Category: How we work
Cultivating Quality Relationships through Leader-Member Exchange
“Leader Member Exchange (LMX) is a theory which focuses on the quality of the relationship between superior (leader) and subordinate (employee). The theory supports an ingroup, midgroup and outgroup. Employees within the ingroup may experience higher levels of LMX which is linked to increased confidence and positive relations; whilst outgroup interactions are characterised by low trust and minimal support.”
The Unsolvable Problem of AI Safety
“Given that AI is not explainable, it is in turn necessarily unpredictable –– how can you predict the actions of something you don’t (and can’t) understand? As is already the case with black box AI, the term used to describe AI models that arrive at conclusions or decisions without providing any explanations as to how they were reached, we will be in the dark as to how AI achieved its aims and what it might do to achieve future ones.”
Combatting Cybersecurity Risks
“Cybercrime is on the rise. Technological advancements paired with geopolitical instability have contributed to an increasingly fractious security environment. The cost of a cybercrime attack –– financially and reputationally –– can devastate a business. As such, greater precautions need to be taken. Businesses must decide whether they’re going to invest in their in-house cybersecurity unit or offset the duty to a third-party.”
How Does Smartphone Use Impact the Workplace?
“It’s not just teenagers who are hooked on their smartphones. In a 2022 Gallup poll, nearly 60% of Americans said they used their phones too often. Meanwhile, people in Ireland spend an average of 4.5 hours on their phone a day. Only 10% of that time is spent talking to someone in a phone conversation. The rest is given over to scrolling. A lot of that scrolling takes place at work.”
Workplace Performance Growth
“Performance growth in the workplace is crucially important for several reasons. The data consistently shows a positive correlation towards optimal productivity, identifying work on areas, enhancing strengths, setting clear expectations, talent retention, job satisfaction and continuous improvement.”
The Burnout Epidemic
“Working a job that we feel offers value to the world or that we feel we offer value to is key to avoiding burnout and having a healthy relationship with our work more generally. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology found that when employees feel like they fit well with their organisation and their specific role, they’re less likely to experience burnout.”
Harnessing Data to Fuel Employee Empowerment
“Analysing data such as customer satisfaction scores has been increasingly embraced with more old school metrics such as exit interviews becoming less common. By analysing and examining key metrics such as customer satisfaction scores and revenue, organisations can make more informed decisions on product development and resource allocation.”
Management in Times of Global Conflict
“Leaders – even experienced leaders – have not had to deal with the level (and variety) of problems currently facing the world. On top of the conflicts and political unrest, which impact everything from supply chains to employee morale, there have been shifts in the level of engagement businesses are expected to make regarding social issues. Not engaging, or engaging in the wrong way, can quickly prove damaging, maybe even fatal, as many businesses have found out the hard way.”
Managing an Ageing Workforce
“A multigenerational office dynamic leaves companies best placed to succeed, with older employees working in tandem with younger ones, each bringing their specific skills to the table while learning off one another. And for all the talk of differences between the generations, their values have actually been found to co-align.”
Embracing Ambiguity: Leadership in the Liminal Space
“Leaders importantly must lead by example and embrace change demonstrating adaptability and resilience. By doing so this can encourage others to emulate this behaviour and may even prompt them to mirror their actions. Leaders can adapt to this period by highlighting and affirming to employees what will remain concrete and identifying the potential in what can be transformed to drive organisational change.”
Should Brands Weigh in on Social Issues?
“Over the past decade, it’s become not just acceptable but expected that major brands will weigh in on the issue of the day. From Black Lives Matter to #MeToo through issues around gender identity and abortion, consumers wanted to know they were not giving their hard-earned cash to enterprises they deemed to be against their principles. For their part, brands were happy to play along, appeasing consumer desires and sometimes outright cashing in on them. All that changed on October 7th.”
The EU AI Act: What you Need to Know
“The EU AI Act seeks to set a definitive definition of AI that is also broad enough to cover the diversity of AI’s current use-points and any potential future developments. As such, drawing from the OECD’s definition, the act describes an AI system as: “a machine-based system designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and that may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment and that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments.””
