Fearless Leadership – Storytelling

Storytelling is older than the written word. In that sense it is prehistoric. Ever since we noticed one another we have wanted to make contact. This is as true today as it has always been. Be that in the boardroom, the classroom or over the kitchen table.

Quote by John Steinbeck

So why is that ? What does storytelling do that makes it so different from other communication. Simply put, storytelling connects the heart to the head . It takes thinking into feeling and travels imagination into action like nothing else. It can make information engaging and inspiring and it is the seat of positive relationship.In spite of educational norms that extol a cognitive approach to learning, storytelling embraces a more holistic perspective by combining thinking, feeling and doing to inform, engage and inspire….

5 Steps Towards Better Meetings

Want your team to perform like champions? Use the pointers below to keep your meetings on track.

In the meantime, here are some quick pointers inspired by a Japanese car manufacturer that has meeting guidelines pinned to the wall of every conference room. Why not paste these meeting guidelines alongside agendas to keep your meetings on track:…

Vodafone Fail to Make the Connection

If you’ve travelled on the London Underground recently you might have seen a series of posters featuring team building exercises.

Smart phones might be clever but even they have their limitations.

Vodafone have launched an advertising campaign suggesting that with their service teams can connect without the need to spend time together.

We would challenge this assumption on the basis that whilst it is possible to convey information by phone it’s almost impossible to build trust.

Trust is the single greatest differential between good and bad teams and to build trust takes a combination of time, commitment, shared experience and common values.

Smart phones might be clever but even they have their limitations.

What are your thoughts?

The Language(s) of Love – for Teams

As we celebrate St Valentine’s Day it brings to mind Dr Gary Chapman’s theory that there are five Love Languages.

What is your team's language of love?

These are the different ways in which we show and receive appreciation, not just from our nearest and dearest but also from colleagues in our teams and our managers.  Dr Chapman suggests that each of us favours one particular Love Language over the other four and whilst his work is focussed towards married couples, his theory can be applied in part to those leading teams….

The end of email? 5 tips for reducing email overload

James Murdoch must be wishing News International had stuck with printed memos as the Leveson enquiry threatens to pin the blame on him for the phone hacking scandal.

Having a problem with too many emails? Some solutions to this will be part of our next event "How to be more Productive with Less Stress" on Friday 16th March 2012

The rest of us face the daily battle to select the important from the apparently urgent, as we try to spend time on the priorities that will drive our organisations forward and not fall into the trap of our Inbox becoming our To Do List. Some solutions to this will be part of our next workshop “How to be more Productive with Less Stress” on Friday 16th March 2012.

The Financial Times recently reported that…

Five Top Tips to Take your Team into 2012

It’s not much fun waking up early and joining the crowds to return to work on a cold January morning.

So here are five ideas to welcome and motivate your team at the start of the New Year:

1. Restate the vision: the best teams share the same goals and values, so be sure your team knows where they are headed and why.
2. Shout about the good news: don’t let the January blues get to your team, publicise all the good stuff that’s happening in your organisation, sector and city.
3. Celebrate what’s good about 2012: the Olympics in London, Spring getting closer, new products in the pipeline.
4. Innovate together: after a break our minds are fresher and the ideas will flow. Create some time to be imaginative as a team before the routine takes over.
5. Book a team away day in the diary: now that the Christmas party is a fading memory set the date for your next team event.

Large scale team building event – when co-operation is the name of the game

The very nature of team building activities encourages participants to co-operate with their team members to achieve success, but a lot of these activities rely on competition rather than co-operation.

The Team Machine, an energetic, large scale team building exercise requiring participants to co-operate with other teams to achieve a common goal

Messages about the importance of co-operation and communication across the whole organisation rather than just within a small team can therefore be missed. With this in mind Fresh Tracks developed a new large scale team building exercise a couple of years ago – The Team Machine – based on a construction exercise that many will recognise from their childhood….

Five Ways to Resolve Conflict in Your Team

From time to time most teams experience a falling out among team members. If not quickly resolved this can have a significant impact not just on the people in dispute but also on their colleagues.

If not quickly resolved conflict can have a significant impact on the people in the dispute and also their colleagues

Here are a few thoughts to help your team to deal with the discord:…

Manners versus Productivity

When I was a boy my dad used to frequently remind me of the adage: “Manners maketh the man”. Now as a parent myself I see why he did this – good manners give a child a distinct advantage over their contemporaries.

So, if manners can maketh the man, are they good for business?

Adults are more inclined to listen to the opinions of a well-mannered child, they more readily submit to their requests on hearing a sincere ‘please’ and are more likely to remember the birthday of a child who always sends a thank you note.

Despite our determination to instill these habits into the next generation, many of us seem less inclined to maintain the same degree of good manners in the workplace….

Five things a leader should do to get the best out of their team

In the numerous obituaries that have been published for Steve Jobs, the word visionary seems to be the most quoted adjective in an attempt to define his leadership style.

Steve Jobs always had a vision, even in the early days, and he knew how to inspire people with it.

There’s no doubt that teams need their leader to be clear about what they are aiming for, but it takes more than a vision to get the best from a team in the long term.  So here are five things a leader should do to get the best out of their team:…