Back in the day, I worked for an office furniture manufacturer. At the time, the open office plan developed by Robert Propst was in full swing. The benefits were many: more collaboration between different departments, increase innovation and a lower cost of capital expenditure. In many aspects, the tweaking of “who sits where” is a…
Communication
Who Runs a Better Department – Those Who Meet or Those Who Don’t?
You hear the most interesting things on an airplane. There I was, making my way back home after a week of business travel. I was shoe-horned into a packed flight on a Boeing 737, listening to a group of three guys seated behind me talking about their workplace. (Yeah, I was eavesdropping. It’s nearly impossible…
Career Advice from HR Experts
Wondering how to get some solid career advice? Look no further than Karin Hurt’s Let’s Grow Leaders blog, this week’s host for the Carnival of HR. Karin asked human resources bloggers, writers and practitioners to offer up their best advice for advancing your career. The round-up includes suggestions in the categories of: Becoming a better…
Six Ways to be a Better Negotiator
Are you a good negotiator? The “art of the deal” is something nearly everyone aspires to improve, as evidenced by the 21,233 titles listed by Amazon on the topic of “negotiation”. I discovered an unlikely source for learning more about negotiating: reality TV. I’m hooked on The History Channel’s Pawn Stars, which takes place in…
5 Ways to Kill Your Chances of Making a Fair Deal
I don’t watch a lot of reality TV, but one night we happened upon The History Channel’s Pawn Stars. The escapades of Chumlee, Old Man, Rick and Corey are hard to resist, even if their scenarios are heavily scripted. A few minutes into it and I was hooked. Here’s the thing that drew me in:…