Building High Performance Teams (Part 3)

In my blog posts at the end of June, I stated that when running sessions on team building, as well as doing a number of exercises, I ask four questions that help create a strong team environment. In Building High Performance Teams Part 1 and 2, I explored the first two questions:

Step 1: What sort of team would you like to work in?

Step 2: What do you have to do in order to make this happen?

These two questions help people identify the kind of team that they want to work in and help them to understand that they need to treat people the way they wanted to be treated.

Step 3 is to ask them ‘Are you committed to treat people the way you want to be treated?’ This is an important question, as it is necessary to get people to ‘buy in’; for employees to state their commitment to treating others the way they want to be treated. This is crucial in order for them to agree to the next step, which is:

Step 4: Are you open to being challenged if someone believes that you are not honouring your commitment? In order to create a strong team environment, there needs to be:

·      A willingness to communicate

·      An openness to being challenged

·      A willingness to admit mistakes

Simon  Pimenta

What are the skills and mind-set of a great Leader?

Inspirational Trainer and Coach Anthony Robbins has studied successful people, identifying the behaviours and strategies that we can all learn in order to improve the quality of our lives.

In this short video, he talks about the qualities and hallmarks of Leadership.

http://www.tonyrobbins.com/leadership2012/

Simon Pimenta

Positive action = positive change?

There was a really interesting article recently in The Guardian about how action is important for people to make positive changes in their lives.  Certainly our experience of supporting hundreds of clients to make changes would corroborate this.  How we use our bodies can start to tell us how to feel, so think about your posture today, and start to use the brilliant body you have to influence positive change.  
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/30/self-help-positive-thinking?CMP=twt_gu

Kate Gare

Managers and Peak Performance

In his book Coaching for Performance, John Whitmore discusses the mindset needed of the manager in the workplace.  He states that the manager needs to think of people in terms of their potential, not their performance. In order to get the best out of people, we need to believe that people do have the capacity to perform at high levels, and that their best can be drawn out of them. Whitmore’s belief that this is the case is based on personal experience of discovering inner resources that he did not know he had, and seeing other people do the same.

He points out the evidence that belief in the capability of others influences their performance. In one experiment, teachers were told that a group of average students were either scholarship candidates or had learning difficulties. When tested, the pupils’ results reflected the teachers’ belief about their ability. This is an extraordinary finding, demonstrating how the attitude of the teacher (or a manager) can influence the performance of those in their charge.

Simon Pimenta

A challenge for today!

A quick blog today and it’s a challenge.  Listen to the voice inside your head today and make sure that you only praise yourself.  See if you can do it for 24 hours!

Kate Gare

Change your Perspective

Have you ever had a conversation with someone or been in a meeting where you have felt angry, upset, frustrated?  Every time you replay the scenario in your mind, you can feel the emotions rising within you again, taking you back to the unhappy place that you were in.

Try this to give yourself a new perspective on what happened so you can think about it without the emotional attachment:
Remember the situation but instead of imagining that it is going on around you as you look out from your own eyes, move yourself to the corner of the room or to one side so you are viewing yourself and the other(s). You will find that this will give you a new angle on what occurred and allow you to think about it without the emotions flaring up and getting in your way.


Helen Harding

Top tips for staying healthy and happy at work

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) published a poster by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) last week about how to be healthy and happy at work.  It’s a great visual reminder to print out and place near your desk. http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/csp_underpressue_poster_2012.pdf

Kate Gare