A recent psychological science study differentiated people based on their approaches to personal goals, as follows:

• A person with a mastery goal wants to improve him or herself. It’s about personal growth and development.

• A person with a performance goal wants to compete and win. It’s about personal success and achievement.

Either type of goal setting can drive performance, but how can you use this information to bring out the best in employees and increase productivity? Remember that those with mastery goals will both cooperate with and seek the cooperation of others in order to improve the workplace environment, which the see as necessary for their own development. In contrast, those with performance goals may withhold information from others, or be less cooperative, in an attempt to outperform their colleagues.

This study, by P. Marijn Poortvliet and Céline Darnon in Current Directions in Psychological Science, points out to managers that it’s important to “balance the different levels of goals” in order to benefit “the team as a whole.”

A study of nursing students highlighted that, because mastery goals are intrinsic and provide their own built-in pleasures related to learning outcomes, they are more likely to sustain motivation over a long period. Performance goals, which are extrinsic, may not work as well in the long run. It may be helpful to use a “Best Employee” award to cater to performance goal workers and also encourage competition in mastery goal types. A reward for “Most Improved” would encourage both mastery and performance types.

Through observation, most managers can determine which goal-setting approach is most applicable with each of their reports. Designing work processes to synchronize with an individual’s goal-setting and motivational style is an effective way to enhance productivity. Those employees who focus on mastery may be impeded by too competitive a work process (team competitions, for instance). In contrast, employees who focus on performance may have trouble in a situation where collaboration is critical to success.

One-third of consumers recently polled said they experience rudeness at the hands of an employee once every month on average. In a report released in the September 2011 edition of the Journal of Service Research, consumers tended not to talk about it — they just took their business elsewhere.

Managers may not know how frequently customers notice rudeness, because customers rarely report it. However, it’s common for a consumer to tell his friends and family, and anyone else who will listen. Witnessing rudeness makes people angry, and they won’t hesitate to tell others.

As a precaution against the rampant nature of employees behaving badly towards customers, companies can take several action steps:

-       Get a pulse on your workplace culture. This will help employees and customers alike.

-       Create opportunities for customers to communicate with the business or its managers in a safe and non-threatening way. Workplace culture, bad or good, may be much more visible to an outsider. The first impression of your organization will impact whether the customer wants to visit again or not.

While organizations focus on training employees on customer service – certainly a valuable asset – employees should also be trained how to model good behavior. A strong manager can model good behavior on a daily basis with their colleagues, and establish a long-lasting behavior that will directly impact how employees present themselves to customers.

Addressing poor behavior immediately is critical to setting standards that will be followed on a regular basis. Visibly displaying a positive work culture to customers is also beneficial for creating a positive company brand. A good example of this are retail stores that huddle with their teams on the floor and conduct activities that foster excitement and team spirit among staff.

When your company takes a stand against rudeness, they can avoid the negative business results that will take months, if not years, to repair. Customers who were treated rudely, the September study showed, were less likely to purchase anything else from the company, and expressed little interest in the firm’s new services.

The best response? A simple apology. However, a good training program and best practices on courtesy can foster civility from the beginning.

Who doesn’t want to be brighter, learn better, and adapt more easily to new situations? Scientists are discovering that people not only can increase their own intelligence, but that doing so will have far-reaching and long-lasting results. Fluid intelligence examines how a person can learn new information. In a rapidly changing world, the ability to learn and grasp new concepts will never lose its relevance.

A Scientific American story recently pointed out how fluid intelligence can actually be trained.  Other key findings:

• The more focus and time you place on training your brain, the more your fluid intelligence increases
• The ability to improve cognitive ability is available to everyone on the planet – regardless of the starting point

The Scientific American article was penned by guest contributor Andrea Kuszewski, a behavior therapist and consultant for children with autism. She outlined five steps that can boost cognitive outcomes, none of which involve sitting in a laboratory with a scientist. Try the following ideas to get those smart pathways energized, all of which can be practiced at home:

• Seek Novelty
• Challenge Yourself
• Think Creatively
• Do Things the Hard Way
• Network

To start with, seeking novelty is always going to be good for the brain. New is nourishing to brain cells.

