Licensed clinical social worker Andrea Rosenhaft speaks from personal experience when encouraging clients who are considering midlife career changes to embrace the risk involved in making the transition. "I'm glad I never looked back," writes Rosenhaft, who previously worked in advertising and overcame several obstacles to enter graduate school at age 38.
While boredom is typically viewed as a negative emotion, it can also have positive effects, such as signaling a change needs to be made or leading to deeper insights or creativity. Companies can harness this connection by incorporating more downtime into the workday, perhaps by shortening the length of meetings.
Conflict between co-workers can be turned into a benefit by savvy leaders who can defuse the anger, bring clarity to the situation and are willing to have difficult, but transformational, conversations, consultant Marlene Chism writes. Chism outlines four areas to focus on and offers a series of questions to ask yourself to get to the root of the conflict and bring about positive change.
Fostering diversity is about retaining and nurturing and not just hiring, experts say. In a report published by the European Corporate Governance Institute, researchers found that a measure of diversity, equity and inclusion was better correlated with financial performance than diversity alone. "Companies can 'hit the target, but miss the point' -- improve diversity statistics without improving DEI," researchers said.
For a variety of reasons, some workers remain with a company for the long haul, a situation that benefits both employee and employer. Unlike their younger counterparts, these workers don't jump from job to job, providing needed stability, talent retention and continuity.
"Analysis paralysis" can be a symptom of perfectionism, which can leave people drained from thinking so much and cause stress and anxiety, says Jenny Maenpaa, a licensed clinical social worker. Maenpaa suggests breaking decisions into small parts to make them less intimidating, and cites the importance of realizing there is no perfect choice in life.
Make your communication with others more effective by being prepared before a meeting, and checking in with your own level of energy, says Muriel Wilkins, the co-founder of Paravis Partners, who recommends stepping back or rescheduling if you're tired, frustrated or angry. "For some people, it will make things worse for them to hear that their leader is stressed out or doesn't agree or is tired. And for others, it'll actually help humanize it, it'll make it better," Wilkins says.
Scientists have found the third known octopus nursery in the world in the Dorado Outcrop off the coast of Costa Rica. In addition to potentially identifying a new species of Muusoctopus in the area, the researchers believe the nursery shows that some octopus species hatch their eggs in low-temperature hydrothermal vents deep below the ocean's surface.
