Personal Growth — April 22, 2011

Who Are Your Pride Builders?

Pinpoint the “pride builders” in your organization when you need to implement change. They are a key “viral” factor in igniting the necessary emotional motivation for other workers.

bigthinkeditor

What is the Latest Development?

“Pride Builders”—staff who intuitively know how to ignite a “feel good” attitude in their colleagues and pride in their day-to-day activities—can play a big role in mobilizing the kind of emotional commitment that makes behavior change happen. Pride Builders are often underutilized, despite their enormous potential as allies in change who spread both motivational and performance behaviors.

What is the Big Idea

Despite investing heavily in formal initiatives such as financial incentives or training programs, many companies fail when trying to get staff at multiple levels of the organization change certain critical behaviors. The problem is they neglect an essential aspect of what motivates employees—emotional commitment. Organizations should follow a rigorous approach to determine who the Pride Builders are and then build on their insights and capabilities to influence behaviors.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Book of Revelation: A New Definitive History of Christian Art in “Ars Sacra”

When Moses came down from the mountain, he carried along stone tablets bearing The Ten Commandments—the definitive law of God. An equally definitive word has been passed down in the […]