IS ENGLISH IMPORTANT FOR YOU AND YOUR CAREER?

101 countries. Nearly 340 million native speakers. Over 1/3 of the world's population understand the language. PORTAL’s Business English club works for developers, creative directors, producers, product managers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, freelancers, non-profit leaders. It works for people in design, finance, HR, marketing, sales, management and every other part of the ecosystem. Mostly, it works for people who are in a hurry. It’s possible to do more, learn more and make more of a change. And it’s possible right now!

CLICK FOR INFO

Tweet

YOUNG WOMEN ARE STILL LESS LIKELY TO NEGOTIATE A JOB OFFER. WHY?

Nearly a decade ago, Carnegie Mellon University researchers surveyed a group of graduating college students and found just 7 percent of women said they'd tried to negotiate their initial job offers, compared to a whopping 57 percent of men.

CONTINUE READING

Tweet

HOW GM USES SOCIAL MEDIA TO IMPROVE CARS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

In 1933, General Motors President and CEO Alfred Sloan established the automobile industry’s first full-time consumer research department under the direction of Henry “Buck” Weaver, a pioneer in market-based decision making. Weaver’s staff sent three million mailings a year to GM and non-GM customers, achieving a remarkable 25% response rate. People were asked about GM products, upholstery textures, colours, vehicle designs, and technology, and their feedback was incorporated into GM vehicles. The approach was so novel that Time magazine featured Weaver on its cover in November 1938, reporting that his research led to 185 vehicle improvements, ranging from longer bumpers and rubber-padded pedals to air conditioning and the partial elimination of running boards.

CONTINUE READING

Tweet

ECONOMIC MODELS SAY WE MAKE RATIONAL CHOICES. DO WE?

For years, economists and psychologists have argued about whether the standard model that economists use to explain how people make decisions is correct. It says that people make rational choices: they weigh all the options against a well-defined set of preferences to choose the one which makes them happiest or is the most valuable to them.

CONTINUE READING

Tweet

WHAT THE DALAI LAMA TAUGHT DANIEL GOLEMAN ABOUT EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Two decades before Daniel Goleman first wrote about emotional intelligence in the pages of HBR, he met his holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama at Amherst College, who mentioned to the young science journalist for the New York Times that he was interested in meeting with scientists. Thus began a long, rich friendship as Goleman became involved over the years in arranging a series of what he calls “extended dialogues” between the Buddhist spiritual leader and researchers in fields ranging from ecology to neuroscience. Over the next 30 years, as Goleman has pursued his own work as a psychologist and business thinker, he has come to see the Dalai Lama as a highly uncommon leader. And so he was understandably delighted when, on the occasion of his friend’s 80^th birthday, he was asked to write a book describing the Dalai Lama’s compassionate approach to addressing the world’s most intractable problems. Force for Good, which draws both on Goleman’s background in cognitive science and his long relationship with the Dalai Lama, is both an exploration of the science and the power of compassion and a call to action.  Curious about the book and about how the Dalai Lama’s views on compassion informed Goleman’s thinking on emotional intelligence, I caught up with Goleman over the phone. What follows are edited excerpts from our conversation...

CONTINUE READING

Tweet