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Articles by Ray Williams

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31 articles by Ray Williams · showing 31

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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

The Secret to a Healthy Retirement: Keep Working

Since the Great Depression, a commonly held perspective on the good life is that we can all look forward to retirement, when we didn't have to work any more. We would be more relaxed and healthier away from the stresses of work. There's a couple of flaws in that argument. For one thing, retirement, like pensions was an invention of the depression, intended to deal with the problem of unemployment. Prior to the depression, and in past ages, the concept of retirement didn't exist. AARP in the U.S.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Why New Year's Resolutions Don't Work

The start of the New Year is often the perfect time to turn a new page in your life, which is why so many people make New Year's resolutions. Researchers have looked at success rates of peoples' resolutions: the first two weeks usually go along beautifully, but by February, people are backsliding and by the following December, most people are back where they started, often even further behind.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

How to Be Resilient in a Turbulent World

In the 2007 World Health Statistics Report, the World Health Organization identified depression as one of the most significant global public health problems. World wide events such as recession, the effects of climate change, and terrorism events and alerts have increased the general level of anxiety throughout the world. Employers and managers face, on a daily basis, bad news and its psychological impact on employees. How can we prepare people for psychologically stressful events and resilient recovery? Are some people just naturally more resilient and optimistic?

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Energizing your workplace: What managers should know

The energy and vitality of individuals and organizations depends on the quality of the connections among people inside the organization, and between them and their customers and clients. The key to transforming your own work experience and the performance of the people around you is to build and nurture high quality connections. So says Jane Dutton, professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan and author of the book, Energizing Your Workplace.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

The end of careers as we know them

In my Financial Post article, “In the Future, No One is Going To Pay You Just to Show Up,” I argued technology, for the most part, has not allowed us to retire to a life of leisure as predicted decades ago. The current reality is that we may see many people resigned to an extensive period of unemployment or temporary work.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

What Brain Science Can Tell Us About Leadership

Research on how the human brain can affect behaviors--called neuroscience, or the popular term, brain science--has yet to be fully appreciated by leaders of organizations. That knowledge could have a significant impact on how leaders are trained and what they do. In the past few decades, scientists have gained new and more accurate scientific views of human behavior, studying the human brain.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Do more friends on Facebook induce stress and anxiety?

Many Facebook users spend considerable time and energy collecting hundreds of virtual friends, and posting updates with the intention of increasing positive relationships, raising their self-esteem or living a happier life. At the same time, several studies have shown there can be negative impacts on users including increased stress and anxiety, and narcissism. With approximately 1 billion users worldwide, there’s no doubt that Facebook is the most powerful social medium of social connection.r

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

How To Be Super Successful: Be Tall and Attractive?

In an ideal world, people are hired and promoted because of their abilities, competence, attitudes and interpersonal skills--right? Maybe not. Despite how far we've come in the areas of recruiting, selecting and developing people in organizations, there's evidence that we still judge people based on what some would consider superficial criteria.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Why Don't I Feel Better? The Truth About Positive Affirmations and Self Help Books

"I am successful," "I am a wonderful person," "I will find love again," and many other similar phrases that students, the broken-hearted and unfulfilled employees may repeat to themselves over and over again, hoping to change their lives. Self-help books through the ages, from Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking all the way to the latest, The Secret, have encouraged people with low self-esteem to make positive self-statements or affirmations. New research suggests it may do more harm than good to many people. Canadian researcher, Dr.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Layoffs And The Stress Response

The recession has had a serious psychological impact on many businesses, due to the stress associated with layoffs. We know from various research studies that negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and sadness, which often accompany workplace stress, have a detrimental effect on workers' emotional and mental state, and performance. Executives' and managers' judgments and decisions, particularly regarding relationship issues, can become skewed or unstable under stressful conditions, particularly if the company's focus is a "numbers" emphasis on sales targets. History has shown that b

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

The Leadership Secrets of the Trappist Monks

American style capitalism has been criticized for its lack of “heart” or “soul.” Many critics have also pointed to the excessive focus on greed, with little regard for the well-being of employees customers or the environment. Other than the typical insights of business school gurus or management consultants, are there answers we can look to elsewhere for the malaise that grips our workers and current economic woes? An unlikely source of inspiration for us might be the Trappist monks.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Why analyzing your problems may be unproductive

When you're upset or depressed, should you analyze your feelings to figure out what's wrong? Or should you just forget about it and move on? New research and theories suggests if you do want to think about your problems, do so from a detached perspective, rather than reliving the experience. This answer is related to a psychological paradox: Processing emotions is supposed to help you facilitate coping, but attempts to understand painful feelings often backfire and perpetuate or strengthen negative moods and emotions.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Twitter Your Business?

