Morning Advantage: Busy Day Ahead? Pray For Rain

Common sense tells us that bad weather makes us blue and therefore less productive at our jobs, but it turns out the opposite is true. As detailed in this executive brief at HBS Working Knowledge, researchers Jooa Julie Lee, Francesca Gino, and Bradley R. Staats found that performance at a mid-sized Japanese bank peaked on the days with the worst weather, as it did in a series of lab experiments they conducted too. Here’s their theory: When the weather’s bad, our minds wander less, and we’re able to focus more because we really can’t do anything else.

Some suggestions from their research: Save drudge work for the wettest days and creative endeavors for sun-soaked days. Other ideas include using weather reports to determine the best staff size on a given day and moving service centers to cities with poor (but not entirely depressing) weather. Here’s to you, Seattle.

MESSY IN THE MIDDLE

New Middle Class Fuels Global Growth and Volatility (Oxford Analytica)

The number of middle class households worldwide is still rising as developing countries become better off, notes Oxford Analytica. But this development has slowed sharply over the last year and households everywhere appear to be saving more and borrowing less. There is also new uncertainty about emerging markets, partly because of the difficulties they will face in managing potentially dangerous consumer, property, and credit cycles. Whether developing economies can sustain the recent pace of development of their middle classes will determine the size and shape of the global consumer sector for years to come.

PRESS 1 FOR INCOMPETENCY

When Airlines Lose Children (Bob Sutton)

As told by Bob Sutton, a management scholar at Stanford, when a couple put their 10-year daughter on a flight as an unaccompanied minor, she missed her connection, and chaos ensued. The gist: No one stepped up to help the girl, and when her parents tried to resolve the situation via phone, they were transferred to numerous representatives, each of whom passed the buck. It’s a hellish story, but Sutton’s take on it makes for a great (failed) management tale. The key difference, he says, “between good and bad organizations is that, in the good ones, most everyone feels obligated and presses everyone else to do what is in their customer's and organization's best interests.” Airlines? Fail.

BONUS BITS::

Disconnection Notice

Tech Reporter Goes Offline for a Year (The Verge)
Video: The LEGO Story (YouTube)
$100 Million Apartment Up for Sale. A Penthouse Boom? (Christian Science Monitor)