This is a great 7 minute audio clip with Dan Goleman in conversation with George Kohlrieser of the IMD business school, about the importance of leaders to paying focused attention, in order to create a culture of sustained employee attention. 

Leadership mood appears to be contagious (see my blogpost here: http://bit.ly/1jCryqJ).

Dan blows apart the mistaken belief that leaders need to focus on what their teams are doing poorly, explaining how negative feedback triggers the amygdala and sabotages employees abilities to perform well. And George talks about how Leaders can deliver bad news from a positive and caring place, in order to allow their teams to hear and respond appropriately.

Click here for the 7 minute audio clip on the More than Sound website:
http://morethansound.net/2013/12/20/ep-108-kohlrieser-goleman-talk-focus/#.Uv0VO0J_uFF

George Kohlrieser is professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD, and author of "Hostage At The Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance"

A short and sweet HuffPost article on the developmental stages of children's attention, and why it's important for emotional regulation. 

It's in their third year that toddlers are able to focus at will, to ignore distractions, and inhibit their impulses. Thereafter, young children begin making choiceful decisions, applying willpower demonstrating self-discipline. By the age of eight, most children have mastery on their mental attention which allows the development of brain pathways for cognitive skills like reading and writing.

Link to the short article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-goleman/-how-children-learn-self_b_4303423.html

In this 4 minute video from HuffPost Healthy Living, French ex-molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk, confidante of HH The Dalai Lama, and "happiest person in the world" explains the difference between empathy and compassion. 

Whilst empathy required feeling the pain of others, and was not sustainable, compassion activated a different area of his brain under fMRI scanning, and could be practiced for far longer without any distress.

This knowledge is important as we think about how to improve compassionate caregiving, in our Health Service, in caring professions and in society.

We now know that compassion is linked to positive emotions. During the research with Tania Singer at the Max Planck Institute, it became clear that the phenomenon we think of as burn out is due to "empathy fatigue", rather than "compassionate fatigue". Matthieu says "In fact, compassion far from leading to distress and discouragement strengthens our fortitude, our inner balance and our courageous determination to help those who suffer. In essence, from our point of view, love and compassion do not wear out. Rather they help to overcome empathic distress.


Click to Link  http://huff.to/19VQupN

Two big hitters in the world of behavioural neuroscience on why we should be more playful at work, and why this is especially true for leaders!
http://bit.ly/1j8KPgC

http://www.emergingwomen.com/2014/01/power-practices-the-self-compassion-break-with-kristin-neff/

Tickets are still available for the Action for Happiness Event -  An Evening with Daniel Goleman 
Thursday, 24 October 2013 from 18:30 to 20:30 at the Camden Centre, Euston Road, London WC1H 9JE