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When given a task, who hasn't set about it with great gusto and panache, hoping to get it done quickly? Well now a new study is saying that's not the way to do it. According to newswise.com, real productivity comes when we have an initial push, yes, but then lie back a little. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (figures, right?)  developed a model to gain insight into how workers’ efforts are best distributed over a single workday. The ideal profiles of effort follow one of two patterns, depending on the nature of the work: A high-low-high effort pattern, they found, is the best way to manage fatigue when the  rate  at which the employee works can be modulated. The idea is to begin and end the day with maximum intensity, but take it easier in the middle. But in some jobs, effort cannot be modulated. Workers operating a machine, or attending to customers at a retail store or restaurant, or performing mental tasks that require constant conce...

I admit it. I can't stand to see my child lose .  Whether it's a team sport or a grade, I can't stand to see him feel like he's a loser. I suppose I'm not a very good parent. Because experts say that, while you may think letting your preschooler win at Go Fish builds self-confidence, you could actually be doing your child a disservice. When young kids experience “illusory success” related to a particular task, their ability to formulate and act on judgments they make about their own performance suffers. As a result, the children may become conditioned to ignore valuable information they could use in future decision-making. It turns out that we're not really helping them to try to help them succeed at everything. My son, who, as I've mentioned before, is a bit of a nerd, never did well at sports.  I still remember him crying as he ran down the soccer field in preschool because he so didn't want to be there (go figure, he now plays soccer ev...

 We've all been there.  Looking and looking and interviewing for the dream job, and then, there it is, right i n front of your eyes. So you suit up and work on your handshake and your spiel about how you're the best candidate for the job. But a new study says that's not all it takes.  The study examining the effects of technology-mediated interviews found in-person interviews yielded better impressions for the company and the candidate. “ We live in a world where we increasingly rely on technology, but this study reminds us that personal interactions should never be underestimated,” said author Nikki Blacksmith, a doctoral candidate at the George Washington University’s  Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication . “Many times, the candidate does not have a choice in the format of the interview. However, the organization does have a choice and if they are not consistent with the type of interview they use across candidates, it could result in ...

I've never been a group person.  Leave me in a room alone with my work and let me at it. Though groups are necessary in the business world, and other places, a new study has found that maybe I'm more normal than I know (nah). According to newswise.com, whether people enjoy working in groups or not, the cohesiveness of a team can be instrumental in the success or failure of group activities and each person's fulfillment of individual goals. But can teamwork be taught? Patrick Sonner, PhD, and Michelle Newsome, PhD, instruct a core natural sciences course for undergraduates in which students work in groups of four for the duration of the semester. “Anecdotally, students report poor experiences working in teams even though, individually, all students in the team are intelligent and capable of completing the task. This suggests that there are certain skills that must be learned in order to work effectively in a team,” the researchers wrote in their abstract.  ...

That's right.  All the guts and grit and get-up-and-go you have may turn out not to matter so much in the long run, according to a new study. Seems it's been over-hyped, say researchers.   There are many paths to success, but the significance of grit in helping you reach that goal has been greatly overstated, says an Iowa State University psychologist at newswise.com. The study found no evidence that grit is a good predictor of success. While some educators are working to enhance grit in students, researchers say there’s no indication that it’s possible to boost levels. And even if it were possible, it might not matter. Grit is defined as perseverance and commitment to long-term goals. The research – often associated with University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth, who first studied grit – is relatively new, compared to the decades of work on performance indicators such as conscientiousness and intelligence. Researchers say their analysis of almost 1...

It's what we all want. The good life. Now a new study says it may be easier than we think. According to Vanderbilt University anthropologist and World Health Organization well-being adviser (did you know there was such a thing?) Ted Fischer, it's not about getting more money or things, but a journey.  He studied German supermarket shoppers and Guatemalan coffee farmers to discover what hopes and dreams they share, and how anthropology can tell us about what the “good life” means for all of us. “It’s not just money, and I think we’re realizing that more and more,” Fischer said. “But that’s a big realization because for a long time we’ve thought that money is the answer.”  A journey?  You know all that talk about life being not a destination but a journey?  Turns out it might be true.  For the longest time in my life, I thought -- if I could just publish my novel, move in with my boyfriend, find a more fulfilling job, get married, have a child -- th...

You've finally got an agent for your novel.  Then she gets a publisher for your book.  It's something you've dreamed of all your life.  Your book will be out next year. Sadly, I came close to this but no cigar.  But a new study says that success might not feel like success if  the script (or the novel) isn't followed the way you thought it would, and you learn too soon that you will accomplish what you set out to do?  The study finds that the positive reaction one would have when succeeding is lessened if it doesn't follow the expected course, according to newswise.com. I guess that means if I was in the library one day and saw my novel on the shelf, I would hate it? I doubt it. But researchers found that when people learned, for example, that they would win a game, get a job offer or be accepted to college before their predetermined time, "the experience was muted twice — when they learned early, and then when the goal was achieved." "...

