Bit Curious

If you were in the process of learning something, and as the next step, you were given a choice - reflect 💭 or practice 🏃‍♀️ - what would you choose?

It is common wisdom that practice makes perfect. The more practice we get, the better we become. You've probably heard it before - if you want to become a pro 🌟, put in 10,000 hours of practice. Is it that simple 🤷‍♀️ ? Can reaching expert status just be boiled down to time spent practicing? Not all would agree. About a hundred years ago, a wise man said: “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”

Reflective thinking is a key driver in becoming a learning organization, which is vital for fostering innovation, creativity, adaptability, and productivity. 

So in today's quest, we will search for an answer to what is reflective thinking? Why is it so important? Yet so hard?
And how agile retrospectives can be one way to operationalize reflective thinking in your organization. 

If you are a curious bit 🤓 🧠, come along on this week's quest to understand and untangle the concept of Reflective Thinking.

In today's quest, we will attempt, through the view 👓 of some classic social psychology theories, to search for an answer to the question of how and through what mechanisms your social surroundings influence your thoughts 💭, feelings 💗, and actions 🏃‍♀️?

Sprinkled on this path will be stolen candy bars 🍫, corona sneezes 🤧, my masculine personality 🥸  profile, a manager's new shirt 👔 , smoking 🚬 waitresses, and pastel-colored post-it notes. Eventually, this quest for answers will end up in the midst of group rituals 🗿!

If you are a curious bit 🤓 🧠, come along on this week's quest to understand and untangle some of social psychology's main classical perspectives.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content stands on the shoulders of giants - on what others have already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

special credit for this episode goes to professor H. Lundberg, professor  K. Malmquvist, and doctoral student V. Grönlund - whose lectures in social psychology and sociology I had the luxury to attend in the past month on this very topic. Such an inspiration!

Many of us kind of have a feeling about what burnout is. You are on the end of your rope, exhausted 😫. But what is burnout, and how does it differ from stress? What are the signs of burnout, and what, according to research, is the cause of it?

Some of those answers may be surprising, such as the provocative fact that self-care is ineffective  😮 in preventing it.

If you are a curious bit 🤓 🧠, come along on this week's quest to understand and untangle the science and research of burnout.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Research demonstrates that power's impact on individuals is associated with a set of positive side effects, such as increased performance and outcomes.

However, the positive benefits power has on us individuals are paradoxically the opposite for teams. Evidence suggests that power's impact is negatively related to team performance, outcomes, and corrupt social interactions within teams.

This sparked my curiosity to understand more about power in the context of groups, teams, and organizations - and how to mitigate power's negative effect on teams & organizations.

If you are a curious bit 🤓 🧠, come along on this week's quest to understand and untangle the science and research of power in the context of teams and organizations.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content stands on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

The main credit for this episode goes to the professors and scholars, Julie Battilana, Tiziana Casciaro, Dachner Keltner - who´s research is greatly summarized in the following books.

Come along on this week's quest in the Science and research of power.

Searching for answers to questions such as: what is power, what are the origins of it, who gains it, ones gained, what does power does to us?

Some of those answers are grim,  which will bring us to the next set of questions, why is there so much misuse of power, why are power structures so sticky?

However, our quest through the dark forest of power will end on the field of hope, as we seek answers to questions such as how and what do you do to stay on the right side of power?

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content stands on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

The main credit for this episode goes to the professors and scholars, Julie Battilana, Tiziana Casciaro, Dachner Keltner - who´s research is greatly summarized in the following books. 

In this episode, we will talk about the concept of Perfectionism in the Workplace.

There is a continued prevalence of perfectionism in the workplace, which is striking, given the magnitude of the negative effects perfectionism has on how we work and create things together.

This goes back to our widely held (incorrect) assumption: that perfectionism is beneficial to job performance.

Today's episode will, based on current research, poke holes in this assumption - and look at ways to mitigate the negative effects of perfectionism.

If you are a curious bit 🤓 🧠, come along this week's quest to understand and untangle perfectionism at the workplace, details how it is expressed, what to do about it including concrete actual interventions how to prevent feeding perfectionism and develop and foster optimalism.

Enjoy!

Victoria

If you want a fast recap of what I just covered - there are slides and visuals posted with the key takeaways of this episode’s material on my website.

Each episode´s content stands on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

In this episode, we will talk about the concept and Science of Perfectionism.

While there is scientific consensus that perfectionism leads to negative consequences, there has been a longstanding debate within perfectionism research if there are any positive aspects of perfectionism. At what point does healthy striving for perfection turn unhealthy?

Come along this week's quest to understand and untangle what perfectionism is, how, when, and why it is problematic.

Enjoy!

Victoria

If you want a fast recap of what I just covered - there are slides and visuals posted with the key takeaways of this episode’s material on my website.

Each episode´s content stands on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

In this episode, we will talk about the concept of Autonomy-Supportive Organizations.

An autonomy-supportive organization is an organization that fulfills its members’ autonomy needs.

When we perceive that we are free to perform our work in our own way within an autonomy-supportive context, we are more likely to find work engaging, have higher job satisfaction, and increased performance.

We also engage in more self-directed behaviors, address obstacles and challenges more freely, and feel more support and connection.

And the great news is that you can deliberately foster such an environment

Come along on this quest to find answers: what are the most effective interventions, according to science,  for organizations to foster an autonomy-supportive environment? And how self-determination theory relates to autonomy.

Enjoy!

Victoria

This is a Bonus Episode, that goes along with Science of Autonomy

It is not only modern software development organizations that spent many cycles on the concept of autonomy.  Autonomy is a topic that has engaged us, humans, for thousands of years, in philosophy, ethics, science, politics, and business.

This is a quick crash course, a simplified version, of discussions around autonomy free will. 

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content, stand on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

In this episode, we will talk about the concept and Science of Autonomy

Autonomy is a common term frequently thrown around in organizations in the past decade.

Yet, the concept of autonomy is still controversial and creates issues. Stop and think about it; when you think about autonomy in your workplace,  what feelings arise? I suspect it is a mixed bag of emotions, right?

Come along on this quest to find the answer, what is autonomy,  why do we obsess about it, and should we care?  And learn how self-determination theory and motivations relate to autonomy.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content, stand on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

This episode is an extension of the prior episode on Science of  Fairness.

When members of an organization perceive the workplace as fair, it has a significant positive impact, both economic and psychological.

I did not cover in that episode that there are more things you can do,  and with quite some precision, to increase fairness. And also, did you know that your organizational structure impacts fairness?

Applying fairness in organizations hence deserved this additional episode on fairness!

This episode is about, with a little bit of nerd warning,  ways to with precision apply fairness research to increase fairness in organizations. To reap all the great benefits of fairness, for everyone involved.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content,  stand on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

In this episode, we will talk about the concept and Science of Fairness

Fairness is the very essence of balancing interests of self,  group, and between groups. 

Why don´t we talk more about the concept of fairness in organizations? When digging into the research on fairness, Wow, I was blown away by the impact of fairness in organizations. What a gold mine! 

In this episode, I will share these findings, form the basis of fairness, biology, and norms. To the impact of fairness on organizations, and some concrete ways to apply these learnings.

Enjoy!

Victoria

Each episode´s content,  stand on the shoulders of giants - on what others already figured out - scientists and researchers who spent their whole life dedicated to answering specific questions. Huge credit to all those people and their excellent work!

In this episode, we will talk about the concept and science of Group Flow.

Flow is considered one of the optimal states of human consciousness and claims to produce high creativity, optimal performance, deep engagement, and happiness. This also happens to be true for group flow.