Kavitha Gupta's blog

  Amy Cuddy’s research on body language reveals that we can change other people’s perceptions — and perhaps even our own body chemistry — simply by changing body positions. Why you should listen Amy Cuddy wasn’t supposed to become a successful scientist. In fact, she wasn’t even supposed to finish her undergraduate degree. Early in her college career, Cuddy suffered a severe head injury in a car accident, and doctors said she would struggle to fully regain her mental capacity and finish her undergraduate degree. But she proved them wrong. Today, Cuddy is a professor and researcher at Harvard Business School, where she studies how nonverbal behavior and snap judgments affect people from the classroom to the boardroom. And her training as a classical dancer (another skill she regained after her injury) is evident in her fascinating work on " power posing " -- how your body position influences others and even your own brain.

  How to Tell If Your Coworker is Undermining You — and How to Handle It with Grace By  Elizabeth A. Colombo    |    2019-Oct-25           Most of us have been in a situation where we suspect that we are being undermined by a coworker. Personally, I prefer outright hostility to undermining because at least it’s overt and, thus, easier to address. Undermining, on the other hand, is subtle. It is not readily apparent like bullying or harassment. Because of the subversive nature of undermining, it is harder to spot and more difficult to report. Being sabotaged in this way may make you question if you’re just being too sensitive or if you’re imagining things. That is the evil genius of one who undermines: The situation can be tricky to identify and tough to deal with. So, how do you tell if your colleague is trying to undermine you, and what can you do about it? This month’s column will help answer those questions, starting with ho...

  How to Say “No” to the CEO or Other Business Executives and Provide a Range of Alternatives to Achieve the Business Goals Senior Advisors  Helen Pudlin ,  Maureen Brundage , and  Noah Hanft  share their experience and advice on how to reframe a “no” message into options and recommendations to mitigate legal risk while adding value as a problem solver and trusted counselor. Below are highlights from the webinar. To learn more, the video recording, slide presentation, and podcast are available on this page. Be attuned to communicating in troubled times. “As you are all very much aware, we're in a period of unprecedented upheaval and we're dealing with the constraints and uncertainties of social distancing and remote learning and working. These times make communication with CEOs and other business leaders all the more challenging. Today it's more important than ever to be an effective communicator, risk manager, and business partner.” — Helen Pudlin Learn to navi...

The 6-D model of national culture Geert Hofstede, assisted by others, came up with six basic issues that society needs to come to term with in order to organize itself. These are called dimensions of culture. Each of them has been expressed on a scale that runs roughly from 0 to 100. Dimension maps of the world: Individualism Each dimension has been derived by comparing many, but not all, countries in the world. The findings can be summarized into six world maps of the distribution of that dimension. Of course, in reality there can be quite a bit of within-country variation; these maps should be seen as rough 'climate maps' of culture. Individualism Individualism is the extent to which people feel independent, as opposed to being interdependent as members of larger wholes. Individualism does not mean egoism. It means that individual choices and decisions are expected. Collectivism does not mean closeness. It means that one "knows one's place...

How to Mend a Work Relationship by  Brianna Barker Caza  ,  Mara Olekalns  and  Timothy J. Vogus February 14, 2020 Workplaces are communities, built around the relationships we have with our peers. When these relationships are strong, they can be a source of  energy ,  learning , and support. But when they fracture, even just temporarily, they become sources of frustration that  harm both people and organizations . Left unchecked, even a small conflict can  spiral  out of control, leading to anger and resentment. That’s why managers and employees need to be able to manage and rebound from these conflicts. We wanted to understand how relationships can be strengthened to avoid potential breakdowns, and the best ways to repair them when breakdowns occur. We reviewed about 300 studies, published in management and psychology in the last 15 years, focusing on workplace relationships, relationship transgressions, and relationship ...