As a good leader, you’re probably thinking about the next challenge for your team. In order to maintain a successful team it’s important to hold on to your best players, and to understand the triggers that might cause them to leave.
Whilst we can innovate alone, the best ideas are often generated by teams – Read our five tips below to find out how to generate some innovation with your team and improve performance.
Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Anita Roddick are all recognised as outstanding leaders, not just because they made good decisions but because they motivated the people who followed them, especially when they took to the stage and airwaves.
With the current communication methods of Zoom throughout the pandemic, it may be the case that many of these great leaders may have had to communicate virtually!
Psychologists now agree that our personalities become almost completely hardwired by the time we are 4! But what does this mean for your work team?
This may sound ridiculous but if we compare two young siblings, with the same parents and a very similar upbringing, the chances are that they will have quite different personalities. One may be outgoing and gregarious while the other is reserved and prefers to read a good book. One might be cautious while the other embraces risk. One might be competitive while the other prefers to collaborate. Despite coming from the same home, siblings rarely share the same core motivations.
Applying this to a team, people are motivated by different stimuli, one person will feel a sense of achievement when the numbers demonstrate an increase in sales or productivity, whereas another will be more compelled by the positive impact they can have on other people.
When we can identify a colleague’s Motivational Value System (their hard wiring) we can communicate and collaborate much more quickly and effectively. Interestingly, behaviour is often not an accurate indicator of a person’s Motivational Value System. This is because most of us have become very skilled at managing our behaviour, especially at work. To discover what really makes team members tick we suggest using the Strength Deployment Inventory.
Each team member simply completes a 15 minute questionnaire from which we can plot their Motivational Value System, we do this graphically so it’s possible to see the team as a whole and notice where similarities and differences between colleagues appear.
To find out more about how the Strength Deployment Inventory can improve communication and harmony in your team click here or if you prefer, get in touch with us.
For some an invitation to a company conference fills them with dread.
It’s a sad fact that most conference delegates simply ‘show up’ without considering how they can get the most from the day.
Whilst conferences of the past may have been a bit dull, 2021 and the advent of virtual conferences now means many will be jumping at the chance to get a way to a physical event.
With COVID leading to many conferences being moved online, here we take a look at physical events and how they can be improved once we get back to the normal events world!
Many of us have a favourite type of chocolate – a classic bar of milk chocolate, perhaps a chunky bar of fruit & nut, the rich taste of a 70% cocoa variety, or a mix of flavours such as sea salt and lime, chilli or ginger. Regardless of your preferred flavour, one of the key factors in enjoying chocolate has always been the “mouthfeel” as you pop it in your mouth and feel it melt.
When you are trying to get the most out of your team it can be very difficult to work out what you need to do and what the most productive way of spending your training time is.
Can having fun at work boost productivity? Professor Babis Mainemelis from London Business School thinks so, his study with Sarah Ronson found that: “Play at work improves employees’ motivational and cognitive processes and diversionary play fosters creativity.”