Posts for tag: team development

Our Latest Workshop: 20 Ways to Build a Better Team

Fresh Tracks have been in the business of building better teams for over 19 years and in that time there are certain messages – about the range of skills that are required for a great team to succeed, and the importance of communication and trust – that are often repeated.

However we all know there is a huge amount of collective wisdom out there and that we could all learn a lot by listening to each other’s experiences of creating and working with great teams.

So after the success of our last workshop, Creating Captivating Conferences, the next Fresh Tracks workshop will be about building better teams with examples drawn from our own expertise as well as from participants’ own experiences. …

What can we learn from sports teams?

Regardless of the team’s level – youth, high school, college, or the pros – players need to be consistently motivated to be successful, even winning teams.

Teams that are not motivated are flat and, unless they can totally overpower their opponent, unlikely to succeed. Motivation is giving players a reason to perform to the best of their ability to achieve team goals. This responsibility falls on the coach and the players. It takes a team effort to be mentally and physically prepared to play and to maintain a level of interest that puts your team in a position to win.

Try these four ways to motivate your players:…

Team Psychometrics What Are They?

Despite the scary sounding name, users of psychometrics often report that they enjoy the process and feel encouraged by the output.

In simple terms a psychometric is a questionnaire that helps the user better understand themselves. In a team this is an excellent way to identify colleagues’ strengths and preferences. For instance a questionnaire might say that Sue is creative and sociable who works best when given regular feedback by her manager whilst Dave is disciplined and analytical, preferring to be set a task and left alone to get on until he’s completed the work….

Five Tips To Becoming A “Good” Boss

Are you a “good” boss?  One of the most important aspects of an executive’s/manager’s/boss’s job is to manage employees; it is also the most challenging.

A boss can either create a team unit or keep herself apart. All of us are given choices every moment of every day. How we respond to difficult situations is a choice. How we choose to react in a moment affects not only us but our employees. Employees perform best in an environment that is supportive, consistent, has good two way communication, and where everyone helps each other.

Follow these five tips to become a “good” boss:…

Motivating a Team: Five Techniques for Every Personality Type

It’s always going to be the case that you find some people easier to work with than others.

Sometimes you can pinpoint the problem immediately (if, for example, your employee is lazy or unresponsive, comes in late and leaves early, shirks responsibility, or constantly questions your authority without cause).

But there are times when your personality just isn’t compatible with those on your team. Unfortunately, you still have work with these people and find a way to motivate them so that the whole team can realize success.

To that end, here are a few simple ways to keep the peace and get everyone working towards the same goal:…

The surprising truth about what motivates us

Ever wondered what motivates people.

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

Why BA Baracus would like the launch of ‘innocent success’

During my first week as an intern at Fresh Tracks, I followed Dan Collins to London to observe the launch of the brand new training film, Innocent Success. Being no ordinary company, it is perhaps unsurprising that Fresh Tracks chose to launch this exciting new venture in an extraordinary way.

After experiencing my first ‘webinar’ (which, after a small amount of research I discovered was not in fact a German composer, but actually an interactive live seminar on the web), I’ve been contemplating the enormous effect of the communications ‘revolution’ that has followed the development of the internet. …

Three steps to forming cohesive teams

Group. Project. These are possibly two of the most dreaded words to an Massachusetts Institute of Technology  Student, inducing fears of getting stuck with the slacker partner or pulling an all-nighter to throw together a half-effort project.

The biggest of these projects is a semester long research project in a lab class, for which I have so far invested upwards of 20 hours a week, one all-nighter and countless late nights with my two partners. The class has a required team building component, one that we were all contemptuous of at first. Team building? Setting ground rules? Why should we waste our time learning things like that when there was real work to be done?…

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Based on five dysfunctions of a team Patrick Lencioni pinpoints the issue of building a great team and group behavior.

Team building is not complicated, declares Lencioni, president of his own management consulting firm and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

How To: Motivate your team ready for the New Year

It can take several days for your team to really get back into the full swing of things after the Christmas break so it’s imperative that you are already thinking of novel employee motivation ideas to kick start 2010.

Although the right attitude, application and work ethic are important throughout the year, we’ve assembled some employee motivational events that will inspire and invigorate your personnel during a gloomy January….