Latest news with #jobcrafting
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive Interview: Jenny Chatman Charts A New Course For Berkeley Haas
UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Dean Jenny Chatman: 'How can we help students job craft, advocate for roles that don't exist yet, and help employers understand what Haas graduates bring? That's where I'll be spending more time and effort' Jenny Chatman knows UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business from every angle — as a student, professor, culture-builder, and interim dean. On July 1, she officially takes the helm as the school's 16th dean, armed with a goal to bring structure, visibility, and strategic focus to a business school she calls 'a hidden treasure.' 'My goal is to unhide the treasure,' Chatman tells Poets&Quants in an exclusive interview. 'Haas has had a huge amount of expertise and a wide range of opportunities, but not a structure that assembles the assets in a navigable way for students. That's going to be a lot of what I'm doing.' From advancing AI offerings to strengthening student outcomes and expanding programs like the Flex MBA and Master of Financial Engineering program, Chatman is putting her cultural leadership theory into practice. As she prepares to officially assume the deanship, her agenda reflects both her research and her experience: lead with clarity, empower through collaboration, and scale with purpose. Chatman's relationship with Haas runs deep. She earned her BA in psychology from Berkeley in 1981 and a Ph.D. from the business school in 1988. She returned to join the faculty in 1993, eventually becoming the Paul J. Cortese Distinguished Professor of Management and one of the world's foremost experts on workplace culture and leadership. Her appointment as dean was announced June 16 by UC Berkeley Executive Vice Chancellor Ben Hermalin and Chancellor Rich Lyons, himself a former Haas dean. Lyons called her 'the right leader' for a rapidly evolving educational landscape — someone who understands both innovation and institutional integrity. That mix is reflected in Chatman's approach to the deanship. She plans to conduct a listening tour to inform a more precise school-wide strategy while also accelerating initiatives in four key areas: sustainability, AI, healthcare, and entrepreneurship. 'I want to make sure I really understand where we are in every part of the school,' Chatman says. 'But I also feel ready to hit the ground running.' Jennifer Chatman welcoming the crowd to the 2025 MBA Commencement at the Greek Theatre. The Haas School of Business removed the 'interim' tag from Chatman's deanship on Monday (June 16). Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small AI will, of course, be an area of significant focus. Haas already offers nearly 40 courses with AI content. Under Chatman, the school is fast-tracking approval of a formal AI certificate, with plans to launch a concentration for full-time MBA students by fall 2025 and later expand the offering to Evening & Weekend MBA students. Students could list the credential on their resumes before graduation. The effort is supported by a deep faculty bench working across marketing, healthcare, innovation, and more. Among them: Zsolt Katona, an early adopter of AI tools in marketing; Jonathan Kolstad, whose Center for Healthcare Marketplace Innovation explores AI's medical applications; and Toby Stuart, who leads the school's Entrepreneurship & Innovation faculty group and Silicon Valley immersion programs. 'We want our students to shine, and we want our brand to reflect the incredible work happening here,' Chatman says. 'We're not just teaching AI — we're helping students understand where it adds value and where it falls short.' She'll take the same approach to sustainability, healthcare, and entrepreneurship: aligning curriculum, research, and extracurricular resources in a more integrated way to help students navigate opportunities and develop market-ready skills. A longtime advocate of student-centered leadership, Chatman has already led significant investments in the student experience — especially in the full-time and Evening & Weekend MBA programs. 'We looked at our MBA program three years ago and asked: What needs to change?' she says. 'We've been working on every juncture to make the experience more timely and more relevant.' Career outcomes are a top priority — especially as students pursue less traditional paths. From climate leadership to startup ventures, Haas graduates are forging new roles in evolving markets. Chatman says career services must adapt accordingly. 'How can we help students job craft, advocate for roles that don't exist yet, and help employers understand what Haas graduates bring?' she asks. 'That's where I'll be spending more time and effort.' She's also led the launch of the school's dual MBA/Master of Climate Solutions program and helped Haas graduate its first Flex MBA cohort this spring — a program already in high demand and targeted for expansion, especially in underrepresented regions like Asia. 'This is a daunting job. What comforts me is the incredible people around me — people who are smart, expert, and deeply committed to our public mission' Chatman is equally enthusiastic about the Spieker Undergraduate Business Program, which transitioned Haas from a two-year to a four-year undergraduate model. By 2027, it will double in size to more than 1,100 students. 'These students are like a shot in the arm of sheer goodness,' she says. 