Welcome to the September 17th edition of the Carnival of Human Resources, the virtual gathering, every other week, of bloggers focused on Human Resources and Leadership topics.

Let’s imagine all participants in a conference room, conducting a lively Q&A brown-bag lunch discussion.

Q: Can you teach Leadership in a classroom?
- Wally: Not really. Neither the person who aspires to become a leader nor HR departments should see leadership development as an activity to be outsourced to a classroom setting. Leadership is a lifelong apprentice trade, led by the learner himself/ herself. The most HR departments can do is to architect the right set of experiences to enable/ accelerate that development.

Q: Can you teach Social Intelligence in a classroom?
- Jon: According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, not really. Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis say that “our brains engage in an emotional tango, a dance of feelings”. And you learn Tango by, well, dancing Tango. Goleman and Boyatzis add that “Leading effectively is about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”

Q: Can you provide an example of applying social intelligence in the workplace, and training on-the-job?
- Suzanne: Sure. Learn to appreciate your front line employees. They are the ones who interact with customers every day – which some companies seem to ignore at their peril.
- Denise: another one – What can you do when your team falls apart while you’re gone?.

Q: How can you generate positive feelings, when sometimes we get stuck in bad news and constant quarter-by-quarter pressures?
- Anna: Adding much needed perspective. Please note: Read the rest of this entry »

July is shaping up to be a fascinating month, full of cognitive health research reports and applications. Here you have a roundup, covering food for the brain, cognitive assessments, mental training and DNA, and more.

1) Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function (Nature Neuroscience)

Stephanie West Allen, our lawyer-blogger friend and Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, a research psychiatrist at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles and a neuroplasticity expert, have written a thought-provoking article for The Complete Lawyer.

See Article: Exercise Mind Hygiene On A Daily Basis. Excerpt:

- “Here’s an example of a Golden Moment of Choice: You have decided that you are going to keep your promise and get home each evening in time to put the kids to bed. When 7 p.m. rolls around, you recognize that you can move in one of two directions: you can keep working or get going. Because of your habit of working very late, the synapses in your brain have been forged to support your habit, and you feel the urge to stay. This physiological component of your habitual behavior is making your decision difficult. Nevertheless, you decide to leave. Now, each time you make this new choice, it will be easier: You will be laying down “going-home-to-the-kids” synapses to support the new behavior (and you will be using self-directed neuroplasticity).

- Our ability to step back and see that we have the choice is key. Often we do not even get that far: 7 p.m. comes and goes without our realizing that it’s a GMC. In order to improve your ability to observe yourself and your choices, you need to develop your self-awareness”.

Article: Exercise Mind Hygiene On A Daily Basis

Reading this, and with a wife  and 6-week-old baby starting to fall asleep, reminds me of something…

how to say, “Good night, dear Blog!”

A few years ago I had the chance to meet, and see in action, Hans Rosling (follow the link and play the fascinating clip if you have 6 minutes), at a summit by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. He is a Professor of International Health who developed Trendalyzer software, a tool that brings statistics to live with great visual and animation techniques. Google bought the software last March. You can find it here now.

The Financial Times today has an article titled The hidden beauty of numbers (subscription required), with some great quotes such as “Prof. Rosling works on the premise that the world can never be understood without numbers-or with only numbers” and “He draws an analogy with music: most people would find the written notes dull but love them when they are played. He says he wants to play the statistics and is adamant that he has the eye of the user in mind all the time”.

Here is a full presentation at TED Talks. Enjoy a much more insighful and fun way to see the world!

Two related posts:

• Microfinance, and a very sharp brain
• “Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google