cannyben

Difficult people can negatively impact team performance and morale. Developing the skills to identify and deal with difficult people can help. Toward that aim, get to know six of the most common difficult employee profiles: 1. The Victim The victim is the least accountable person in the office. Things always seem to happen “to” a victim. How to approach The Victim:  The manager must clearly define accountability. Be really clear about what the person should be doing, the quality of the work that should be delivered and the time in which that should happen. Adopt a language of accountability. 2. The Hisser Hissers are like coiled snakes. When provoked, they rise and strike, leaving terror in their wake. Hissers are prone to rants and raves. They can be pushy, or even be bullies. Nobody ever quite knows what will set these people off. How to approach The Hisser:  Explore the factors that drive this person's behavior. If the hisser doesn’t care how his or her be...

Difficult employees are known for causing disruption to the workplace, but if a manager can take some time to look beyond the behavior there is much more going on than their behavior would dictate. Understanding these underlying characteristics can help managers when coaching their difficult employees. They key issue is always do managers have the time and/or the interest in working with difficult employees. Managers have a lot on their plate and managing people is probably one of the most time intensive activities. There are some employees who managers will be able to turn around while others need to be exited. It can take time to figure this out and along with being good task managers we must become adept at managing people and behaviors which puts us into an “armchair psychologist” mode.   Difficult employees are typically unhappy or negative in general. Getting to the root of this to help them become aware of and understand how this plays into their performance may be sign...

I've learned that leadership skills are perishable. It takes a devotion to listening and learning to build and maintain leadership skills and effectiveness. People thrive when they have leaders who are: ·          Decisive : The moments when leadership matters most are in times of uncertainty and change -- times when people crave clarity. Leaders don't need to have all of the answers and no one expects them to. What is needed, however, is the ability to seek the best counsel, make firm decisions on the path forward, and ensure everyone on the team understands their role in a shared vision. Leaders must also keep their eyes on the big picture so that when the environment changes, they can adapt and help their teams change course. They have to be ready to make tough decisions and communicate them clearly to the entire team.  ·          Trustworthy : Leaders build a credible reputation and ea...

Schools across the country are facing problems in regard to front entrance safety and security. Many school sites were constructed earlier, which brought campus safety and security to the attention of administrators, boards of education and the general public. Many of these school sites have lobbies that fail to prevent unwanted and unscreened persons from entering portions of the school that should be secured from unauthorized persons. To further complicate the issue, many schools do not properly screen visitors. All of these factors increase the possibility of unwanted persons entering the campus and causing an incident that is unsafe for students and staff members. Many lobbies or entry points to school campuses were simply not constructed in a manner consistent with good security measures. Schools were previously designed to create a warm and inviting atmosphere to promote a positive learning environment as well as a welcoming appearance for parents and community members. As s...

Life is beautiful. We have a day and a night , we can be either miserable or happy. No one is perfect. Everyone has his own part of story which he/she defines as problem that makes his/her life miserable. Life is something that cannot be defined properly. Some state it as full of experiments, some as messy, while for others its just an existence. Progress or initial struggle can not predict the capability of a person, neither their fate. Struggles have its own importance. A fruit bought from market and a fruit which we get from our own trees have different tastes. The Bible has defined life as a means to glorify God and enjoy him always. Buddhism has stated that the purpose of life is to end suffering. Jainism teaches the purpose of life as attaining salvation from the cycle of rebirth. According to Quran, the purpose of life is to earn the pleasure of God and to know him since we are his trustees on the earth. The Guru Granth Sahib has stated that the main purpose of our life...

Humans can be consumed by desires; the need to possess and control, to hunger for more or to be different, to obtain or accumulate something or plainly satisfy an urge. Hungers and desires come from the “id” of the psyche; they are natural human urges. And yet, when allowed free reign they can be destructive both to ourselves and those around us. They can be playful or diabolical. They can pave a road to success or lead into the abyss of human existence. Many desires can also lead to addiction. Sometimes they cannot be explained; they just exist as relentless longings that demand to be gratified, up to the point of self-destruction or worse. Yet satisfaction after giving in to a craving may only be temporary before a hunger returns, stronger than ever, leaving behind withdrawal or painful memories. At the same time, suppressing a desire can be equally destructive and result in nightmares, identity crises, aggression or violence. The hunger for riches and power causes the greatest...

A new framework has been presented in recent years to periodize and interpret the effects of human life on the natural environment: the age of the ‘Anthropocene.’ By this definition, we are now in an era when human activities have become a key macro-determinant of the destiny of the ecosystems of Earth. Critical analyses of this age generally have one of two orientations. One perspective looks back, re-examining the relationship of human social, economic, and technical developments on the natural environment. Another looks forward, attempting to build alternative models of human development that put ecological sustainability as a foundational principle. The natural environment presents itself as a ground for life and a gift of life in all communities of faith and spiritual meaning. In the ‘age of the Anthropocene,’ how might faith (and explicitly non-faith) communities productively engage? Looking backward: could this be an opportunity for productive dialogues between principles...

