MOR Insight

Over the past few weeks, a number of articles about performance reviews and performance management have made it to my inbox.  Some of these are listed as references below.

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Life Balance, is an essay by Jenn Stringer, Associate CIO, Academic Engagement and Director of Educational Technology Services at the University of California Berkeley.  Jenn is also a recent MOR Leaders Program alumnus.  Her essay first appeared as a program reflection last winter.

The August 25, 2015 Tuesday Reading When Your Whisper Is Heard As A Shout

Today’s Tuesday Reading, The Balance of Planning and Spontaneity – What We Can Learn From Bilbo Baggins’s Journey Through Mirkwood, comes from the pen of David Kaplan – writer, software developer, and all around thinker of wacky thoughts.  It was published on medium.com in their Life Hack: Your Story, Experience, etc. blog which shares the life story and experience of a number of writers.

Adam Galinsky, a faculty member at the Columbia Business School, and author of the New York Times article “When You’re in Charge, Your Whisper May Feel Like a Shout,” recalls casually saying to one of his doctoral students, “I need to see you this afternoon.  Can you come by my office at 3 pm?”  He didn’t think much about the seemingly innocuous words he spoke.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…” William Shakespeare’s As You Like It – Act II, Scene VII

In a recent Interact/Harris Poll of some 1000 U.S. workers, 91% of the respondents said communication issues prevent leaders from being as effective as they might be.  The most frequent issues noted in the survey were: 

Marshall Goldsmith, one of the best known executive coaches in the U.S., has just published a new book, Triggers:  Creating Behavior That Lasts, Becoming the Person You want to Be.  One of the things that caught my eye in one of the book’s reviews that I read, was a practice Goldsmith has to bring significant discipline into his life.  He’s practiced it for years.  At the end of each day, he has a friend call him and ask the same 22 questions each day.  He doesn’t just answer each question, he also relates what he has done that day for each question on a scale from

Today’s Tuesday Reading, G–I–V–E Feedback:  A Path to Improvement, is an essay by Mary Therese Durr, Director of Computing Support and Information Technology Service Management at Boston College an ad MOR Leaders Program alumnus.  Her essay provides an additional tool, beyond those in the Tuesday Readings of last June, for formulating and giving feedback.

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Be Nice!, is based on Christine Porath’s June 19, 2015, New York Times Sunday Review essay, No Time to Be Nice at Work.  Porath is an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.