Challenging yourself may not be so easy. Many people walk through life with routine patterns of behavior, but challenge can come in many unexpected forms. Seek out an everyday challenge and take it on as a methodology to reach greater fluid intelligence.

Creative problem-solving is another step that may or may not come naturally. Some people are creative without a lot of effort, while others need to put time and energy into uncovering creative solutions for situations and problems in their lives.

Doing things the hard way is counter-intuitive. But according to Kuszewski, efficiency is not always good for mental acuity. Take time to solve a problem the hard way and watch for the results.

Finally, networking with other people actually leads to brain development. Other people can teach you concepts you may not have considered. Look for ways to invite networking into your life. And watch your brain grow.

As you look at how to achieve your goals, consider whether your primary focus is on improving yourself (self-mastery) or excelling above the competition (mastering others).

Athletes illustrate this distinction. Some strive to improve their performance as compared to their own personal benchmarks, while others focus on benchmarks set by their competition. How does this difference influence one’s goal-oriented behavior?

Well, in the workplace, do you think about how you want to improve against your own set of expectations or do you look at your co-workers and evaluate your achievements against their own?

This distinction may shape your relationships with colleagues in ways that escape your conscious awareness.

People who focus on competitive performance – versus self-mastery – may be tempted to be less than honest and may even withhold information they believe may be helpful for their co-workers.  People who focus on self-mastery are more likely to demonstrate open and frank rapport with co-workers.

If you tend to be more competitive but would like to experience a sense of well-being in the workplace, you may need to work harder on developing and sustaining open and collaborative relationships with your co-workers.

Should you find yourself on the “self-mastery” end of the continuum, you will naturally develop more open and trusting relationships with colleagues.

Remember the thrill of running outside and taking a break from class, hanging out with your friends and breathing in the fresh air of a sunny spring day? Those days may be returning, thanks to several new programs that advocate employer-sponsored exercise.

Adult recess would involve a 10-minute break in the workday, when employees would be led through a series of fun routines involving dance and sports-like moves. The idea is steadily catching on, according to an article in HealthDay. Employer-sponsored exercise is a big part of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plan, a cooperative effort by a number of health and fitness organizations to promote physical activity in public settings such as businesses, schools and churches. Partners include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Heart Association, the YMCA and the AARP.

A key benefit of adult recess ties into physical activity guidelines put out by the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, which recommends that all adults receive at least 150 minutes of exercise each week. Even if only 10 minutes long, a session of moderate or vigorous effort will benefit a person’s overall health.

One work site where adult recess has been implemented is Latino Health Access, a nonprofit group in Santa Ana, Calif. Many of the 55 workers there participate in a 20-minute walk every other day and daily 15-minute aerobics classes. Workers feel more energetic and focused and are less likely to feel lethargic in the afternoon.

Businesses in Japan have been doing this sort of thing for years, but it’s been tough to sell Americans on the idea of doing jumping jacks and other calisthenics.

Another program is called “Instant Recess,” developed by Dr. Antronette K. Yancey, a professor in the department of health services at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health and co-director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. The 10-minute programs feature different sets of moves taken from dance and sports and performed to music, and they can be done by anybody at any time in any attire.

“I found that eye-rolling occurs mostly at the beginning,” Yancey said. “People aren’t sure what to expect, and it seems a little hokey. What happens is people, after the first few minutes, start smiling, start laughing, start engaging with each other, egging each other on.” Her research has found that productivity increased and workplace injuries decreased at businesses where Instant Recess has been implemented.

We agree that encouraging – better yet, sponsoring – some type of physical activity for employees can have significant effects on people and their productivity. Short bursts of activity at work can improve moods and heighten energy levels.  In turn, this helps boost productivity, presenteeism and alertness, which result in better attitudes at the office.

Employees also benefit from joining together with their colleagues and working toward a healthful lifestyle. Once a few people engage in healthy activities and others see the results, more start to join in. A culture of health may even develop where it’s the norm to make choices that positively affect health and well-being.