'They're getting summer internships, thriving in class, and engaging in rich, rigorous learning experiences.' Still, with an ultra-competitive 4% acceptance rate, Chatman is working to ensure that top talent isn't lost due to space constraints. She's in conversations with campus leadership to expand access and visibility. Another of Chatman's early contributions is the creation of a Strategy and Growth Committee within the Haas Advisory Board — a rotating, high-impact group of members who meet more frequently to help refine major initiatives. 'They help uncover weaknesses in ideas and make them bulletproof,' she says. 'If they said thumbs down, I would take that very seriously.' Among the first initiatives: Haas Ventures, a fund still in the planning stages that will back startups founded by Haas and Berkeley-affiliated entrepreneurs. She's also asked Berkeley Executive Education CEO Mike Rielly to double its annual revenue from $40 million to $80 million in five years — a target she says the board is helping pursue. Until now, Chatman was perhaps best known at Haas as co-creator of the school's Defining Leadership Principles, or DLPs: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. She calls them the 'glue' of Haas culture — and under her deanship, they're back in full force. 'There are over 180 processes tied to the DLPs,' she says. 'We're leaning back in, because they're distinctive for the school and incredibly useful for our students.' As interim dean, Chatman visited every first-year class to share the DLPs' history and invite students to define what they mean to them personally. They're used in admissions, faculty evaluations, classroom decision-making, and alumni engagement — and Chatman wants them even more deeply embedded in the coming years. Asked to reflect on her leadership style, Chatman returns to her research. Narcissistic leadership, she says, threatens organizations by isolating decision-making and failing to bring others along. If the school is an orchestra, she sees herself as a conductor — not a soloist — and credits her management team, faculty, students, and alumni with helping shape every major decision. 'This is a daunting job,' she says. 'What comforts me is the incredible people around me — people who are smart, expert, and deeply committed to our public mission.' That mission is also at the heart of her message to future applicants. 'If you want to help define what's next — and you want to do it in a collaborative, ethical way — then Berkeley Haas is the place for you,' Chatman says. 'This is the human edge of innovation. And it's what makes us different.' DON'T MISS and The post Exclusive Interview: Jenny Chatman Charts A New Course For Berkeley Haas appeared first on Poets&Quants. 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Forbes
10-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Strategic Withdrawal Vs. Checking Out
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD // Founder and CEO, Human Capital Innovations // Chief Academic & Learning Officer, HCI Academy. Throughout my consulting career, I've observed a concerning pattern: In their quest to make work more tolerable, many professionals inadvertently make it less meaningful. I have found there to be a critical distinction between avoidance-oriented job crafting and escape-oriented disengagement, which has significant implications for employee engagement and organizational performance. While they may appear similar on the surface, these behaviors stem from different motivations and lead to markedly different outcomes. By understanding this nuanced relationship, leaders and HR professionals can develop more effective interventions that address the underlying causes of disengagement rather than merely treating its symptoms. Job crafting is the physical and cognitive changes individuals make to tasks or relational boundaries of their work. This pioneering research of Wrzesniewski and Dutton recognized that employees aren't passive recipients of job design but active shapers of their work experience. The concept has continued to evolve to encompass a variety of dimensions, such as being viewed through the lens of job demands-resources theory. In my work with healthcare professionals, I have found that understanding job crafting as a multidimensional construct is essential. Job crafting isn't simply "good" or "bad"—its impact depends on how and why it's employed. This nuance becomes particularly important when examining avoidant forms of job crafting. Research has identified several key dimensions of job crafting: • Increasing structural job resources (seeking opportunities for development) • Increasing social job resources (seeking feedback or coaching) • Increasing challenging job demands (initiating new projects) • Decreasing hindering job demands (reducing emotional or cognitive strain) This final dimension—decreasing hindering demands—is where avoidant job crafting typically manifests, though not all demand-reduction behaviors are inherently avoidant. Avoidant job crafting refers to behaviors aimed at reducing aspects of work that employees find aversive, threatening or excessively demanding. Unlike approach-oriented crafting (which adds positive elements to work), avoidant crafting focuses on minimizing negative elements. In my work with technology companies, I've documented several common avoidant crafting behaviors: • Reducing interaction with difficult colleagues or clients • Delegating emotionally taxing tasks • Creating procedural barriers that limit exposure to stressful situations • Narrowing job scope to focus on less challenging responsibilities • Restructuring workflows to minimize cognitive load These behaviors aren't inherently problematic—indeed, they can be adaptive responses to genuinely hindering demands. The critical distinction lies in the intent behind these behaviors and whether they represent strategic boundary management or the