Pedro Neves, Professor at Nova SBE, explains how humour can be used as a management tool and who are the employees that most benefit or are harmed by this technique.
The high failure rate of change efforts - usually around two thirds - has motivated researchers and managers to pay increasing attention to change management. As this is a worrying statistic, several studies have been conducted since the 1990s only to find that this ratio, despite numerous efforts, persists.
We've reached that time of year when, as a general rule, people only think about holidays. This anticipation is usually loaded with positive expectations and as such, it brings us wellbeing and leaves us with a smile on our face - we often even focus more on work and are able to find the extra energy to ensure that when the time comes to go on holiday, we leave everything sorted and tidy. What you may not have known is that planning and anticipating holidays brings more wellbeing than the holiday itself.
Nowadays no one disputes the idea that managing always involves managing people - and that a substantial part of the challenges faced by managers is related to the difficulties of managing different personalities, ways of being, visions and values, managing to maximise and leverage the available talent. But managing talent is not an easy task.
Pedro Neves is a professor at Nova SBE, where he teaches Organizational Behaviour, Persuasion, Negotiation and Entrepreneurship, and collaborates with several executive programmes. He holds a PhD from ISCTE and completed a post-doctoral program at the University of Delaware. His work has been published in several journals, such as the British Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management. He has published and edited six books.