Blog

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….

This Isn’t What I Signed Up For

A friend recently retired early from a successful career as a risk manager in the City.

We can adapt our priorities to fit our changed world or we can change our career to one that matches our values

He sent this farewell note to friends and contacts:

“After 37 years in the City I have decided to call it a day. I’ve enjoyed my career immensely, and …

5 Tips for More Productive Sleep

Our level of productivity depends as much on our inactivity as our activity. Failing to get a good night’s sleep prevents our bodies and brains from fully recharging. Like a car battery, if we try to operate on less than a full charge both our short and long term performance will deteriorate.

The steps below could help you sleep like a baby

Whether you are waking up tired or struggling to get to sleep, here are some tips that can help:…

Free Team Building Activity: Perfect Picture

This free team building activity is a light-hearted task which highlights the need to work as a team to succeed.

Try our free art team building activity to help you team

Overview

A creative and involving exercise that will highlight the need for communication, collaboration and organisation across the group. Suitable for many different groups and group sizes….

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?…

Will the Olympics Spoil Conferences?

If your organisation holds a large annual conference, prepare yourself for a very different experience in 2012.

A shortage of venues this summer might be just the thing to breathe new life into your next conference

A combination of the Olympics, the Farnborough Air Show and other major events between June and September means that many of the larger hotels and conference centres already have bookings confirmed for this period and are unable to accept large bookings during the summer conference season of 2012.

Whilst this might send a shiver down your conference organiser’s spine, they needn’t panic….

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.

Resolve not to Regret – 5 Reasons to seize the day

As we consider what resolutions we will make in 2012 it is sobering to reflect on the regrets of those that have gone before us.

What will your new year's resolution be?

Bronnie Ware was a palliative nurse who cared for many people in the final weeks of their life. Over time, she compiled a list of their most commonly held regrets. Interestingly in each case people don’t regret things they have done but in fact regret things they have not done.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

So as opportunities arise in 2012 let’s not be put off by the consequence of our actions but instead seize each day.