarely applied to real-world management practices, which tend to be based on managers’ intuition and subjective experience. This is perhaps why Peter Drucker famously lamented that “we know nothing about motivation — all we can do is write books about it.”

https://hbr.org/2017/02/if-you-want-to-motivate-employees-stop-trusting-your-instincts

How many times have you been completely absorbed in your work, only to be ripped “out of the zone” by infuriating distractions? Then, when you try to get back to the task at hand, how long does it take you find the same level of focus?

Workplace distractions can have a heavy cost on your productivity, they can increase stress and pressure, and their sources seem to grow year by year. Smartphones, smartwatches, social media, and instant messaging are now common intrusions. They can be added to a list that includes phone calls, email, chatty colleagues, background noise, and, yes, our own lack of self-discipline and tendency to procrastinate.

So, other than quitting your job for a scientific outpost in Antarctica, what can you do to minimize distractions?

https://www.mindtools.com/blog/2017/02/01/top-tips-minimizing-distractions/

Curious about what leadership actually means? Me too. We all know leadership is critical to maximizing success, but what exactly is it?

To grasp how difficult it is to precisely define leadership, just consider the title of a recent article from Business News Daily: “33 Ways to Define Leadership.”

In this article, we’ll attempt to whittle down these definitions, distil the true meaning of “leadership,” and use it to answer the following questions:

Can I be a leader?

How?

And if not, what should I do?

https://www.mindtools.com/blog/2017/02/09/difficulties-defining-leadership/

Do you work hard to be successful, hoping that it will make you happy? Success = happiness, right? According to Emma Seppala, we’d be better off seeing it the other way around.

“I’ve worked in a lot of high-achieving environments, from Yale to Stanford, Silicon Valley, New York City, and I noticed too many people pursuing success at a cost to themselves,” she told me in our Expert Interview podcast.

“They were, in effect, postponing their own happiness now in pursuit of success, with the idea that, when they attained success, they would be happy… But, when I looked at the research, I saw that, overwhelmingly, happiness is actually the secret to success. If you prioritize your own wellbeing, you’ll actually be more productive, creative, resilient, energized, charismatic, and influential. You’ll have more willpower and be more focused, with less effort.”

https://www.mindtools.com/blog/2016/02/15/turn-off-the-negative-self-talk/