There' s no question that Twitter has become the next big thing in internet social networking. Yet to this day, less than 10% of North American internet users actually "Twitter." But unique visitors the Twitter website has grown over 1300 % in one year. So what exactly is Twitter? Twitter is ...

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

How Mentoring Can Be An Effective Business Strategy

Many small to medium sized companies have become so successful that they have bee "corporatized," a term coined that describes the feeling of professionals working in those companies that makes them feel like "cogs in a wheel." In an article the Harvard Business Review, authors Thomas J. Delong, John J. Gabarro and Robert J. Lees argue that the remedy for the corporatized phenomena is for those companies to institute a program of mentoring.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

You Are Not Your Job

By the time you were probably in your third grade, you were asked the questio "What do you want to be when you grow up?" In our society, job titles have come to define who a person is. By defining yourself by what you do rather than by who are you can put yourself in emotional jeopardy. By ...

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Why Smiling Can Make You Happy

Do you smile because you're happy, or does smiling make you happy? In psychology, there is a theory called the "facial feedback hypothesis" which states, according to researchers D.A. Be stein and his colleagues, that involuntary facial movements provide sufficient peripheral information to drive emotional experiences. Psychologists S. F. Davis and J.J. Palladindo explain that feedback from facial expression affects emotional expression and behavior. In simple terms, if you smile, you can actually improve your emotional mood. R.B.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Global Survey Reveals Happiness Gaps Between Men and Women

A new global survey reports that men are happier with wealth, while women find greater happiness in friendships and family, co-workers and their bosses. Yet the survey may not have asked the right questions. The online survey of more than 28,000 people in more than 51 countries by global marketing firm Nielsen, found that women are happier than men in 48 of the 51 countries surveyed in April 2008, and only in Brazil, South Africa and Vietnam were men found to be happier than women.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Leadership For A New World

In times of crisis, people's behaviors and perspectives--both in their personal and work lives--change irrevocably. Those that adapt to the changes have the best chance for success. As a result of the current economic crisis, our economic system will fundamentally change and will not return to the "way it was." Our organizations will need leaders who understand that and provide the kind of leadership necessary for the new era. The August issue of the Harvard Business Review provides an insightful look at managing in the new world.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

The Age of Empathy

Greed is out. Empathy is in. That's how Frans de Waal begins his book, The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons For A Kinder Society. De Waal is a biologist, professor of psychology and director of the Living Link Center at Emory University. In 2007, Time magazine selected him as one of the world's most influential people. The global financial crisis of 2008, together with the election of a new American President representing a vastly different political and social perspective, has produced a "seismic shift in society," argues de Waal.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

How to Boost Employee Morale During Difficult Times

During difficult economic times, how do leaders deal with the challenge of retaining and motivating their best people ? In an article in the Harvard Business Review online, Kevin Coyne says that many examples of high morale come from situations of great unhappiness and stress. He suggests the ...

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Why People Get Depressed at Christmas and What to do About It

We are told that Christmas, for Christians, should be the happiest time of year, an opportunity to be joyful and grateful with family, friends and colleagues. Yet, according to the National Institute of Health, Christmas is the time of year that people experience the highest incidence of depression. Hospitals and police forces report the highest incidences of suicide and attempted suicide. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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By Ray WilliamsRecently published1 topic

Do women have to become more like men to make it to the top?

Debate over the existence of a “glass ceiling” for women for top leadership positions has been renewed by the publication of the book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and some new research data on gender equity. Sandberg is ranked on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Primary topic: Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
Executive Coach and Executive Coaching
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