Category: Bookboon.com

In “The Little Book of Leadership” we point out how important it is for leaders to be able to show their “human face” instead of trying to appear infallible under all circumstances. Did you know that this is the basis for trust in leaders?…

I recently came across a very interesting study by CPP on the impact of good conflict management on your business.* Although the research is a few years old (2008), given they interviewed 5,000 full-time employees in nine countries around Europe and the Americas, it is probably still very valid and relevant….

Learning and development managers are recognising soft skills as the number one learning priority for 2018.(1) But are businesses aware of the urgency? …

Stress is a natural, physical response to our perceptions of a stimulus. It has an evolutionary purpose: our need to protect ourselves and the innate ‘flight or fight’ aspect of our nervous system. When we were battling for survival, stress is what released the adrenaline that let us fight. So although most of us don’t have to battle our way into the office each morning, the response to stimuli and the stress that results still exist….

The causes of anxiety are often complex and difficult to determine. It does seem that some of us have a genetic predisposition to it but it’s also very much about our upbringing – if your mother was nervous, you may have ‘learned’ to be nervous, so it can appear to almost run in families. But your innate personality and temperament will play a large part too, modifying how you respond to your family environment and other external factors….

What are the key skills that graduates are lacking according to their first bosses? Two years ago Payscale conducted a survey among nearly 64,000 managers and over 14,000 recent graduates to find out….

With Artificial Intelligence and robotics on the rise we are on the verge of an automation revolution. 

According to the Word Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs” study in six out of ten jobs more than 30% of activities are technically automatable. The study suggests that 5 million jobs will be lost before 2020.* 

That’s less than two years from now… 

Does this mean humans will become obsolete? Far from it, even with advanced artificial intelligence there will still be a lot that computers won’t be able to handle without humans involved.   …

We know that individuals make investments and accumulate wealth during their working life in order to provide for their financial needs during retirement. At the date of retirement, it is common for a retiree to transfer his/her accumulated wealth to an insurance company in exchange for (typically) monthly income payments. These payments are called annuities….