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Jena McGregor On Leadership: Motivated by charity
The Washington Post: What would motivate you more: a bonus you could spend on yourself, or a bonus you had to spend on someone else? Most people, surely, would instinctively say the former. Why on Earth would I work smarter or better, or be more satisfied in my job, in exchange for something I had to turn around and give away? But a paper by researchers from Harvard Business School, the University of British Columbia and the University of Liege finds otherwise.
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Wide-Headed CEOs Outperform Counterparts, Daily Telegraph Says
Bloomberg: Chief executive officers with wide heads perform better financially than those with long faces, the Daily Telegraph reported, citing a study in the journal Psychological Science. Men with wider faces tend to have higher testosterone levels, making them more aggressive, which explains the link between face shape and company performance, the Daily Telegraph said, citing the research by Elaine Wong from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and colleagues, who looked at CEO faces and financial performance of 55 Fortune 500 companies. Read the whole story: Bloomberg
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Shape of CEO’s Face Linked to Company Performance
LiveScience: The shape of a CEO's face can predict his company's financial performance, according to a new study in which researchers analyzed photos of 55 male chief executive officers of Fortune 500 businesses. The crucial feature: Facial width. Corporate leaders with faces that were wide relative to their length — such as Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines — tended to lead better-performing companies than CEOs with narrower faces, such as Dick Fuld, the long-faced final CEO of Lehman Brothers, the study found. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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Uncommon Knowledge
Boston Globe: Inequality makes us unhappy - well, some of us Although many people blame modern-day angst and cynicism on a materialistic, media-driven culture, a recent analysis of national survey data going back to 1972 finds that another possible explanation may be income inequality. In years with greater income inequality, Americans perceived their fellow citizens to be less fair and trustworthy and, as a result, were less happy. However, this reaction was only significant in poor people. Controlling for perceived fairness, trust, and income, affluent people were actually happier in years with greater income inequality. Read the whole story: Boston Globe
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Imagining the Downside of Immortality
The New York Times: IMAGINE nobody dies. All of a sudden, whether through divine intervention or an elixir slipped into the water supply, death is banished. Life goes on and on; all of us are freed from fear that our loved ones will be plucked from us, and each of us is rich in the most precious resource of all: time. Wouldn’t it be awful? This is the premise of the TV series “Torchwood: Miracle Day,” a co-production of Starz and the BBC that has been running over the summer and ends in September. The “miracle” of the title is that no one dies anymore, but it proves to be a curse as overpopulation soon threatens to end civilization.
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Wide-faced CEO’s ‘better for their companies’
The Telegraph: Those whose chief executives have fat heads perform better financially than those whose leaders have long faces, according to a study to be published in the journal Psychological Science. Men wider faces tend to have higher testosterone levels, say researchers, making them more aggressive. This could explain the apparently bizarre link between face shape and company performance, they argue. Elaine Wong and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the US looked at 55 Fortune 500 companies, analysing the structure of their chief executive's faces and financial performance indicators.
