EDITION 778
12 AUGUST 2019

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 engage your team. Showing respect enhances a leader’s influence and performance – and our latest study found that it’s the leadership behaviour with the biggest effect on employee engagement. Yet many leaders struggle to show respect to their employees. To become a more respectful leader, try these tips:[MORE]
    
2. Consider the four-day work week. British employers are tinkering with a shortened work week, and they’re seeing some pleasant benefits. Some 77% of employees with a four-day work week report improved quality of life, and 64% of execs say productivity and work quality have improved in the process. Reduced work weeks could even help the planet with one fewer day of commuting and lunch breaks dialing down our footprint by close to 30%. BBC
    
3. Hiring star players only gets you so far. It’s tempting to believe that the very best team efforts come from recruiting the very best talent. But our research suggests otherwise. Having talented people on your team helps, but that group members’ social sensitivity - the ability to identify and respond to social cues - is much more important. What else helps? Groups that encourage equal participation, rather than deferring to one or two dominant players. And one recipe for team failure? Encouraging members to compete with each other. [MORE]
    
4. Those born in large cities enjoy greater earning power. Research tracking 7,500 British people over 18 years found that someone born in London in 1971 would earn 6.6% more than their Manchester counterpart and 9.3% more than a person born in Liverpool. What gives big city kids the upper hand? More educational options, perhaps. Having larger social networks also helps, and it may also have to do with the influence of big city parents, who are more likely to work in professional fields. BBC
    
5. Queen is disappointed by UK's political class. The Queen has privately expressed disappointment over the current political class’s “inability to govern”. The monarch made the remark at a private event shortly after David Cameron’s resignation following the referendum, but an “impeccable royal source” said her disappointment and frustration had since grown. The Sunday Times
    
6. The days of workers changing jobs once or twice over a lifetime are long gone. Instead, younger workers are voluntarily (and sometimes involuntarily) switching jobs (and even professions) every few years. Surviving in such a fast-paced, often precarious market takes strategies that differ significantly from previous generations. One way to succeed, is to create a side hustle that helps you build an alternative skillset and become more marketable to prospective employers. Bloomberg
    
7. The truth behind our work lies. The less satisfied we are at work, the more likely we are to lie to others at the office. A survey, which included the perspectives of over 1,000 professionals, found that 41% of those who are “not at all satisfied” with their work tell at least one white lie a week.  Just 17% of the “extremely satisfied” lot do the same. The most common fibs? The kind that buy us time away from colleagues: “I’m not feeling well” and “I already have plans after work.” The Telegraph
    
8. Army recruitment crisis leaves units 40% down. Britain is facing an army recruitment crisis, with frontline combat units operating as much as 40% below strength. There are more than 2,500 fewer personnel in frontline units than 2015, and all 16 regular regiments have shortfalls, according to data obtained under freedom of information laws. The Guardian
    
9. Nice work if you can get it. Boris Johnson’s Cabinet reshuffle could end up costing over £260,000 in severance payments to ministers who either resigned or were sacked. Fourteen Cabinet ministers are entitled to £16,876 each, while three lower level ministers can claim £7,920 each, bringing the total to £260,024. Daily Mirror
    
10. The bottom line. The birth rate in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level since records began. There were 11.1 live births per 1,000 people last year – down 9.9% since 2012. Office for National Statistics