We have been challenged by philosophers, literary theorists, artists, psychologists, film makers, historians, teachers, psychotherapists, nurses and many others, into reflecting on the place that story plays in our lives and the ways in which we consciously and unconsciously employ it. We have also been engaged, entertained and challenged by traditional storytellers from various countries, as well as by theatrical and musical performances, digital stories, films and performance art. Human life is conducted through story, because the telling of stories comes naturally to us. Almost every time we speak we engage in storytelling, and sharing stories is arguably the most important way we have of communicating with others about who we are and what we believe; about what we are doing and have done; about our hopes and fears; about what we value and what we don't. We make sense of our lives by telling the stories that we live; and we learn about other lives by listening to the stories t...

We see beauty; we experience beauty; we think beautiful words, beautiful thoughts. It raises us up, comforts, inspires, thrills, takes us out of ourselves to the sublime and the sacred; it also challenges, disturbs, discomforts and brings us to the most unlikely and unexpected places of death and destruction. Some find no beauty in life, or claim they are unable to see the beautiful any more. It is many things to many people. But it is never neutral or detached and you cannot 'take it or leave it'; without fail, it elicits a response. What is beauty? The flickering shafts of light playing through the leaves of a tree, the nuanced strokes of an artist's painting, nature's rich abundance of animals, the interplay of light and shadow on a human face, the angles and curves of a building, the structure of a snow flake or (diseased) molecular cell, the simplicity of a mathematical formula, the manner of a death: all have been labelled beautiful. What is it - if anything...

In the twenty-first century, in which notions of good versus evil have thrived, the word "hero" has taken on a striking resonance. As a consequence, the decades-old superhero of comic books (as established in the guise of Superman in 1938) has been thrust to the forefront of mainstream popular culture, present across multiple media and the character's signature emblems now among the most recognisable in the world, functioning as powerful, pervasive and vastly profitable brands. Most notably, this domination is no more apparent than the realms of blockbuster cinema. With Superman: The Movie (1978) having provided an epic, special effects-fuelled spectacle finally worthy of the superhero's stature, and the vast cultural and commercial impact of Batman (1989), the superhero movie made a popular return to prominence with X-Men (2000), leading to billion-dollar earning and critically-lauded films such as The Dark Knight (2008) and The Avengers (2012) - and with more ...

Empathy, the will to understand or to attempt to understand others by imagining what it might feel like to be them; how it might feel to experience the world from inside their skin, underpins much of our lives. For instance, it is present in the ways in which people relate to and care for one another within families and in bigger groups, to the ways in which we communicate with one another through literature, art, film, advertising and digital media. Many professions - from nursing, counselling psychotherapy and medicine, to teaching, product design, architecture, advertising and stand-up comedy, depend at least partly, on empathic skill. We can empathise with others whose lives are very different from our own, and because empathy involves the use of the imagination, we can even empathise with people in experiences that we are unlikely ever to have, and even in experiences that we will never be able to have. Though empathy is often viewed through 'rose-coloured spectacles...

With its controversial depiction of an assassination attempt on the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, The Interview (2014) triggered outrage in North Korea as well as retaliatory bomb threats against movie theatres that agree showed the film and the hacking of email accounts at Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent company of Columbia Pictures, which made the film. While the backlash against The Interview was unprecedented, the film itself it part of a long-standing tradition in which Hollywood plays out the political and ideological conflicts that exist between the United States and other countries such as North Korea (Team America: World Police), Russia (Die Hard 5), China (World War Z), Vietnam (Apocalypse Now), and Somalia (Black Hawk Down) using negative stereotypes to  demonize  or ridicule anyone considered an enemy of the state. Regardless of whether this engagement is explicit or masked as seemingly harmless comedy, and regardless of any stated intention on the...

Domestic violence, sometimes referred to as domestic abuse, partner abuse, intimate partner violence, battering or family violence is a pattern of behavior which involves violence or other abuse by one person in a domestic context against another. It may occur within, but is not confined to, marriage, cohabitation, forced marriage, friendship and familial relationships, and can involve sibling, parental, grandparent, heterosexual or same-sex relationships. It takes various forms, including physical abuse, emotional, verbal, economic and sexual abuse, which may extend to rape. Domestic violence over a period of time may lead to homicide. Most commonly, victims are female but males can be victimised too, and it is thought that domestic violence against men may be under-reported because of the stigma attached to being victimised in this way. Couples may engage in reciprocal violence and abuse. Victims frequently experience post-traumatic stress disorder. They are often trapped in violen...