Our study based on the survey reveals four core Gen Z behaviors, all anchored in one element: this generation’s search for truth. Gen Zers value individual expression and avoid labels. They mobilize themselves for a variety of causes. They believe profoundly in the efficacy of dialogue to solve conflicts and improve the world. Finally, they make decisions and relate to institutions in a highly analytical and pragmatic way. That is why, for us, Gen Z is “True Gen.” In contrast, the previous generation—the millennials, sometimes called the “me generation”—got its start in an era of economic prosperity and focuses on the self. Its members are more idealistic, more confrontational, and less willing to accept diverse points of view.

With the spotlight growing on graduate employability, it’s worth remembering that this isn’t only a matter for universities. Young people can, and should, take control of their own careers and steps to strengthen their hand, considering multiple entry points including apprenticeships. But many also need practical advice.

We asked 20 chief executives taking part in CEO for a Day, a future talent initiative run globally by Odgers Berndtson, for some of their top tips for those starting out.

This chart reveals figures related to Trussell Trust three-day emergency food supplies in December.

In her research, University of Houston professor and author Brené Brown has explored some of the reasons why we shy away from vulnerability. While we often celebrate it as a strength in other people, she discovered, we tend to see it as a weakness in ourselves.

“We love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we are afraid to let them see it in us,” she writes. “Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me.”

Neuroscience research has found that when two people are in each other's company, their brain waves will begin to look nearly identical. One study of moviegoers, for instance, found the most engaging trailers all produced similar patterns in people's brains.

"The more we study engagement, we see time and again that just being next to certain people actually aligns your brain with them," based on their mannerisms, the smell of the room, the noise level, and many other factors, Cerf said. "This means the people you hang out with actually have an impact on your engagement with reality beyond what you can explain. And one of the effects is you become alike.

Eighty years ago a team of physicians at Harvard University recruited two hundred and sixty undergraduates into a longitudinal study and followed them for life. The subjects received ongoing physical and mental health examinations, as well as assessments of personality type, career success, marital status, alcohol use, life satisfaction and more. Over the decades the study was expanded to include men and women from more diverse backgrounds.

Initially, the study identified risk factors we now take for granted, such as the harm caused by smoking, obesity, alcoholism, and loneliness. Moreover, the study went on to discover the psychological predictors of health and happiness across the lifespan.

So what psychological factors predict a long and happy life?

For years I’ve thought, “How fortunate I am to have the opportunity to work with such exceptionally good people!” But then my longtime collaborator Betty Sue Flowers suggested an alternative way of understanding these experiences. “These are not extraordinarily good people,” she said. “They are ordinary people whom you are enabling to be good through the way you are working with them.” So perhaps there are no difficult people — only situations in which people seem to us to be difficult. Flipping my perspective in this way has helped me to draw lessons from my professional life that can help us all deal with the so-called difficult others we know.

It’s not surprising that many older people feel lonely. Friends may have died, they may have lost life partners, and their family – if they have one – may live some distance away.

But, according to the survey, it’s actually young people who say they are suffering the most. Forty percent of 16-24 year olds say they feel lonely, compared with only 27% of those aged 75 or older.

The results echo those of other surveys carried out earlier in the year.

The following is an excerpt from the latest edition of the Arbinger Institute’s powerful book, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box. Since its original publication in 2000, this book has become an international word-of-mouth phenomenon, selling more copies every year. The central insight—that the key to leadership lies not in what we do but in how we see—has proven to have powerful implications not only for organizational leadership but in readers’ personal lives as well.

The excerpt, taken from the third edition, is a conversation between Tom, the protagonist, and his new boss, Bud.

Research conducted by Meng Zhu, Yang Yang, and Christopher K. Hsee found there is an inherent flaw in the human condition; we choose urgent and unimportant tasks over those tasks that are deemed more important, that require more time and effort to complete.

The researchers write, “We people may choose to perform urgent tasks with short completion windows, instead of important tasks with larger outcomes, because important tasks are more difficult and further away from goal completion, urgent tasks involve more immediate and certain payoffs or people want to finish the urgent tasks first and then work on important tasks later.”

I’ve seen every background imaginable: astronaut, prime minister, Navy SEAL. And every hobby under the sun: world-class sushi chef, axe-throwing champion, ice carver. 

