By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News Flow is “a state of deep focus that occurs when people engage in challenging tasks that demand intense concentration and commitment. Flow occurs when a person’s skill level is perfectly balanced to the challenge level of a task that has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.” So says Mihayl Csikszentmihalyi, professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. In a state of flow, you are completely involved in and focused on the activity at hand. You feel the confidence that comes from knowing you have the skills required […]
Bloggers: Turn The Light Onto Yourselves
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here Bloggers: Turn the light onto yourselves) You can learn a lot about people by watching how consistently they apply their standards of behavior. For example, take how people react to Turkey’s ban on YouTube. YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing site, and many of us are puzzled by Turkey’s banning of it. We question our democracy. We blame the courts for not understanding how the web works. We get angry at the people who found a few of the videos and comments so offensive that they took the issue to […]
Hitting the Communication Bulls Eye
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here for Hitting The Communication Bulls Eye) As a communications professional with a background in management, marketing and psychology and who has been working as an expat most of her life, I have come to realize that most top managers around the world tend to overestimate the strength of their communication skills. They often think that since they communicate at work, and since they are successful at their jobs, they must be good communicators. However, more often than not they are wrong. They are rising through the ranks for various reasons, but they’d […]
Learn To Enjoy The Winds Of Change
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here for Learn To Enjoy The Winds Of Change) Almost every day, we can see cars going the wrong way down the street. To their drivers, the “Wrong Way” or “No Entry” signs mean little. These people are endangering the lives of the other drivers on the road, but they don’t stop there. They force the legal drivers to back up or otherwise reroute themselves, in order to accommodate their errors. If the law-abiding drivers resist, the wrong-way drivers often yell and scream and gesture such that those in the right feel guilty […]
They Are Not Actually A “Me” Generation
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here for They are not really a me generation) Older managers wonder why the youngest employees in their offices, the Millenials, seem so hungry for recognition. They wonder why these new people don’t just learn a little patience, and wait until they are older to start taking credit for stuff. It brings up a good point: Who deserves credit for the things that happen at work? In their book “Egonomics,” David Marcum and Steven Smith ask, “Who invented the assembly line?” People say Henry Ford. Who invented the telephone? Alexander Graham Bell. Who made […]
Working With Millenials
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here for Working with Millenials) Last week we talked about Millenials, the young people who have started entering the workforce in recent years. This week, let’s look at how we can maximize their performance and make full use of what they have to offer. The first thing to remember is to accept Millenials as they are, rather than treating them like some kind of weird aberration. They aren’t aliens from space. They are your younger cousins or even your own children. They are exactly what you want to see in a new generation: […]
What’s With Kids These Days?
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News, What’s Up With Kids These Days (click) “They want everything and they want it now. They’re spoiled brats. They start a new job on Monday, and they expect to be CEO by Friday. They come to work late, and they don’t even know how to dress right.” I hear the complaints all the time, coming from older managers complaining about the new crop of young people entering the workforce. The new entrants are the “Millenials”, and they are definitely different from the generations before them. They come to work late, and they wear flip-flops. […]
Thriving On Flow And Challenge
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here) Flow is “a state of deep focus that occurs when people engage in challenging tasks that demand intense concentration and commitment. Flow occurs when a person’s skill level is perfectly balanced to the challenge level of a task that has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.” So says Mihayl Csikszentmihalyi, professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. In a state of flow, you are completely involved in and focused on the activity at hand. You feel the confidence that comes from knowing you have the […]
Keeping Up With The Times
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hurriyet Daily News (click here) For anyone with an entrepreneurial bent, it’s important to keep up with the times. Technologies change quickly, and you should not just be aware of how they are evolving, but you should also be comfortable enough to integrate them into your own life. Being up on the latest trends puts you ahead of the competition. It helps you better understand the people you are managing and it equips you to design creative strategies that will fit today’s needs. A great way to keep tabs on what’s new is to surround yourself with […]
Deciding Where To Stake Your Claim
By Fatmanur Erdogan, Hürriyet Daily News “Today’s key economic factors—talent, innovation, and creativity—are not distributed evenly across the global economy. They concentrate in specific locations. In today’s creative economy, the real source of economic growth comes from the clustering and concentration of talented and productive people. The clustering force makes each of us more productive, which in turn makes the places we inhabit much more productive, generating great increases in output and wealth.” So says Richard Florida, author of the international bestseller “Who’s Your City?” Given the latest technological advancements, it’s fashionable these days to assume we can all work […]