And that’s where real change begins, because new habits are forming that will become part of a person’s lifestyle.

A Science Daily story recently focused on how organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run. The article cited a study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School, which focused on companies and organizations that launch satellites, rockets and shuttles into space — an arena where failures are high-profile and tough to hide. The study team found that knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years.

The researchers noted that many organizations tend to ignore failure or fire people while they should be treating the failure as a learning opportunity. Desai compared the flights of the space shuttles Atlantis and Challenger. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster but did not impede the mission. Little follow-up or investigation took place.

The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven-person crew were tragically destroyed. The disaster prompted the suspension of shuttle flights and led to a major investigation resulting in 29 recommended changes. The difference in response in the two cases, Desai said, came down to this: The Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure.

We’ve found that the principles of learning from mistakes can also extend beyond large scale organizational shifts to include better management techniques at the micro level. Managers and directors frequently punish mistakes by reprimanding those employees responsible. Obviously, this might be necessary in some cases, but it’s often more effective and productive to treat the situation as a learning opportunity. Not only does this help reinforce the needed steps to successfully complete a task, it also builds employee camaraderie and dedication.  When consistently applied, this technique may even encourage employees to proactively assist each other to produce better outcomes without manager intervention.

When failure strikes – and it will – don’t stigmatize the people involved, but rather encourage the sharing of ideas to understand the causes and learn from them. In doing so, you’ll establish a long-term recipe for success.

Most of us have had to endure a bully in our lifetime, but we typically view them as a childhood threat that we leave behind when we grow up. Only that’s not really the case. Bullies are all-too-common in the workplace, whether they intimidate by their words or by physical actions. Workplace violence may get the media headlines, but rudeness at work is every bit as damaging.

Take the healthcare setting, for example: a 2010 British Medical Journal editorial noted the link between rudeness and employee mistakes, and how that link poses a threat to patient safety and quality of care. Scrub nurses report that they sometimes have to tolerate surgeons’ bad temper and tantrums. Research suggests that in confined areas, the act of simply watching rudeness between colleagues might impair team members’ thinking skills.

In a survey of 391 operating room (OR) staff, 66% of respondents said they had “received aggressive behavior” from nurses and 53% from surgeons during the previous six months. Disagreements between surgeons and OR nurses were reported by 63% of respondents, and 58% reported disagreements between nurses.

A bully is someone who enjoys controlling the behavior of others. Most bullies are narcissistic, thinking only of themselves and having little or no capacity for empathizing with others. People who bully may have once been the targets of bullies; they use intimidation to gain control and mask their own insecurities and inadequacies. Bullies usually prey on those they perceive to be weaker or who they believe will not fight back.

What should employees do when their co-workers are rude or bullying?

- Keep a record of the dates, times and places where incidents occur. Should you need to seek assistance from your Human Resources department, this will be very helpful information.

- Be more assertive in a respectful way. Bullies tend to “prey” on those they perceive as passive or submissive.

- For more information about assertiveness techniques, consider reading the book Crucial Conversations.

- Contact Human Resources. HR staff will know if your company has a policy against bullying and may be able to help you address the situation in a confidential and professional manner.

It’s important for every company to establish and maintain a policy that addresses workplace bullying, and senior management should support and role model civility when interacting with colleagues and staff. A respectful workplace is a win-win for everyone. Employees benefit from a safe and harmonious atmosphere, and the organization benefits from increased engagement, loyalty, quality and productivity.

Want to encourage creative solutions to issues and challenges facing your team or workplace? Researchers at Harvard Business School think they have the answer.

1.      Engaged workers are creative workers

There’s little to support the widely held view that financial incentives encourage creativity, but there’s considerable evidence that emotional investment does. If your workers feel personally connected to and invested in a project, as well as you as a leader, they are more likely to commit their time and attention to accomplishing goals in a creative way. Creativity is fueled more by intrinsic motivators (fun, fulfilling, interesting, challenging, etc.) than extrinsic ones (bonus, time off, promotion, etc.).