Among the most memorable résumés, though, was one that listed an 18-month “community service project” that involved working on a “Friends of the Highway” project. As it turned out, the “assignment” was actually 18 months of prison time. The person didn’t get the job—but not for the reason you might suspect. It had nothing to do with the fact he’d served time, but rather because he’d so blatantly lied about it.

When you face a potential sticking point in your career history, remember your “ACT”: be authentic, make a connection and give others a taste of who you really are. This applies to writing your résumé, answering questions in job interviews and networking with others inside and outside the company.

Until recently, city leaders thought of smart technologies primarily as tools for becoming more efficient behind the scenes. Now technology is being injected more directly into the lives of residents. Smartphones have become the keys to the city, putting instant information about transit, traffic, health services, safety alerts, and community news into millions of hands.

The era of hard-talking, tyrannical managers is over – both on and off the pitch. “Football, which I love and work in, is really bad at talking,” says Caulfield. “It does instructing and telling off but it doesn’t do talking and listening and empathy that well. It sounds a bit fluffy but that’s the world in which we now live, and the world in which these players have grown up.” Southgate, he says, realised early in his coaching career that instilling fear wasn’t going to work. “We all need a telling-off now and then – and he’s good at that, by the way – but you’ll get far more from putting your faith in people than you will anything else. People had this lazy opinion that he’s too ‘nice’ and they see kindness as weakness, but it’s the most unbelievable strength if you use it in the right way.”

What is connectional intelligence? A  lot of how we measure relationships, especially in the digital world, is through the quantity of our connections. How many LinkedIn followers we have, how many twitter followers, and so on.

In my work and research, I have found that we need to shift our notion from quantity to quality because in today’s overconnected era, having a lot of networks doesn’t necessarily lead to measurable change. The key is to develop the skill of cultivating the connections you already have to drive breakthroughs.

Connectional intelligence is the skill to enable and leverage the connections you already have to create value. So, just as game changing as emotional intelligence was in the nineties, in today’s era of digital connection, we can’t just rely on EQ when most of the time we’re not in a room with one another.

We’re working on global virtual teams. We need to figure out how to really tap into the power of our networks in new and different ways. Oftentimes we find that some of the greatest ideas are deep within our own relationships. We need to be willing to be curious, to ask, to be courageous, to think about new ways of leveraging those networks and forging communities that create big results.

All of my firm’s projects bring together diverse teams to try to make progress on complex and contentious public issues. No single party controls the outcome, and we can’t know in advance what will work, so things often unfold differently than planned. Through these experiences, I’ve come to view unexpected results not as a problem but as a spur for the learning and adaptation we need to do. Improvisation, therefore, is a sign not of failure, but of success. There are structured ways to improvise, though, that will help ensure big bumps in the road don’t throw you completely off course.

We produce 2.5 exabytes of data every day. That’s equivalent to 250,000 Libraries of Congress or the content of 5 million laptops. Every minute of every day 3.2 billion global internet users continue to feed the data banks with 9,722 pins on Pinterest, 347,222 tweets, 4.2 million Facebook likes plus ALL the other data we create by taking pictures and videos, saving documents, opening accounts and more.

My definition of caring about something includes both the emotional act of caring and the physical action of doing something about it. I do believe most CEOs care emotionally about burnout, but not enough are actually doing something about it. But let’s be clear, your CEO has the power to do almost anything she/he wants, especially when times are good, so they bear the responsibility for a burnout crisis.

This year I spoke at or attended a total of 12 conferences. At all of the ones I spoke at I typically asked 2 questions:

How many of you have experienced serious burnout from work?
How many of you have been through a merger or acquisition event in the last 5 years?

At every one of the conferences, at least three-fourths of the audience, ranging from 50 – 400 in size, raised their hands both times. Seeing all the hands go up quickly was both impressive and sad. However not surprising.

A coach is a person who is responsible for managing and training a person or team; an expert who trains someone learning or improving a skill. (dictionary.cambridge.org/us) This somewhat narrow definition doesn’t quite grasp the coaching I offer to clients. But it does present a dilemma.

Some persons, including many leaders, aren’t ready to learn or grow. No amount of effort on my part will make much difference. It’s sad to see promising talent and skill squandered.

