The Danger of Groupthink
Read any business review blog today, and you’ll soon notice a trend: teams. Democratic teams – where every member contributes ideas and efforts – are popular solution to today’s business challenges. Some say they’re the best way to improve a business’s output, efficiency, and innovation. Check out HBR’s article, “The Power of Teamwork”, to see what I mean. Ideally, these teams harmonize the voices of all members to reach a consensus. The ComLead grad program is designed to prepare students for excellence in today’s business world. And...
Read MoreBringing Your Learning Style to Work
We often associate learning styles with primary school, but the same framework that helped you memorize state capitals or function of mitochondria can improve productivity and communication in the workplace. VARK Model Neil Fleming’s VARK model is a popular learning style framework used in many workplaces today. Fleming categorizes learning preferences as Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and/or Kinesthetic. To determine your learning style, try this questionnaire. Those who don’t fit neatly into one category – and there are many of us – are deemed multimodal, and can tailor their...
Read MoreA Communication Conundrum
The definition of interpersonal communication varies depending on who you ask (or who you cite). The challenge of communication begins with the fact that people have different ideas of what comprises the act of communicating. Most definitions involve the sending and receiving of messages to create mutual understanding. While this sounds easy, think about how often in a day you miscommunicate. Almost everything we do involves communication of some sort- whether it is interpersonal, organizational or from the mass media. We spend time improving our abilities in math, grammar, and science....
Read MoreDetection of Deception
Ever watched the show Lie to Me? This past Thursday, Professor David Aragona, PhD gave a lecture on deception detection. His advisor worked with Dr. Paul Ekman, a contributor to the show about a detective who solves cases based on his ability to interpret microexpressions. Aragona completed his dissertation on lie detection in applied security contexts. He explained that people are not the best lie detectors because we are looking at the wrong things. For instance, we cannot tell if people are lying because they avoid eye contact or look up. These are culturally learned forms of...
Read MoreWhat Goes into a Good Team?
Working with people to accomplish a task is necessary at some point in every career. Why is it then that some groups flourish while others flounder? Successful collaboration depends on more than a good leader and motivated members (although that helps a lot). In my own experiences with navigating the roles in a group, I have found a few things that seem to be consistent among each group I enter. 1. Conflict doesn’t kill creativity. This doesn’t mean throw a book at the person across from you who is driving you crazy; but, having difficult conversations can yield results that may not have...
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