The Team Machine in action!

The Team Machine is an fun team building event that requires participants to co-operate with other teams to achieve a common goal.

Each team is given a set of building materials to create a moving sculpture. The plans are muddled requiring sharing of data before building can commence. Components must be assembled in just the right way for the individual mechanisms to work. Later the teams must work together to find the correct sequence of mechanisms, so that, once launched each element will trigger the next in a chain reaction building to an explosive finale!

Have a look at The Team Machine in action at a recent Fresh Tracks team building event.

So you want to work at Apple

While researching how to retain innovation, energy and culture for a fast growing client we stumbled across this recruitment film by Apple.  It’s a fascinating insight into a business which constantly strives to improve.

A few sound bites:

“Thinking outside the box, it’s funny we don’t really think about the box”

“One of the unique things about Apple is the level of cross collaboration between groups”

“The difference between a good product and a great product is attention to detail”

Team Meeting Energiser

People repeatedly tell us that their team meetings are dull and unproductive so here’s an amusing and inspiring little video clip that could kick off a useful discussion about ‘What we should say as a team more often…’

Have fun: do good

We agree with the folks at  www.funtheory.com when they say ‘fun can obviously change behaviour for the better’  Take a moment to enjoy their film of the World’s Deepest Bin and call us to find out how having fun together could improve your workplace.

5 Ways to Love your Valentine

It was only after I bought my wife an expensive birthday gift that I learned that the way to her heart was not through extravagant gestures.

The 5 Love Languages Trailer from Dr. Gary Chapman on Vimeo.

10 years ago, Dr Gary Chapman, a marriage counsellor wrote a book entitled The 5 Love Languages. In it he suggests that each of us feel love in one of five different ways. Like language, we may communicate in multiple dialects but we will tend to favour our ‘first language’ over all others. …

Upbeat Conference Activity

Overcome the graveyard shift and inject some energy into your next meeting with one of our body percussion workshops.

In as little as 15 minutes our percussion experts can bring energy and rhythm to a conference, a great session opener or post lunch energiser.

Is Stress Good? The Science Explains

In this excellent film from Scientific America our body’s chemical response to stress is clearly explained. Take two minutes to take a look and be better equipped to deal with the next crisis, deadline or difficult customer you face.

Gold Medallist TV Presenter Also Hosts Conferences

In this blog we’d like to introduce you to our good friend, Gold Medallist and Paralympic TV presenter Giles Long.

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Dump PowerPoint – Tell Stories

We all talk about ‘Death by PowerPoint’ yet the massacre continues.  There may be occasions when a picture, quotation or chart can help to reinforce a fact, but they rarely inspire an audience in the same way as a well told story. And still a terrifying proportion of highly paid execs continue to fall foul of the classic PowerPoint bloopers:

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Can Losers be Part of Winning Teams?

In his superb book Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins states that a common factor in the highest performing businesses is the make up of their teams. He says the best leaders “get the right people on the bus, in the right seats and the wrong people off the bus.”

So, if some of your team have had a run of bad luck or even failed in the past can they succeed as a team in the future?…