EDITION 799
6 JANUARY 2020

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1.  How to increase team motivation. Teams are the way that most companies get important work done. When you combine the energy, knowledge, and skills of a motivated group of people, then you and your team can accomplish anything you set your minds to. Here are five ways to increase motivation that can have a positive impact on the workforce. READ MORE>>

2.  Hitting your goals in 2020. It's a new year, and a new decade. Looking to turn a new leaf and perhaps accomplish a fresh set of goals? Your success will likely hinge on two different types of motivation. The first is intrinsic motivation, your internal drive and passion for the task at hand. Intrinsic motivation is essential to hitting our goals, but it can also be fragile. That's where extrinsic motivation comes into play. Find inspiration outside of yourself. The combination of these two kinds of motivation will help keep you on track and help you make 2020 your best year yet. Editor

3.  The case against teamwork. Many assume that two (or three) heads tackling a problem must be better than one. But recent research from INSEAD and Emory University suggests that isn't always the case. After examining the influence of 1.8 million patents, the researchers found that some projects are best left to lone inventors. Design innovations, where each part of a project is highly dependent on one other, benefit from solo work. Projects with many independent components, the kind that allow many participants to own their own piece of the work, are better suited for groups. Harvard Business Review

4.  Why 70 might be the new 65. The age of 65 has traditionally served as a marker for "old age." But longer life spans suggest it may be time for a rethink. Data from the Office for National Statistics reveals 70 might be the new 65, as a growing share of people live well into their 80s and beyond. And these shifts are changing how we think about retirement. Some European countries are requiring citizens to work longer, with pension ages rising to 67 in Germany by 2023 and to 68 years in Ireland by 2028. BBC

5.  Why some people are always late. For the punctual among us, habitual latecomers can come across as rude, self-absorbed, selfish. But that it's not always as simple as that. As I explain to my mentoring clients chronically tardy colleagues and friends may believe that their time, not yours, isn't important enough to be punctual. They may be held up because someone else has demanded their time and they don't know how to get away. Then there are those who are late out of self-sabotage. Ultimately, late people will only stop being late when they make a concerted effort to change. Editor

6.  Your most important skill. If you’ve found yourself scrolling through your Instagram feed forgetting how you got there, you’re not alone. Two-thirds of workers admit to looking at their phones for at least an hour out of their work-day, according to a study from Udemy. This is costing us and our employers dearly. Studies estimate the productivity cost comes to many billions of pounds in the UK alone. Strategies that can help you reclaim your focus include mastering your internal triggers, planning your day, and controlling your tech, in other words becoming indistractable. The Times

7.  Wage hike puts pressure on small biz. Questions are being raised over the affordability of a hike in the national living wage. The government announced a 6.2% pay rise from next April, taking the national living wage for workers aged over 25 from £8.21 an hour to £8.72 and delivering the government’s “biggest cash increase ever”. But businesses have warned that the increase in wages - more than four times the rate of inflation - will put pressure on companies. One in four small employers said they will recruit fewer workers and one in five will cancel investment plans. The Financial Times

8.  Data suggests that the Saturday job is on its way out. The era of the Saturday job may be coming to an end as it is revealed that the number of working teenagers has almost halved in the last 20 years. A study from the Resolution Foundation found that a quarter of 16 and 17-year-olds were in work between 2017 and 2019 - falling from 48% in 1997-99. Daily Mail

9.  Queen keeps her decorations up for longer. Most of us have taken down the Christmas decorations until next year, as it’s said to be bad luck to keep your tree up past the twelfth night (5th Jan) or Epiphany (6th Jan). However, the Queen apparently keeps hers up until the 6th Feb to mark the anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth’s beloved father, King George VI, who passed away at the Sandringham Estate on 6th February 1952. Marie Clare

10. The bottom line. The Office for National Statistics has predicted that by 2030 one in five people in UK will be 65 or over, 6 million will be over 80 and there will be 21,000 centenarians. BBC