How Technology Has Affected Wages for the Last 200 Years

     The world has changed for the last 200 years significantly. The rapid development of new technologies over the decades and the view of the online world have changed the way people live, communicate and work (Hall, 2009). To sort technology we will have three basic categories: informative, which helps to obtain and use information. Second, communicative, which includes language, signs, and the like which helps people to communicate with each other and the last, useful, such as electricity and running water (Moradi, 2015). Technology bring a lot of  advantages and disadvantages to industries.

     Different industries have utilized technology for different purposes. During the Industrial Revolution, organization and companies employed the new technologies which tailored a lot of economic advantages. "Large numbers of ordinary workers eventually saw robust wage growth thanks to new technology" (Bessen, 2015). Then, wages started to decline after appearance of more advanced technologies which replaced the ordinary workers with some advanced machines to complete the production process.

 

     To overcome the problem of replacing workers and declining in wages, people had to learn new skills and knowledge. "This learning turned out to be surprisingly slow and difficult, yet it was the key to higher wages" (Bessen, 2015). Technical skills learned through experience gives workers with little education opportunities to get higher position than they have with higher wages.

     Naturally, new technologies and skills are not the only factors that affect on wages. "Growing capital investments made the workers more productive and growing opportunities for women workers helped increase their pay" (Bessen, 2015). Perhaps, technology in future will be more advanced and industries replace workers with innovative machines.    

  

 

                                                          References

Bessen, J. (2015). How Technology Has Affected Wages for the Last 200 Years.

Hall, M. (2009). Changes in Technology in the Past Decade. Retrieved from:http://www.legalsecretaryjournal.com/?q=changes_in_technology_in_the_past_decade

Moradi, T. (2015). How Has Technology Affected Your Life. Retrieved from: http://www.academia.edu/4707878/How_Has_Technology_Affected_Your_Life

 

 

 

                                                                                                      

How to Refocus a Meeting After Someone Interrupts?

     Conducting an effective meeting can produce a good result and help to achieve the organization goals. "Meetings in the workplace regularly bring people together to share information, develop strategies, work toward common goals and celebrate successes" (Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 2009, p.1). Planning, following the agenda, set appropriate time and encouraging participants for a feedback are some ways to run an active meeting. Despite diligence, the meeting could be interrupted by a lot of internal or external factors.

     One of strong internal factor that can interrupt the meeting is the participants. “When someone interrupts you, blocks you, or otherwise thwarts your intended action, it’s natural to feel upset” (Knight, 2015). Interruptions at the wrong time can affect the meeting and have serious consequences. Loss of concentration is one of major issues of interrupting while talking which will cause consume a time during the meeting (Carrier, 2009). Also, interrupting may expose the leader to possible awkward situation which may affect the relationship between the members. Handling the situation properly by the leader can help to overcome any cons.      

      Dealing with interruption is the key if the meetings will continue effectively or will end with bad results. It is important to lead and respond rather than getting emotional and acting with anger because this will lose the trust between the members (Coetser, 2015). Knight (2015) adviced the leader of the meeting to react with humor, kindness and inclusion. Moreover, modulating tone of voice and inflection when respond to the person who is interrupting and talk in frustrated way are some ways to react in proper way in front of the members.

 

 

References

Carrier L. (2009). What are the Effects of Getting Interrupted. Retrieved from      http://www.csudh.edu/psych/lcarrier/Interruptions.htm

Coetser M. (2015). Ignoring Others - The Facts, the Consequences, the Restoration of Peace.             Retrieved from http://martiecoetser.hubpages.com/hub/Ignoring-Others-The-Facts-the-Consequences-the-Restoration-of-Peace

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada(2009). Guide to Planning Inclusive                      Meetings.   

 Knight R. (2015). How to Refocus a Meeting After Someone Interrupts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to Do If You Feel Stuck in the Wrong Career?

     Over the last decades, choosing the right career has become an important topic for career professional's minds. Making major career change have risen significantly and continue to grow between large numbers of people (Ibarra, 2002). To understand and choose career correctly, Brown (2002) mentioned three board factors: (1) clear understanding of yourself, abilities and interests; (2) knowledge of requirement, condition of success and opportunities; (3) relations between these two groups of fact.

     Continue working in not preferred career results a negative performance in the work environment, less productivity and may waste time while working. In addition, being in a wrong job may effect on others when provide a service or dealing with people. "Having to concentrate for long periods on tasks you find mundane, repetitive, or unsatisfying can cause high levels of stress" (Smith et al., 2015). On the other hand, choose the right career can avoid most of choosing wrong career disadvantage. It can increase the productivity that will lead to work success and can achieve the work purpose.