beginning of psychological withdrawal. Research has distinguished between avoidance-oriented crafting aimed at self-protection versus avoidance behavior stemming from disengagement. The former represents a calculated effort to preserve resources and maintain functioning; the latter reflects giving up. Work disengagement represents a psychological state characterized by emotional, cognitive and behavioral withdrawal from work roles. Kahn, who pioneered engagement research, described disengagement as the "uncoupling of selves from work roles," resulting in passive, incomplete role performances. Disengagement exists on a continuum, from mild detachment to complete psychological withdrawal. Research suggests disengagement isn't simply the absence of engagement but a distinct psychological state with its own antecedents and consequences. Escape-oriented behaviors differ fundamentally from avoidant job crafting. While both involve reducing certain aspects of work, escape behaviors are: • Reactive rather than strategic • Motivated by withdrawal rather than preservation • Lacking in compensatory engagement elsewhere • Characterized by psychological resignation rather than adaptation In my consulting work with financial institutions, I observed employees who superficially displayed similar behaviors—reducing meeting attendance, limiting client interaction—but with profoundly different motivations and outcomes. Those engaged in strategic avoidant crafting redirected energy to value-adding activities; those exhibiting escape behaviors simply withdrew without compensatory engagement. The key distinction between avoidant job crafting and escape-oriented disengagement lies in motivation. Recent research found that avoidant crafting is often preventive—aimed at preserving resources and preventing burnout—while escape behaviors are primarily defensive and withdrawal-oriented. In my own research interviews, employees engaging in avoidant crafting consistently expressed motivation to optimize their work experience, while those experiencing disengagement described motivation to minimize their work presence entirely. This distinction in intent produces markedly different outcomes. The consequences of avoidant job crafting versus escape-oriented disengagement differ significantly: Avoidant job crafting potential outcomes: • Can preserve mental health and prevent burnout • May lead to increased engagement in preferred work aspects • Often results in sustainable performance maintenance • Typically maintains professional identity and meaning Escape-oriented disengagement potential outcomes: • Associated with decreased overall well-being • Leads to diminished performance across all work domains • Results in reduced organizational commitment • Often precipitates turnover intentions Distinguishing strategic avoidant crafting from disengagement requires attention to both behaviors and motivations. Based on my consulting experience, I recommend assessing: • Whether the reduction in certain activities corresponds with increased investment elsewhere • The employee's articulated rationale for behavioral changes • Whether performance on core metrics remains stable • The presence of continued discretionary effort • Whether professional relationships remain intact Organizations can encourage adaptive forms of avoidant crafting while minimizing risks of disengagement through: • Creating psychological safety: Psychological safety allows employees to engage in appropriate boundary-setting without fear of repercussion. • Developing crafting competence: In my work with pharmaceutical research teams, crafting workshops that explicitly taught strategic avoidance techniques (alongside approach-oriented strategies) resulted in higher engagement scores compared to control groups. • Encouraging collaborative crafting: When teams craft together, individual avoidance behaviors remain visible and accountable. • Addressing underlying issues: Often, excessive avoidant crafting signals legitimate organizational problems. My work with university faculty revealed that increasing administrative demands drove avoidant crafting; addressing these root causes proved more effective than targeting the crafting behaviors themselves. Understanding avoidant job crafting versus escape-oriented disengagement is crucial for today's leaders. As work intensifies, employees naturally adapt to manage demands. Rather than universally discouraging or ignoring avoidant behaviors, organizations should recognize underlying motivations and create environments where such strategies become sustainable adaptations rather than paths to disengagement. By acknowledging that "avoidance" differs from "escape," I have found that leaders can foster workplaces where employees modify roles positively, sustaining both engagement and performance in our increasingly autonomous work environment. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
ABC News
02-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Is productivity a scam? How to avoid burnout at work
Do you ever feel a sinking sensation that you're not being "productive' enough? It doesn't just hit at work either, it can tarnish weekends with a weird sense of guilt. Hyper-productivity isn't the answer, that leads to burnout. So, how do we find a happy medium? Guest: Lisa Leong, host of This Working Life. ------ If you're keen to opt out of the cult of productivity, check out Lisa's last time on Quick Smart. You might also like our episode on how to make big life decisions. Lisa's podcast, This Working Life, has you covered on all things career and mental health, and here's the episode on 'job-crafting' she mentioned in our chat. If you enjoyed this episode, drop us an email us at
