Science + comedy = super (soft skills) edutainment!

We were delighted to welcome comedian and medical doctor, Fabian Unteregger, as a guest lecturer for our business administration master seminar, “No funny business? Leadership soft skills for a digital, dispersed, and diverse age” at the University of Zurich.

After I presented an overview of the current science on behavioral humor, Fabian presented tips and tricks of successful humor use in professional settings. By the way, he also scored a 4/4 (100%) on our pop quiz that day, showing that my students aren’t the only ones who are soft skills experts!

What a fun (and funny) way to learn about leadership soft skills with this scholar-comedian combo.

No funny business: Leadership soft skills for a digital, dispersed, and diverse age

I’m delighted to share that I just won a Lehrkredit teaching innovation grant to develop and lead a new course on soft skills for our future leaders at the University of Zurich.

Such a course is increasingly necessary in light of the rising rates of digital disruptions, computer-mediated-communication, and employee diversity, as soft skills like humor separate humans from robots and are critical for successfully interacting with people with diverse backgrounds and interests. This interdisciplinary course will blend science and practice with an all-star line-up of guest lecturers (e.g., Swiss comedian Fabian Unteregger).

Master's students will get the first chance to participate in this course in Fall 2019, after which it will be offered once more for master’s students (in Spring 2020) and again for PhD students (in Fall 2020).

"Work-Life & Diversity at the University" Student Poster Session

During our poster session on Friday, December 9th, at PLM-103/104 (Plattenstrasse 14), my 16 Master-level HRM students presented 5 empirical research projects around the topic of "Work-Life & Diversity," showcasing their original analyses using data collected from ~2,000 early career academics from all over Switzerland. 

For more info, see our flyer, handout, as well as all 5 posters here.