Working in something the person like seen as an ideal that few can achieve, but those who do are the ones who have truly won the lottery of life. "Loving your job requires that you utilize what you're best at your talent, and the result of your work gives you fulfillment (purpose)" (Garnett, 2014). By being strong with a talent people can utilize their abilities strongly in the work environment that will lead to taking right decisions, reach the goal quickly and raise their satisfaction.

 

 

References

Brown D. ,(2002). Career Choice and Development. New York: Josscy Bass.

Garnett L., (2014). How to Get More Engaged at Work and Start Liking Your Job.

 Smith M., Robinson L. & Segal R. (2015). Finding the Right Career. Retrieved from:

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/work-career/finding-the-right-career.htm

 Ibarra H. (2002). How to Stay Stuck in the Wrong Career.

 

 

 

The Art of Asking questions

 Organizations always seeking to make right decision based on goals they are trying to achieve (Pohlmann, 2015). One effective way is to highlight a full picture about the subject which can be done by asking questions." If the question works, it must be a good question" (Payne, 1951, p.3). That’s why it's imperative to slow down to ask more and better questions. "You should steer a conversation by asking the right kinds of questions, based on the problem you’re trying to solve" (Pohlmann, 2015). There are four types of question to achieve different goals.

 

 

Consider these four types of questions - Clarifying, Adjoining, Funneling, and Elevating- each aimed at achieving a different goals. The first one is clarifying questions which used to get better understanding of what has been discussed. The second type is adjoining questions which can be used to explore the unknown related facts that are ignored. It helps to get broader understanding of a problem or a subject. The third one is funneling questions that allow searching deeper inside and reaching root cause of the problem. Understand the bigger picture can be by using elevating questions by highlighting bigger field to see the connections of problems (Pohlmann, 2015).

In recent years, people get the opportunity to ask and get answers of verity topics from social media networking like Facebook and Twitter. According to a study explored the phenomenon of using social media through a survey of 624 Microsoft employees, it shows that employees asked subjective questions to their friends to provide specific responses. "Twitter is a popular micro-blogging social network and people ask and answer questions during their natural use of Twitter" (Paul, Hong & Chi, 2011).

Asking question may not get the specific information a person want to hear or delivered answer just contains wrong information. One way to get the right answer is not interrupt the person while answering. Sometimes it is useful to avoid ended-questions and replace it with open-ended questions to get a clear deep answer. Finally, Use the Power of Silence to give the opportunity to listen and understand the answer (Martel, n.d).    

 

 

References

Paul S., Hong L., & Chi E. (2011). Is Twitter a Good Place for Asking Questions? A Characterization Study.

Payne, S. L. (1951). The Art of Asking questions. United States of America: Princeton Legacy Library.

Pohlmann, T. & Thomas, N (2015). Relearning the Art of Asking Questions.

Martel, M. How to Be Amazingly Good at Asking Questions. Retrieved from:

 http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/how-amazingly-good-asking-questions.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is Innovation More About People or Process?

Innovation becomes an important topic 10-15 years for any organization or business which announce a need for more creative, faster and radical work in their environment (Mase, C. "Leading Innovation",n.d., para. 1). Due to daily challenges people  resort to make a meaning for innovation (Muse, n.d.). Is innovation more about people or process? A question was asked among great number of people which result split answers (Ovans, 2015).  "The answer to the people or process question is probably both: people matter, process matters. Talented people can be hobbled by poor processes; hesitant people can be uplifted by smart processes" (Ovans, 2015). 

The first 50 percent says innovation is a talent. This can be illustrated briefly by Bernard Arnault(2001), a chairman of luxury goods LVMH, in HBR interview when he stated: "Our whole business is based on giving our artists and designers complete freedom to invent without limits". In addition, the founder of one of the world’s leading industrial design firms IDEO, David Kelley (2001), mentioned in one of his articles in HBR "blend of methodologies, work practices, culture, and infrastructure. Methodology alone is not enough”.

Companies full of motion pictures, product designers and fashion should be consider the idea that innovation depends on talent. On the other hand, this idea is not suitable with engineering-oriented innovation. An example of this carried out by Ovans (2015) in which Intel operating ideas effectively by exchanging information and processing the ideas. Intuit depends also on backup process to support the innovation in their work environment to act creatively as talented professionals in famous companies like Dior (Onavs, 2015).

Few steps were provided by Anthony, Duncan and Siren (2014) in HBR article "Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days". The first step forces top managers to understand how innovation will fit the strategy of their companies. The second is by exploring the areas of innovation in the company and determine what the company can deliver to its customers. Finally, set the required time to build an effective innovation team to work properly.