Tag: Leadership Insights

Identifying Traits of Greedy People

1. Overly self-centered behavior is the first giveaway sign of greedy people. 

Greedy people are always saying “me, me, me” with very little regard for the needs and feelings of others.

2. Envy and greed are like twins. 

While greed is a strong desire for more and more possessions (such as wealth and power), envy goes one step further and includes a strong desire by greedy people for the possessions of others.

3. Lack of empathy is another sign of greedy people. 

Caring – being concerned about the feelings of others – is not part of their character. As such, they have little qualms about causing pain to others. Their inability to empathize, their lack of genuine interest in the ideas and feelings of others, and their unwillingness to take personal responsibility for their behavior and actions make them very difficult people to be with.

4. Greedy people are never satisfied.  

They look at the world as a zero-sum-game. Instead of thinking that everyone would benefit as the pie gets larger, they view the pie as a constant and want to have the biggest part. They truly believe that they deserve more, even if it comes at someone else’s expense.

5. Greedy people are experts in manipulation. 

They are highly talented in taking credit for work done by others. They can be charming, but their principal agenda is to have people around them that feed their ego.

6. Greedy people are into the short run.

They are focused on satisfying their immediate needs and leave it to others to cope with the consequences. 

For example: leaders of companies who are more interested in getting their bonuses, instead of thinking up better working conditions for the ordinary employees, or to fairly share with their employees whatever earnings the company has made.

7. In the pursuit of their material needs, they know no limits. 

Greedy people are not good at maintaining boundaries. They will compromise moral values and ethics to achieve their goals. They look for loopholes or clever ways to outsmart the rules and regulations that have been put into place to moderate this kind of behavior.

Beware of those signs and promptly act to correct them when they – or any one of those – begin to emerge in you.”

In summary, run if you identify these traits in a person: 

1. Self-centred 

2. Envious 

3. Lacks empathy 

4. Never satisfied 

5. Manipulates people 

6. Short-termistic 

7.  Know no limits

Inbox Zero: Debunking Productivity Myths

Inbox zero and other productivity myths. 

A survey of 17,000 knowledge workers worldwide finds email lacking when it comes to effective workplace communication.

Three takeaways from this report below:

1. More email, more problems. Employees who receive the most email—more than 50 emails a day—are paying a steep price for their willingness to go head-to-head with their inbox. These “hyper-connectors” are more likely than moderate email users to say they struggle with essential workplace tasks, such as finding information needed to complete projects, meeting performance goals, and aligning with other teams. 

2. Managing messages vs. getting work done. Workers are stymied just trying to manage an avalanche of messages. Meanwhile, their actual to-do lists get longer and longer: 82% of hyper-connectors say they have three or more active projects each day and 58% attend three or more meetings each day. 

3. Same inbox, vastly different workplace. No one would argue that the workplace of today looks or feels the same as it did in 1971. Yet that’s the year an engineer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fired off the first email. So it pays to ask: Are we equipping ourselves with the right tools for modern work?