The Team Building Blog

If you felt too tired to get out of bed this morning, spare a thought for Michael Lusher who was shot in the head during the early hours of Sunday 20th May 2007, but he didn’t realize it until he awoke nearly four hours later and noticed blood coming from his head!

You can't beat a good nights sleep!

In our 24/7 world, time spent sleeping is in decline so it’s little wonder that some of us find it hard to wake up in the morning.  It’s reported that we sleep at least one hour less each night than we did a half century ago.

A recent American study found that during a two-week period, 40% of workers reported fatigue. Of those, 65% reported health-related lost productive time. According to the researchers, workers with fatigue cost US employers $136.4 billion annually in health-related lost productive time.

Two-thirds of adults report frequent sleep problems, however only one in eight says those problems have been diagnosed.  The ‘sleep deprived’ are also more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular, psychiatric and gastrointestinal disease, and impaired immunity.  So it’s not just the quantity of our sleep that matters but also the quality; snoring loudly, daytime dozing, trouble falling asleep or waking unrefreshed are just a few of the signs that a person could be ‘sleep deprived’

“Sleep is sort of like food,” says Robert Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School.  He adds, there’s one important difference: “You can be quite starved and still alive. But many of us live on the edge of sleep starvation and just accept it.” Read the rest of this entry »

The recent news item about  a roadsweeper who is to be awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree by the University of Cambridge for his contribution to the city and the university is a great feel-good story. It also shows the value of a positive attitude towards your work and your environment. 

Making a positive contribution

Allan Brigham has been clearing the Cambridge streets of litter for over 30 years; he also works as a tour guide and local historian. When interviewed by the BBC about his honorary degree, he spoke with commitment about how – through his roles as cleaner, guide and historian –  he felt he could make a positive contribution to the city and its colleges. 

Although intended to be temporary, his job as a roadsweeper has given him the opportunity to get involved and contribute to the city.  His positive attitude and focus on the results of his day-to-day work have won him praise not only from the university authorities, but also from local families and businesses who see him as someone who helps to promote their city to millions of visitors each year.

To view the article including a video interview with Allan click here.

It’s generally accepted that team based working is preferable to individuals serving a single line manager, but what evidence supports this?

Sometimes being in a team can be very helpful.

Team based working gained popularity during the late 80s and 90s following initiatives such as kaizen and Total Quality Management. All too often we simply accept that the team way is the right way, but perhaps we should spend a moment testing this assumption.

Firstly, it’s worth considering different kinds of teams that can exist within an organisation; Read the rest of this entry »

The theories behind team building could be a much older than originally thought.  In fact Plato may have been  the first ever team building expert!

Plato & Aristotle possibly talking about their team building event.

For some years we’ve been saying “teams that play together, work together” and it seems that although team building is thought to be a comparatively new addition to business training Plato, one of the world’s most influential philosophers, had a similar view over 2000 years ago; “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” Plato
 
So we’d encourage you to make time to play with your colleagues this week, take a ball to the park, eat ice cream in the afternoon or play darts at lunchtime – whatever you think would be fun.  We spend most of our waking lives with our colleagues so let’s enjoy it.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers .

There is always time for a beer with friends

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. Read the rest of this entry »