What do you think success breeds?  If you said, more success, you're probably pretty successful. That's the answer, all right.  If you're good enough to do something well once, you can do it again and again, says a new study . In a study that used website-based experiments to uncover whether the age-old adage that “success breeds success” is a reality, researchers found that "early success bestowed on individuals produced significant increases in subsequent rates of success, in comparison to non-recipients of success," according to newswise.com. The findings  suggest that early success that is not based on merit may produce inequality in achievement among similarly qualified individuals. But the study also found that greater amounts of initial success failed to produce greater subsequent success.   Researchers  tested the success-breeds-success hypothesis by randomly allocating “successes” to individuals.  "In each scenario, we found that early s...

What if success wasn't about doing your best, and beating out everyone else?  But about giving. That's the theory of Wharton professor Adam Grant, who believes that "givers (who help others without selfish motivation), takers (who take without giving in return) and matchers (who strive for equal trades) can affect our success – both as individuals and at the corporate level." Christina Hernandez Sherwood writes at smartplanet.com that "Evidence suggests that in sales, givers begin with 6 percent lower revenue than takers and matchers. But by the year's end, givers finish with 68 percent higher revenue." Why is this so? Grant tells Sherwood that he's noticed a funny thing about the students who come to him: they're not so concerned about making money as they are about doing something for the world.  Giving back. "I started to notice that the most successful people I knew didn’t wait to start giving until they were successful. They ga...

Remember the last time you were terrified to take a test because the teacher threatened you might fail and your future was over? Research is now showing that that's not, well, a great way to warm students up for the exercise, says a new study . Seems like common sense but research has found that t eachers may want to avoid reminding students of the bad consequences of failing a test because doing so could lead to lower scores.  And in our test-score-crazy world, OMG. Even my son, who's a straight A student (no thanks to me) is nervous about the upcoming Common Core test that's about to be administered at his middle school, even though it won't count and won't even be scored. (So why are the kids taking it? Beats me.) “Teachers are desperately keen to motivate their students in the best possible way but may not be aware of how messages they communicate to students around the importance of performing well in exams can be interpreted in different ways,” said le...

Recently I commented on a piece at smartplanet.com that talked about how 40% of us think we're in the top 5%. But what about that top 5%?  What do they think? According to a new article at smartplanet.com, the same researcher who gave us the 40% number now says that those people don't think they're very smart at all. Say what?   Cornell University psychology professor David Dunning says, "By far it is more common to find people overestimating rather than underestimating themselves, but a minority of the time it is certainly possible for people to slip into perceptions of 'impostorship.' They do so mostly for the same reasons that people overestimate: Life provides no answer sheets objectively telling people how well they are doing. They have to infer it, and they can make mistakes." Writes Alyson Windsor, "I found this article fascinating because many of my smart and successful friends and colleagues seem to have the opposite problem. The...

This may surprise you.  Entrepreneurial experience doesn't guarantee success. According to smartplanet.com, a new study has found that, in fact, serial entrepreneurs have a dismal record. The study was based on the success and failure rates of 8,400 entrepreneurial ventures in Germany, and concludes that previous experience in the entrepreneurial realm doesn't really predict success going forward. Joe McKendrick writes that the study says that previously failed entrepreneurs are less likely to survive and, in common with entrepreneurs with mixed prior experiences, are more likely to experience bankruptcy. "We find that portfolio and serial experience is unrelated to survival or avoiding bankruptcy. Our results showed that venture survival outcomes are unrelated to prior successful entrepreneurial experience and that failed entrepreneurs are more likely to fail again," he writes, from the study. But not everyone agrees.  Where you get your business education i...

Here's something that may shock you.  According to a story at The Atlantic, stars and athletes you see all the time commanding seven-figure salaries may not live as long as you. Lindsay Abrams reports that "people who are famous and successful have shorter lives."  A 2001 study found that Academy Award winners live longer than less famous actors, but a 2009 study discovered that people who were both successful and famous died younger than the rest of us. How did they obtain this information?  By studying who gets an obit in The New York Times, according to Abrams. True, famous people didn't die all that young, at a little over 77 years, but famous people in business lived to 83, higher than the national average of a bit past 78 years. " Philanthropists, academics, and doctors were more likely than others to die of 'old age,' a diagnosis that occurred least often for performers, athletes, and creatives," Abrams notes. Why?  Those who are famou...