【推荐1】The start of the year is traditionally the time to make resolutions to change your behaviour. Here are some suggestions for what managers ought to resolve to do in the coming new year.

    1    

People don’t come to work just for the money. They like to feel they are making a valuable contribution. Pick something specific that a worker has done which shows extra skill or effort and single them out; ideally so that others can hear the compliment. This is particularly important for the most junior employees, who will feel anxious about their status.

Listen to your staff.

They are the people who are dealing with the bureaucracy of the organization. Their feedback is essential, beyond annual engagement surveys. You hired them for their skill and expertise: learn to rely on it.     2     If you don’t like listening to employees, go and set up as a sole trader.

Keep meetings short.

    3     Approximately 80% of the time of 80% of the people at meetings is wasted. If you doubt the numbers, have a think about the last big meeting you attended. Did everyone speak or was the discussion dominated by a small group? And what is the purpose of the meeting?    4     Big meetings involving all the staff should be reserved for big news like acquisitions or lay-offs.

Drop the team-building exercises.

Paintballing in the woods, tackling an army attack course, constructing a model of the Empire State Building from matchsticks — no one wants to go to an awayday weekend. They would much rather be at home with their families. Why not build a team by introducing its members and explaining what you want them to do? It is a lot cheaper.     5    

【推荐2】Whenever Song Jing visits a museum, she will check out the section on ancient books. Besides appreciating the wisdom hidden in these historical volumes, she also focuses on how they are bound (装帧) and presented. “It’s more like a force of habit caused by my job,” said Song.

This 34-year-old “book doctor” has been working in the restoration department for ancient books at the National Library of China in Beijing, since she finished her cultural relic protection studies course at Peking University in 2015. Up to now, she has been engaged in restoring more than 100 ancient cultural relies.

At the moment, Song and her colleagues are working on restoring a copy of Yongle Dadian, an encyclopedia created in 1408. Unfortunately, most of its books that have survived until today have suffered damage to their original binding. “To rest ore them to their original form, we need to gather information from various sources, such as images and texts, before we can make sure their original binding style and repair them accordingly,” she explained. Moreover, the ancient encyclopedia’s silk texture and color have both grown inconsistent, which makes creating the necessary raw materials and matching the color difficult.

In the past, restorers had to rely on their experience to determine the appropriate materials to use for a project. As technology has evolved, they are able to use a new method to finish the task through microscopes. However, technology can only help so much, as ancient books restoration still requires essential manual skills, including cutting and brushing paper and binding. Apart from this, the restoration also requires strong control when brushing the paper. “If the pressure is not properly controlled during the brushing process, the paper may tear, but if the touch is too light, the paper won’t adhere (黏附),” Song explained.

Owing to the meaningful and complex process, the ancient books restoration technique of the national library was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage in 2008. “Hopefully, I can be of some help in inspiring more young people to find their lifelong passion in the field of cultural heritage preservation,” said Song.