2.      Pressure and fear do not inspire innovation

People who are under pressure or who feel frightened tend to look for the simplest — not necessarily the best — solution to a problem. While tight deadlines sometimes can’t be avoided, don’t impose them arbitrarily in the hope that you will force employees into some sort of “inspired breakthrough.” Instead, bring creative ideas to the fore by encouraging workers to think outside the box, something they won’t do if they don’t feel it is safe to offer novel ideas. Leaders should assume the attitude that there are no stupid ideas.  Also, remember that downtime, rather than constant concentration, is associated with enhanced creativity and innovation, not to mention productivity.

3.      Go easy on fostering competition

While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be your best, or in encouraging this in others, where work goals are concerned, pitting employees or teams against each other can be detrimental to team chemistry and may lead to interpersonal conflict. You may get the quickest solution rather than the best one. Creativity can occur in some competitive environments, but if you want everyone pulling on the organizational “oars” together, it’s better to encourage collaboration instead.

4.      Practice “falling forward”

Avoid criticism and the blame game, especially when things go wrong. Employees who are put down in a personal way are not going to stick their necks out with new ideas. Instead, focus on mistakes as learning opportunities that can sometimes point to newer and better ways to get work done. Learn from errors, celebrate new ideas, and help employees stay focused on the big picture so they know how they are contributing to both team and organizational success.

Bottom Line: If you seem to lack creative and innovative ideas in your workforce, look in the organizational mirror. Creativity starts with effective leadership and a supportive, emotionally safe workplace culture.

The survey, which was conducted by Development Dimensions International and reported in The Wall Street Journal, asked frontline managers to self-rate their skills in a number of key leadership areas. Overall, the vast majority of survey participants rated themselves as “proficient” or “strong” in ten key leader attributes, including planning, decision-making, communication, coaching and delegating, among others. When asked to identified areas for further development, no more than 15% did so, suggesting that they believe they “already know it all.” These results were consistent across a variety of business areas.

Leadership experts have long argued that self-awareness (including self-doubt) should be viewed as a pivotal mental capacity at all levels of management. Self-awareness is a key element of emotional intelligence, which has been strongly associated with leader effectiveness. To develop greater self-awareness, we need accurate and timely feedback, which is why more organizations are using employee surveys and 360-degree feedback programs to inform managers about how they are perceived by others, particularly their immediate reports and peers.

However, in the absence of high quality feedback, managers often receive an over-abundance of positive input about their performance. This can arrive in the form of flattery from employees who are “kissing up,” as well as the absence of constructive criticism from those who are afraid they will be marginalized or punished for being candid. What’s more, few managers actively pursue feedback from those they lead, and when they do receive constructive criticism or suggestions for improvement, they often dismiss the “messenger” as a malcontent or someone with a hidden agenda.

Bottom Line: Candid, constructive feedback is essential for managerial success and skill development. Effective feedback mechanisms in tandem with ongoing leader coaching may offer a helpful antidote for the “blind spots” than many managers suffer.

Writing in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a research team from Thomson Reuters concluded that productivity losses from depressed employees are not being substantially reduced despite the widespread use of antidepressants among this population. Roughly 27 million Americans take antidepressants, but this has not resulted in uniformly positive impacts for the organizations that employ them. Why?

Examining claims, health and productivity data on over 22,000 depressed workers, the researchers speculate that several factors may be involved, including:

• Failure to take antidepressants as prescribed.
• Poor response to the first antidepressant tried (finding the right medication is largely trial-and-error).
• Questionable efficacy of antidepressants in treating anything but severe depression.

Regarding that final bullet point, writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used a meta-analysis of studies to conclude that antidepressants have no greater impact on mild to moderate depression than placebo. They suggest that, in the absence of severe and debilitating depression, other forms of treatment may be more effective. Yet, the vast majority of persons struggling with this malady only use medication.

Bottom Line: Depression that is treated with medication alone may not yield hoped-for improvements in productivity and performance. Better outcomes may require multi-modality approaches incorporating dietary changes, exercise, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and, when clinically indicated, medication.