Mar 4, 2021
International Women s Day is Monday March 8th. I talked with Marianne Lewis, Dean of Linder College of Business about closing the gander gaps in sales, finance and more. She talks about her community and how she lifts the women up around her.
Turning disruption into opportunity: How to find and release trapped value
Over the last few months, for example, scientists and pharmaceutical companies raced to develop beneficial treatments and test kits for Covid-19. The limited availability of test kits was a challenge as medical workers needed to quickly survey large populations to trace asymptomatic Covid-19 carriers. Apparently, working under pressure is an impetus for creativity. One group of Israeli scientists came up with a unique approach to the problem. Instead of testing individual samples, they pooled samples together and developed a dual-staged test. If the pooled sample is negative, it’s implied that all the individuals in the pool are negative (or are no longer contagious). A positive result indicates that at least one person in the pool is positive for coronavirus and everyone in the pool needs additional testing. This creative solution enables faster yet reliable testing of the larger populations with fewer te
The transformative power of holding the tension of opposites and learning to live with contradiction.
The Covid-19 pandemic has crammed a great deal of pressure into our lives, but it has also created an unprecedented opportunity to revisit our own assumptions about how we should live and work. Managers and leaders have had to balance optimism with realism and find new ways to connect although they manage their employees from afar.
These exaggerated tensions and pressures can be a double-edged sword. Research suggests that whether people
struggle or thrive with tensions, or competing demands, largely depends on their mindset. With a paradox mindset, tensions can be transformed into new ideas and improved performance. The paradox mindset suggests an alternative perspective, one in which we accept and learn to live with the tensions associated with competing demands.