Monday June 23, 2014 – 12pm
Posted Jun 23, 2014 02:32:26 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
12:00- Vanessa Buote, Scientist-in-residence and Jim Moss, CEO at Plasticity Labs
The World Cup is actually good for worker productivity. Your office staffers are huddled in an impassioned debate over which nation has the better logo. That’s when you shed a tear for productivity during this beautiful month for the beautiful game. By July 13, the boys from Brazil will have punted your crew’s performance level to new lows.
Managers must embrace the Mario Balotelli-mania, says Wilfrid Laurier University post-doctoral fellow Vanessa Buote. She’s an expert in social psychology and the scientist in residence at Kitchener-based Plasticity Labs. “It’s about thinking about these events in a positive light,” Buote said. “Now, can I use this event to benefit my team and company?” Of course, you can, she says. Happy employees are, well, happy employees. Strangely enough, that’s what a Plasticity experiment with 65 participants-done last month by its Laurier researchers-showed. Treat people well, they will be more productive in the long-term. They won’t be calling in with the FIFA flu.
12:30- Colin Jose, Historian at Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum
Canada may not have a team at the World Cup in Brazil, but over a hundred years ago, we struck gold at the Olympic Games, thanks to a team from Galt! The year was 1904, when a group of young men, most of them recruited from Galt Collegiate Institute, boarded a train bound for St. Louis. The Galt Football Club was a powerhouse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dominating the Western Football Association, which was formed in the town of Berlin in 1880. After handily defeating a Toronto team, an offer to compete at the 1904 Olympics was accepted, and off they went via the Grand Trunk Railway for St. Louis, where they beat 2 American teams by a combined score of 14-0.
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