Why We Should Talk to Strangers More theatlantic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theatlantic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Globe and Mail Managing
It can be hard to be positive at work nowadays. Here’s an argument for why you should still try Published April 17, 2021 Bookmark
Pandemics seem to breed analogies and metaphors, as well as one-word management prescriptions. Right now, it feels like we’re on a see-saw – up, down, up down, open, close. But we’ve been repeatedly told over the past year we are in a marathon or a parkour. The finishing line with its mystical new normal keeps getting extended. We are stuck, seemingly forever, in the miserable middle of change. Managers have embraced, successively, guiding watchwords like hope, clarity, openness, authenticity, resilience, and empathy.
Posted: Mar 16, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: March 17
According to a newly released study out of the U.S., only two per cent of people are happy with the lengths of conversations they have.(iStock/Getty Images)
Conversation is common, but not easy. That s why computers can pilot an airplane around the world but still can t master small talk.
Turns out, neither can most humans, according to researcher Adam Mastroianni.
A social psychology researcher at Harvard University in Boston, Mass., Mastroianni did a study recently that illuminates just how difficult it is for us to have satisfying conversations.
The study, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, found that conversations very rarely end when people want them to in fact, only about two per cent of the time. In other words, 98 per cent of the time, people feel conversations are either too long or not long enough.
We underestimate the value of complimenting others
As some blog readers may remember, I am a regular reader of a Harvard Business Review publication called The Daily Alert. It publishes several short pieces a day of practical, research-based advice about running a business better in particular, and managing better in general.
by Erica Boothby of the Wharton School, Xuan Zhao of Stanford, and Vanessa K. Bohns of Cornell. Positive feedback, the authors write, “has been shown to mitigate the negative effects of stress on employee performance. Neuroscientists have even shown that the brain processes verbal affirmations similarly to financial rewards.”