From The Top Managers in The World

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, and how you’re led.” – Steve Jobs

 “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” - Theodore Roosevelt

“Focus on a few key objectives … I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I’m really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas.” - Jack Welch

 "To live, learn and work in style you must know yourself and others." -

2008 XL Extraordinary Lives Award Nominee Barbara Prashnig 

Discover yourself. Take the Working Style Analysis Questionnaire today. 

Bad Working Habits That Are Good

Working Late

Do you yawn your way through the morning, drinking coffee and staring at the computer screen, only to get your best ideas after dinner? You're not alone! Many people concentrate best in the evening - that's when they are at their most receptive and creative. Its part of their Working Style, a scientifically proved way to perform at your optimum.

Moving About

One of the elements of your Working Style is the preference or non-preference for moving about when you're busy with something new or difficult. Are you somebody who thinks better while pacing a room or tapping your foot?

Snacking

According to Barbara Prashnig, a world expert in education and the director of Creative Learning Systems, snacking on healthy food or sipping water may aid your concentration. Check your own Working Style today to see whether that's the case.

Motivation and Learning Styles

A friend of mine has recently taught me a valuable lesson about motivation: you can incentivize people to take action, but the result may not necessarily be what you expect. 

He used the example of his daughter and hockey. In order to motivate his daughter to try harder, he promised her an expensive reward if she scored a goal (she hadn't scored at all that season). The very next game, she scored a goal in the first five minutes, gave him a thumbs up... and stopped applying herself to the game. After all, she'd already achieved her goal of obtaining the expensive gift, so why bother?

Therein lies the danger of motivating our children, our employees, or even ourselves with external "carrots": the person we're trying to motivate with usually focus on the wrong goal.

Of course, some people are more externally motivated than others. Which one are you? Your Working Style Analysis will tell you.

The Best Christmas Gift

With Christmas approaching fast, and your bank account emptying even faster, do you ever pause to bemoan the consumer culture we live in? Do you ever wonder what happens to your gift after Christmas and whether it’s used or stored in the cupboard? Do you sometimes think that the best things in life aren’t things?

This season, we have a perfect gift for your friends and family: their individual Working Style. Just think about it: would you rather give someone a plastic gadget or the gift of health and de-stressing?

The elements that may contribute to tension levels include:

· the amount of light in the workplace

· room temperature,

· time of day,

· change

· chaos or excessive neatness

· others.

If your loved ones work in circumstances that are mismatched with their Working Style, they can seriously harm their health. Stress is the silent killer of the 21^st century - don’t let it happen!

Give them a gift of a good life.

Give them a Working Style Analysis today for a full report of things they should avoid.

Say Goodbye to Office Stress, too!

Last week, we talked about using Working Styles at home, when dealing with your children (click here to read the full post). Today, we’ll use Working Styles in a more conventional way, namely, to decrease your stress levels in the office.

Your Working Style is the way in which you approach complex projects and cope with problematic tasks. Do you dive into the details straight away, or do you search for an overview first? Do deadlines stress you or energise you? Do you get excited or irritated by a promise of a performance bonus? Do you work more optimally in a group or by yourself? Do you enjoy working under a mentor or a supervisor? When people are late for a meeting, do you use the extra time to focus your mind or do you get so impatient that you can actually feel your blood pressure rising?

It’s not a joking matter. If you force yourself to work in circumstances that are incompatible with your Working Style, you can do your health a serious amount of damage. Stress is the silent killer of the 21^st century - don’t let it get to you. Complete your Working Style Analysis today for a full report of factors that may contribute to your tension on the job.

And remember, the elements we discussed last week, namely:

· the amount of light in your office,

· tidiness or chaos (either can set your teeth on edge, depending on your unique Working Style),

· variety or habit (again, some people get upset by change, others don’t settle well into a routine),

· room temperature,

· time of day,

may also affect how stressed you feel at work. Check your Working Style Analysis report.

Are you a Shopaholic?

Did you know that your Working Style reveals far more about you than simply whether you prefer your office quiet or your brainstorming meetings late in the afternoon?

Your Working Style Analysis (WSA) results can tell an expert:

· What kind of cook you are

· How safe your driving style is

· … And yes, whether you’re a shopaholic!

Although the report will not actually say any of those things, you can deduce them based on the WSA pyramid elements such as:

• your thinking style
• your information processing technique
• how visual you are
• your responsibility gradation
• and many others.

Buy your own WSA assessment today and see whether you knew yourself as well as you always imagined.

WSA and the Right Person for the Job

In today's competitive market, it's not enough to hire someone: you have to find the right person for the job. Recruitment is a delicate balance between art and science, with interviews and psychometric tests not always resulting in a perfect match.

Based on many years of international experience, we can offer an innovative solution: Working Style Analysis (WSA), a unique online tool that’s invaluable when recruiting new staff or evaluating existing employees.

WSA aids in assessing applicants for a new job or position by analysing Working Style features that cannot be ascertained reliably through interviews or psychometric testing. These biological and conditioned style features include:

• how they perform under stress;
• whether they can cope with night shifts or noisy environments;
• how well they can work unsupervised, by themselves or in a team;
• whether they are detail-oriented, creative, big-picture oriented, fast or slow decision making, using gut feeling or logic;
• what motivates them;
• how responsible and communicative they are;
• their attitude to rules and authority;
• how they deal with difficult information and solve problems;
• how best to manage them.

Applying the findings of the WSA tool in everyday corporate life leads to more effective management and leadership, based on Diversity principles.

Buy your own WSA assessment today to find out why you are the right person for your job.

Working Style Analysis (WSA) and the Recession

Psst...

Did you know that Working Style Analysis (WSA) can:

· make you more efficient at your current job

· help you retain your current job by proving how suitable you are for the position you’re holding

· prove to a potential employer that you are the ideal candidate they’re looking for?

To find out how, please check this page next week...

... however, you can find a partial answer in this article.

Win a Working Style Assessment!

Would you like to win a complimentary assessment of your working style (WSA)? The WSA report is a comprehensive document of approximately 18 pages, complete with colourful graphs, summaries and action plans.

Find out how to:
· create a stress-free environment at work;
· communicate with your colleagues and team leaders;
· avoid careers that are unsuitable for you;
· learn new things easily.

For your chance to win, please follow the link to http://clc.co.nz/contest_wsa.asp.

Our WSA reports have recently been enhanced with colourful pie charts to let you see your strengths and non-preferences at a glance. For a free demo profile, please click on http://clc.co.nz/working-style-analysis-demo.html.

Post Easter Harmony

Did you know that the way you spent your Easter holidays reflects your Working Style (or the Working Style of the person who organised your time for you)?

Whether you spent your long weekend ticking tasks off the to-do list, whether you planned your entertainment or enjoyed spontaneous activities, how long it took you to decide to eat that chocolate egg... all that depends on your own unique combination of 49 Working Style elements.

Please visit us on http://pss-styles.com/ to get your free WSA demo.