Tips for the application and development of the social and leadership competencies

Green behaviour at work

Climate change, biodiversity loss, raw material extraction and environmental pollution affect us all. Integrating sustainability into our daily activities and adopting resource-conserving behaviour are our shared responsibility. Research suggests that engaging in green behaviour at work leads to higher levels of engagement in our jobs and increased levels of self-esteem and well-being (external page Ones & Dilchert, 2013; external page Zhang et al., 2021). According to the ETH Sustainability Office there are many simple actions we at ETH can take to make our workplace eco-friendlier. These include:

Mobility

• If possible, travel to work by public transport, bike or on foot (more information here).
• Fly less and use virtual alternatives instead or plan to travel by train.
• Actually go to events for which you are registered in order to avoid wasting food.

Purchasing

• Give preference to sustainable options when making procurement decisions.
• Share office space and laboratory equipment.
• Reuse things that are needed and return things that are not needed (EquipSent, hardware sale).

Everyday office life

• Reduce room temperature and adapt to the recommendations of the ETH Task Force on Energy Shortages.
• Reduce the brightness of monitors.
• Switch off laptops and other devices when not in use and avoid standby (savings of 80% possible).
• Only print documents when necessary and avoid single-sided colour printing.
• Turn off the water when soaping your hands.
• Choose a vegetarian or vegan menu for lunch.
• Model and address sustainable behaviour, including how to deal with conflicting goals.

 

Enhancing your cognitive flexibility

Driving innovation in a competitive academic environment is a challenging task. It takes courage, openness, deep-?rooted curiosity and, more importantly, a high degree of cognitive flexibility ¨C in other words, the ability to adapt your thoughts and actions to changing environmental demands.

We asked scientists in the field of COLAB in the Technology and Innovation Management Group how they think people can enhance their cognitive flexibility. They answered that when making a decision, you can practice cognitive flexibility by:

• Adopting a bird¡¯s eye view: imagine that you are looking down on yourself and question the decision that you are about to make. This fosters meta-?cognition ¨C makes you think about your thinking.
• Stretching your attention: before you engage in a task, ask yourself if you have taken various sources of the latest information into account (from different people and fields). This fosters information processing.
• Stopping and briefly thinking twice: is the default answer the correct one? This inhibits a compulsive response.

For more information on a related project, please click here. 

Unconscious bias ¨C Can it be overcome?

Unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias) refers to our tendency to make judgments based upon social stereotypes and beliefs that we unconsciously harbour about groups of people. We all have unconscious biases. Although we are unaware of them, taking a simple external page test can be a very enlightening experience. Is there anything we can do about them?

Here are just a few tips from Raphaela Hettlage at ETH Diversity:

• Learn about them: You need to understand them before you can address them.
• Talk about them: Everyone has unconscious biases, and talking about them can raise our collective awareness of them.
• Don¡¯t overestimate yourself: You can¡¯t eradicate unconscious biases.
• View this as an ongoing journey: Every day offers you a new opportunity to reflect upon your unconscious biases and the detrimental effects they have on you and others.

To help you understand more about unconscious biases, ETH has recently launched a new e-learning course.