Luigi Ceccaroni

(de Jesús Encinar)

Necesitas un buen ambiente de trabajo para conseguir unos resultados extraordinarios, pero el buen ambiente no es un fin en sí mismo. Haz todo lo posible por tener un ambiente sano y divertido en el trabajo pero deja claro que el buen ambiente es un medio para conseguir resultados por encima de la media.

La gente brillante no es fácil de gestionar. Alguien que toma iniciativas, con creatividad, orientado a resultados y líder, suele ser también curioso, rebelde, independiente y con sus propias opiniones. La clave está en orientar y coordinar, no en dirigir y controlar.

Contrata la mejor gente para el trabajo en cuestión y después quítate de en medio. Estorbas si andas entrometiéndote. No puedes estar a cada momento diciendo a la gente lo que tiene que hacer. Así pierdes a los mejores y te quedas con la gente sin iniciativa.

Cuando contrates a alguien asegúrate de que trae en su bagaje personal las habilidades necesarias para el trabajo que tiene que hacer.

Los errores son la forma que todos tenemos de aprender. Deja que la gente cometa sus propios errores. Un error barato y controlado es una buena inversión si así se aprende una lección. Es mejor que alguien aprenda una lección a que se quede lamentando que no le dejas hacer lo que quiere.

Tratar mal a tus empleados es siempre una mala idea, pero si encima tu negocio es un “negocio de personas” donde la gente es clave, tratar mal a tus empleados es una idea idiota.

La mayoría de los problemas que surgen en los equipos son por falta de comunicación y malentendidos. Comunica en todo momento, una y otra vez, con todo el equipo cuales son las prioridades, los objetivos y los recursos. Es sorprendente la cantidad de cosas que ves obvias y el resto del equipo no ha pillado.

En un equipo necesitas diversidad. Solistas y coro. Bailarines principales y cuerpo de baile. No puedes tratar a todo el mundo igual en cada situación. Hay gente que busca reconocimiento, otros desafíos, otros aprendizaje, otros estabilidad. Da a cada uno lo que necesita. A una estrella tienes que darle reconocimiento y visibilidad, no le vale la estabilidad que buscan los demás.

Si tienes a alguien en el equipo de quién no estás muy seguro de su capacidad no esperes mucho. Un cambio rápido es menos doloroso cuanto menos tiempo ha pasado. Mucha gente deja que los problemas se alarguen más allá de lo razonable esperando que alguien del equipo mejore. Eso sólo suele empeorar los problemas.

By Barbara Kiviat

As the economic slump persists, companies are becoming stingier with the severance packages they offer laid-off workers. At the same time, more employees are asking their firms to tweak the terms of their parting pay — a shot to get more as they head for the door. “The packages are smaller than they have been, and that makes the need to negotiate more critical,” says employment lawyer Robin Bond, “especially since you don’t know how long it’s going to be until your next job.”

The landscape of severance negotiation has changed dramatically since the last recession. In 2001, just 5% of professional workers and 4% of administrative and support staffers negotiated their exit packages, according to a survey by human-resources consultancy Lee Hecht Harrison. In 2008 a full 31% of professionals and some 22% of administrative workers did. Building up the gumption to ask for a better deal is particularly important today as struggling companies offer less: nearly a tenth of firms are on the cusp of reducing cash payments, according to a survey by the consultancy Hewitt Associates, and a good many are cutting back on benefits too.

So how do you go about negotiating severance? The first must-do is keeping your emotions in check. “Don’t negotiate on the spot,” says William Ury, who helped start Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation and co-wrote the industry classic Getting to Yes. “You’re going to be feeling a wave of emotions — fear, anger, resentment, anxiety. Those emotions are all extremely natural, but they don’t make for effective negotiations.” Before you say anything, go home and process the news. Take a few days if you need to.

Then build yourself up to the right frame of mind. Severance is money that a company gives you so that you’ll sign a release promising not to do things like sue or trash-talk the firm in the press. “It’s not love, it’s not a gift — it’s a business transaction,” says Alan Sklover, an employment attorney and the author of Fired, Downsized, or Laid Off: What Your Employer Doesn’t Want You to Know About How to Fight Back. If you agree to go beyond basic stipulations — perhaps you’d be willing to train the people who are going to take over your responsibilities — you could get a better package. As you prepare (a process that should take hours, if not days, says Ury), think not just about what you want but also about what the company might want.

After picking the right person to talk to — maybe someone in HR but more likely your boss or another manager you peg as particularly sympathetic — make your request in as businesslike a way as possible. If the firm is going to continue to profit from a big client you landed even after you’re gone, mention that. It should be worth something extra. If leaving means forgoing certain pension benefits, ask to be compensated in cash. If you moved to a new city for your job and now you’ll probably leave, ask the company to pay for relocation.

One way to talk about severance is as a bridge to your next job. HR managers themselves like to think of it this way. So call a few recruiters and ask how long they think it will take a person with your experience to land a new gig. If it’s longer than your severance will last, make the case that you should be compensated for the entire time period. One tactic Barbara Barra, executive vice president at Lee Hecht Harrison, has noticed: suggesting that your company extend severance pay by a few months but agreeing to cut it off early if you get a new job in the interim.