I recently did a podcast interview with someone I once mentored and coached. Here is the link if you would like to learn more about his experience. What’s Really Good Podcast.

What struck me most about Nathan’s journey was just how open and vulnerable he was during the coaching process. He credits me for much of his success but I would make the case that it was really his receptivity, discipline, and effort that made the difference. I was just a catalyst for change.

Why might you benefit from having a coach?

Buzzwords like “deep learning” and “neural networks” are everywhere, but so much of the popular understanding is misguided, says Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Sejnowski, a pioneer in the study of learning algorithms, is the author of The Deep Learning Revolution (out next week from MIT Press). He argues that the hype about killer AI or robots making us obsolete ignores exciting possibilities happening in the fields of computer science and neuroscience, and what can happen when artificial intelligence meets human intelligence.

The Verge spoke to Sejnkowski about how “deep learning” suddenly became everywhere, what it can and cannot do, and the problem of hype.

Looking to get ahead in your career? Start by being nice to your coworkers, says leadership researcher Christine Porath. In this science-backed talk, she shares surprising insights about the costs of rudeness and shows how little acts of respect can boost your professional success -- and your company's bottom line.

Starting 15 years ago, scientists have been studying the complex and mysterious emotion called awe—one you might have felt if you’ve stood in front of the Taj Mahal, hiked among towering redwoods, or had your mind blown at a concert, play, or ballet.

Inducing goosebumps and dropped jaws, awe experiences are remarkable in their own right. Moreover, a growing body of research suggests that experiencing awe may lead to a wide range of benefits, from happiness and health to perhaps more unexpected benefits such as generosity, humility, and critical thinking.

In our busy lives, seeking awe may be low on our list of priorities. But we might be underestimating its power. “One simple prescription can have transformative effects: Look for more daily experiences of awe,” writes the GGSC’s Dacher Keltner.

The latest research suggests that taking the time to experience awe—whether through engaging with nature, enjoying great art or music, or even bingeing on breathtaking YouTube videos—may be a pathway to improving your life and relationships.

Many people are familiar with the stereotype of the hard-working, rote memorization, myopic tunnel vision of Eastern Asian study and work ethics. Many of these countries, like China, Singapore, and Japan amongst others routinely rank in the number one spots in both math and science.

Some pundits point towards this model of exhaustive brain draining as something Americans should aspire to become. Work more! Study harder! Live less. The facts and figures don’t lie – these countries are outperforming us, but there might be a better and healthier way to go about this.

Finland is the answer – a country rich in intellectual and educational reform has initiated over the years a number of novel and simple changes that have completely revolutionized their educational system. They outrank the United States and are gaining on Eastern Asian countries.

Are they cramming in dimly-lit rooms on robotic schedules?  Nope. Stressing over standardized tests enacted by the government? No way. Finland is leading the way because of common-sense practices and a holistic teaching environment that strives for equity over excellence. Here are 10 reasons why Finland’s education system is dominating America and the world stage

As new technologies emerge in what some have dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, innovative companies have already begun to adapt, prompting reevaluations of workforce development strategies. Artificial intelligence, in particular, brings new possibilities -- like increased productivity and innovation. It also has sweeping implications for employee skill sets.

On the face of it, maybe not. University professors, some of the most learned individuals in the world, are not generally known for their intellectual humility. And plenty of successful scientists, CEOs, doctors, artists, and political leaders master their trades without appearing to develop much intellectual humility.

Then again, as Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar noted, believing that you “must be right”—in other words, lacking intellectual humility—can actually stymie discovery, learning, and progress.

Given this puzzle, my colleagues and I set out to test whether intellectual humility was empirically associated with learning outcomes.

For people smack in the mad mid-life rush of managing full-time careers, dependent children, and aging parents, nothing feels so short in supply as time.

But there is time to get it all done, says psychologist Laura Carstensen, the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. The only problem is that we’ve arranged life all wrong.

A woman who is 40 years old today can expect to live another 45 years, on average, while 5% will live to see their 100th birthday. The average 40-year-old man will live another 42. For many people, most of those years will be healthy enough to continue work that doesn’t involve intense physical labor. So why are we still packing all of our career and family obligations into a few frantic decades?