A new Harvard Business Review article claims childhood experiences influence the way we respond to power. An excerpt:

If your childhood experience taught you that you could sometimes get one parent to agree to a request that had been refused by the other, the behavioral dimension of your signature power style may be predominantly informal. People with a strong informal dimension to their power style prefer one-on-one interactions on the job when they are trying to influence others. For example, even when they know they will need to present an idea or proposal to a group, they will tend to run their ideas by key individuals privately before the group meets.

I saw this cartoon in the April issue of the Harvard Business Review, and I wanted to share it with you for a little late afternoon chuckle. 

We've all been there. Sitting down on an airplane and you say hi to the person next to you and ask that fateful question, "What do you do?" 

I was reading a blog post called "Detach Yourself from Your Work" on Harvard Business Review today, and the blogger's similar story hit home with me. I decided I'd blog about it on PlusPoint because I can pretty much guess I am not alone.

How often on your numerous travels has that question turned out to bite you? I was on a flight a month or so ago from Denver to Dallas (about 3 hours) and I think I may have been sitting next to the same person that the blogger had sat next to on a different flight. I asked the fateful question as we were leaving the gate and his response (which seemed like one long sentence) ended about the time that the landing gear was going down. 

I gave him all the signs that I wanted to relax and do a little personal reading and then close my eyes for a little rest. He just wasn't getting the hint that I was in need of a little "me time."

The worst part about this particular situation was the inability to escape.

When I read Gill Corkindale's blog today, the similarities between our experiences were so prevalent it was scary. You may or may not have experienced a similar situation. If not, I guarantee you battle work-life balance in other ways. How many times have you found yourself breaking away from your kid's soccer game on a Saturday morning to answer an email? Or how often do you take your computer with you on vacation and check email?

I have focused my efforts lately to be better at balancing my work with my family time—and I've noticed a huge difference in my clarity and productivity. I have found when I take two days on a weekend to decompress and enjoy some "me time" with my family, I am refreshed and ready to blow the week out of the water first thing Monday morning.

It's not rocket science.

If you're in need of a rebalancing, check out Ms. Corkindale's blog that's online now—she offers six great ways to maintain better work-life balance. And, if you're interested in this kind of topic, I'd suggest following Corkindale's work via RSS feed—she always has a great lesson on leadership and people management (most importantly, yourself).

Is the demand of e-mail getting uncomfortable? Would you ever consider willfully ignoring some e-mail because of this growing demand? How about setting an auto-reply such as the following?

Due to the volume of email I receive, I no longer personally review every message. If you are interested in learning more about why I have decided to set limits on my email time, you can read this [link to this blog post or one you draft yourself]. If you do not receive a further reply within 72 hours, please assume that I have had to focus on other professional or personal priorities at this time. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

That's just what Alexandra Samuel has done (see her HBR post about the rationale).

A stunning practice for sure...take a look at the comments!

One takes on vacation out-of-office auto-replies: "Sorry, but I'm on vacation until xx/xx/xxxx. When I get back, I'll delete all the flood of email that arrived while I was gone, so if this note is important, please send it to me again after that date. Thanks..."

To this, Samuel responded that the "I'm out of the office but will read your e-mail when I return" auto-reply is actually "the undoing of the psychological benefits of a vacation!"

Of course, there's also the perception, if you don't respond to an e-mail, that the communication (or dare say, even the relationship) is not of interest or of little value to you. While that may be the case sometimes, Samuel makes note that with e-mail, senders are pushing demands of communication onto the recipient. Send an e-mail and you're demanding the receiver spend some of his or her valuable time dealing with it. The problem is, e-mails are so easy to send that people are increasingly throwing tasks and to-dos around to others with little thought of the consequences upon the communications overload of the recipient.

Certainly few PlusPoint readers will engage in such an extreme e-mail ignoring campaign (I'm guessing), but what do you think about the practice in general? Do you think it would help you?

A quick link from HBR blogs.

It's always interesting to see what the business world is focusing on regarding meeting/event tips, management and best practices.

Tips for saving a doomed meeting.

1. Kill agreement before it rears its ugly head.

2. Focus your emotions, get really excited, and challenge the group with a new emotional pitch.

3. Use the authoritative arc to change the flow of the conversation.

The Harvard Business Review has posted a podcast on the importance of defeating criticism before it can "go viral."

If you liked the examples of such professional reputation management (from our Nov/Dec issue) as it relates to social media actions...specifically connected to the meeting and event industry, you'll dig this.

Yes, I'm a fan of Max Brooks' books World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide.

Yes, I think it's outstanding that Mel Brooks' son is a leader in zombie fiction.

Yes, I love watching the zombie meme spread.

Accordingly, a smile crept across my face as I read the HBR headline, "The Zombie Workplace Survival Guide."

Sure, it's not as tantalizing as AMC's new series The Walking Dead, but the post uses zombie keywords and offers some good tips for preventing the spread of dangerous workplace behaviors and situations.

"In our own recent research, which includes dozens of interviews on innovation and intrapreneurship, we've noted how certain workplace practices can destroy employees' willingness to use their higher cognitive functions, like imagination and trust. Just as a virus Brooks calls "Solanum" turns people into zombies, the four contagions we describe below can create a zombie workplace — where creative people and good ideas disturbingly molder."

The four contagions in quick order:

• Imbalance between idea generation and managerial attention.
• Leaving experimenters to their own devices.
• Getting too far ahead of the curve.
• Colleagues hear your ideas as noise.

Read the complete blog post for tips on avoiding these deadly conditions!

At the recent Imagining the Future of Leadership Symposium in Cambridge, Mass., leaders of the Harvard Business School put forth their Top 10 list. What's on it? Personal arrogance, acting too fast and being certain, just to name a few. 

This video features the leaders listed below explaining their contribution to the list.

Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic 

Evan Wittenberg, Head of Global Leadership Development, Google, Inc. 

Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor, Harvard University 

Andrew Pettigrew, Professor, Sïad Business School, University of Oxford 

Gianpiero Petriglieri, Affiliate Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD 

Carl Sloane, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School 

Jonathan Doochin, Leadership Institute at Harvard College 

Scott Snook, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School and retired Colonel, US Army Corps of Engineers 

Daisy Wademan Dowling, Executive Director, Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley

So, you're struggling to get buy-in from the C-suite for some of your latest, greatest, most innovative meeting and event ideas?

Of all the possible recommendations to best accomplish this, it initially feels alien to see advice such as: "...avoid situations in which you have to sell an innovative idea to your boss." Wait...what? 

"You might succeed, but the outcome will depend on factors that have nothing to do with the merits of your idea (e.g. how you presented the idea and the mood of your boss)," says Roberto Verganti, author of Design-Driven Innovation.

This advice isn't as cut and dry as it seems at first: "...if you're pursuing radical innovation, do not sell the idea. Sell the process." Yet, I remain curious--have you experienced greater success in selling your ideas or selling the path to the ideas?