Of course, severance is about more than just cash. In many cases, the most valuable things a company can give you don’t cost it much, if any, money. Being able to use your company e-mail, or even your office, while you job-hunt keeps an aura of employment that will make you that much more attractive to the next company. Having a glowing letter of reference in hand helps in interviews. “Those are things that are really important to help you get another job,” says Rusty Rueff, who used to run HR for video-game maker Electronic Arts and was also a senior HR executive at Pepsico. Rueff also suggests making sure you’re listed in your company’s HR system as a person whom the firm would rehire: a potential employer may call and ask. And keeping your employment status as “active,” even if you’re no longer collecting any money or benefits, can help too. Rueff knows of one recently laid-off worker who negotiated that addition so that he would have an easier time refinancing his mortgage.

It’s also a good idea to bring up any extraordinary hardships you’ll encounter by not having a job. Bond, the employment attorney, helped one client, who was due for foot surgery, negotiate an extension of her health-care benefits. Simply asking to keep your company car for 30 more days isn’t likely to get you far, but explaining how it’s your only car and you don’t have money to replace it immediately might.

Throughout it all, just make sure to keep a pleasant, professional tone. In negotiations, a threatening posture almost always backfires, says Ury. Hiring a lawyer or other adviser is a fine idea — but there’s no need to mention to your employer that you’ve done that unless talks take an uncivil turn. Creating a paper trail is always a good idea: after each meeting, summarize what you were told and send an e-mail to the person who told it, asking for confirmation that you understood all the points correctly.

Finally, keep in mind that employers can always improve your severance package. Even if they act as if their hands are tied, there’s no law saying they can’t give you more — even though in the current environment they’ll probably, at least at first, try to give you less.

Copyright © Time Inc.

I can’t get the notion that society in general is becoming aliterate out of my head. People who write books, people who work in universities, who work on big projects for a long time, are on a diverging course from the rest of society. Slowly, the two cultures just get further and further apart.

adapted from ENRICO FRANCESCHINI

LONDRA – Barack Obama l’ha passata da nove anni, Leonardo Di Caprio ci arriverà tra cinque, Luigi Ceccaroni la sta vivendo proprio ora. E’ l’età in cui il cervello dell’uomo raggiunge il massimo della sua potenza, la stagione in cui funziona meglio, il momento in cui è più rapido, scattante, ricettivo: 39 anni. Lo rivela una nuova ricerca in campo neurobiologico, dopo un esperimento condotto su un campione di uomini fra i 23 e gli 80 anni; e gli studiosi sono convinti che avrebbe dato risultati analoghi anche fra le donne, mettendo perciò le coetanee della 39enne Reneé Zellweger, l’attrice del “Diario di Bridget Jones”, al top della forma cerebrale. Dai 40 anni in avanti, viceversa, le prestazioni del cervello declinano “a un ritmo accelerante”, affermano gli autori dell’indagine, provocando reazioni gradualmente sempre più lente, come riduzione della memoria, difficoltà cognitive, erosione di abilità a svolgere determinate funzioni, fino ai casi più gravi di malattie come il morbo di Alzheimer.

Il rallentamento avviene a causa della perdita di mielina, una sostanza che costituisce la guaina midollare delle fibre nervose e che ha funzione isolante, oltre che protettiva, nei riguardi della conduzione degli stimoli nervosi. E’ questa sorta di membrana a permettere la trasmissione di rapidi segnali ai circuiti del cervello. Ed è essa che, dopo la cosiddetta mezza età, si deteriora, perché il cervello non riesce più a “ripararla” al punto da riportarla alle sue condizioni ideali. La scoperta, pubblicata su “Neurobiology of Aging”, una rivista scientifica online britannica, è il frutto di anni di ricerche da parte di scienziati del Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Beahviour della University of California di Los Angeles (UCLA).

Una squadra di neurobiologi guidata dal professor George Bartzokis ha esaminato il rapporto tra le capacità motorie di un gruppo di uomini e le condizioni della loro mielina, riscontrando una particolarissima coincidenza: la migliore attività motoria e la più solida membrana di mielina si verificano puntualmente nei soggetti di 39 anni. L’esperimento consisteva nel far picchiare il dito indice su un tavolo il più velocemente possibile ai 72 uomini di età variabile che si sono sottoposti al test, un’attività monitorata ogni 10 secondi attraverso risonanze magnetiche che misuravano l’integrità della mielina nei delicati circuiti dei lobi frontali del cervello. “Ebbene, le due traiettorie sono risultate praticamente indistinguibili”, nota il professor Bartzokis nel suo rapporto, “entrambe raggiungono l’apice a 39 anni, entrambe declinano velocemente dopo i 40″.

Il vecchio detto secondo cui “la vita ricomincia a 40 anni”, commenta la stampa inglese, andrebbe dunque modificato: a 40 anni la vita comincia a spegnersi, piuttosto, perlomeno dal punto di vista cerebrale. La ricerca, naturalmente, misura soltanto attività condizionate dalla rapidità delle connessioni cerebrali: perciò non significa che, in assoluto, a 39 anni un uomo è più intelligente che a 30 o 50 e oltre. Per chi ha passato i quarant’anni, inoltre, c’è anche una buona notizia: la scoperta fatta dai ricercatori californiani apre la strada alla possibilità in futuro di interventi terapeutici, dice il neurobiologo Bartzokis, “per alterare l’invecchiamento del cervello e ritardare disturbi degenerativi”, come l’Alzheimer. Ma intanto, se ci sembra che un amico o collega di 39 anni abbia sempre la risposta pronta e una marcia in più, sappiamo finalmente il perché: mettersi in gara con lui è come provare a correre dietro a Michael Schumacher.

“Ultimately you want to have the entire world’s knowledge connected directly to your mind.” Google