There’s a natural state of heightened attention to the self when we know we’re being watched, Bernstein notes. “Our practiced response become better,” he told me, “our unpracticed responses become worse.” So actions that have been drilled by the boss may well turn out better when everyone believes the boss is watching. On the other hand, for behavior that isn’t already learned—where the best response needs unselfconscious focus on the problem, and the chance to try something new without fear—being watched makes things harder. Attention that could have gone to one’s actions goes, instead, to managing the appearance of one’s actions.
The “gospel of transparency” declares that this is not a problem, because workers should stick to management’s script. But in one vast Chinese factory that Bernstein studied, workers who craftily deviated from standard procedure often improved the plant’s productivity.
People act differently when they know they are being watched. Period. Whether you are talking about the workplace, out in public, at events, etc. and the way we behave when being watched is not always in the best interests of the company or society.
There are serious ramifications to this study, in and out of the workplace.
“I want to know what breaches like this mean to me. Me personally. Me professionally. I’ve been using Yahoo since 1999. And AOL before that. And Prodigy before that. And the Europa BBS service from my Commodore64 in 1988 before that. That’s a long history on the Internet and its predecessors. What should I do…
This is probably not something we think about often, but they’re finding it in Australia, and even thinking it could be a problem. As our working lives become increasingly 24-7, our new research suggests there’s now an additional task to do in our families and friendships. We need to work harder than before to get…
THIS!!!! “We are going to see a real change as businesses can no longer dictate, ‘Be in the office five days a week, 9 to 5,’” Brady says. “Instead, the strategy will become, ‘How can we get you to come into the office, some of the time, to meet up with your colleagues?’ The balance…
What does your phone say about you? AccessData’s Mobile Phone Examiner Plus (MPE+) tags: Forensics MM LitSupport A New Discovery — How leveraging e-discovery tools can reduce the time and money spent on a lawsuit tags: MM LitSupport Feature: Taming information with eDiscovery tags: LitSupport MM Discovery from 3rd Party Vendors tags: LitSupport MM Could…
“Don’t open it. Or, at least DO NOT click on the link it contains. What will this now-popular hacker email look like? It will be an email from SOMEONE YOU KNOW that looks like this.” Seriously, don’t click on a link in an email unless you were expecting it, and if you’re going to send…
Yes, 131 is a lot. I actually looked through the list and can’t say that I would bother with a few of them, because I don’t think they address something that is really much of a risk. On the other hand, there are some really good tips on this list too, so it’s worth checking…
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