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?

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 by those leading teams.

1. Time – Some of us feel most appreciated when someone gives us their time, not a specific activity, simply time to listen, talk share and be together.
2. Words – Words have immense power and those people who ‘say the kindest things’  are likely to feel most loved when someone uses written or spoken words to tell them how much they are valued.
3. Gifts – Despite what the advertisers would have us believe the giving of gifts is not the way to every man or woman’s heart, but it is one of the 5 Love Languages and like the others it’s most likely to be the primary Love Language in those who take great care and pride in giving gifts.
4. Acts – For many of us, it is those simple acts of kindness such as a well timed cuppa or a lift home from work that can make us feel truly loved.
5. Touch – Probably less appropriate than the other four Love Languages in the workplace, but in a marriage or similarly intimate relationship the importance of physical contact shouldn’t be underestimated.

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 in particular working together with so many of you. However I have to say that Risk is less fun when every remote event you have ever warned people about actually happens … repeatedly … all at the same time! I fear that banking is no longer the leisurely pursuit it was when I started out. My very best wishes to all of you who continue to labour. Live long and prosper!”

His words caused me to reflect on how quickly roles and industry sectors and even economies can change.

The once safe, secure and steady public sector is rapidly becoming as challenging a place to work as the cut-throat business world. And the once sought-after jobs managing well known brands with generous marketing budgets have become highly pressurised roles with time and resources being squeezed ever tighter by the all powerfull retail giants.

I’m sure the phrase “This isn’t what I signed up for” frequently flashes through the minds of many apparently successful executives.

Whilst our environments might change, we don’t have to. Like my friend who fell out of love with banking it’s okay to feel less than enthusiastic towards our chosen career, so long as we are prepared to do something about it.

There are two choices, either we can adapt our priorities to fit our changed world or we can change our career to one that matches our values. Niether are easy steps to take, but to do nothing will cause needless unhappiness.

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:

1. No screens - To achieve deep and restful sleep we must allow our minds to switch off from the day’s activity; watching the news or checking emails in bed has the opposite effect. Adopt a no screens policy for at least an hour before you switch off the light, instead read some captivating fiction and allow your mind to travel to another place.

2. Good ingredients - Eating rich food and drinking alcohol may make us feel good, and even drowsy, but when it comes to proper sleep we need to give our bodies a break and not expect our digestive tract to work hard through the night.

3. Tire yourself out - Sitting in front of a computer all day consumes very little energy, especially compared to our ancestors who would have spent their day doing physical work out in the fresh air. Our muscles need to be tired along with our brains to achieve quality sleep. Swimming is probably the best sleep improving exercise but even a walk before heading up to bed can make a significant difference.

4. Write and forget - If you find yourself waking up at 3am with your mind racing with ideas and anxieties the best cure is to write them down. This process of logging the thought allows your mind to return to less important thoughts and dreams.

5. Get comfy - We spend a third of our lives in bed; it’s far and away the place where we spend the most time, yet few of us invest significantly in good bedding. After 5 years most mattresses have lost their original bounce and after 10 years of lying on the same bed there’s a good chance that your mattress is causing you harm. Alongside the mattress good pillows are essential. A little online research will not just show you what’s available but will also tell you which hotels use the best bedding so you can try before you buy.

These simple steps could dramatically improve your sleep and therefore your days. If you’d like to build on this to get some more tips on mastering time, technology and tension then sign up to our forthcoming workshop How to be More Productive and Less Stressed on Friday March 16th.

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.

To download the Perfect Picture instructions as a PDF click here.

Key themes: Communication, Collaboration, Teamwork, Common Objectives
Participants: 6 – 50
Timing: 30 minutes up to 2 hours

Prework and Equipment
Find a copy of a well known image, logo, painting, etc and cut this into as many pieces (equal sizes & shapes if possible) as there will be teams/participants on the day. You will also need larger pieces of paper, pens, pencils, paints and other decorating/drawing materials and rulers/tape measures.

Running the Activity
This activity can be run in teams, or with individual participants.

1. Give each team or individual a piece of the picture along with pens/pencils/drawing and colouring equipment and sheets of paper large enough for them to make larger copies.
2. Instruct participants to create a copy of their piece of the picture exactly (for example) ten times bigger, according to length and width dimension. Size increase (x10, x25 or x20, etc) is up to you – the greater the increase in size, the longer the activity takes, and the bigger the final result.
3. Give a drawing time limit of 5-30 minutes depending on the complexity of the image and the magnification level you have requested.
4. When each team or participant has completed the enlargement of their piece, ask them to assemble the individual pieces into a finished picture – on the table, wall or floor.
5. At this point you can produce the original (complete) picture to aid the final assembly or withhold it until the last minute for comparison.

Additional notes
Choose a picture (or diagram or map, etc) that appeals to your group, and which, when cut into pieces, gives sufficient detail to work on. Here are some suggestions of well-known pictures to use for this exercise:

• Your company or other famous logo or emblem
• The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
• The London Underground Tube Map
• Marilyn (Andy Warhol)
• The Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci)

This exercise is more challenging and fascinating if the group does not see the whole original picture until the end of the activity, although this is entirely up to the facilitator.

Be specific about what you mean by x10 when you ask for an enlargement – multiplying length and width by 10 will give you an area that is 100 times the size of the original.

Review and Conclusions
Below are some questions you can use to debrief the activity;

• If the completed, enlarged version is not right in any area, where did the task fail and for what reasons?
• If a team or individual has embellished their piece (which almost certainly will happen) how does this contribute to or threaten the final result, and how does this demonstrate individual interpretation and freedom?
• This activity represents ‘departmental’ working, each team working on their own part (representing a divisional or departmental specialism), all of which should contribute to a successful result. What are the main factors determining success when working like this?
• To what extent does each team need to know what other teams are doing in order for the overall task to be achieved?
• Does each team need to know what the end aim is in order to achieve the overall task? (The review of this point can incorporate discussion on when the original whole picture was shown – at the start of the activity or towards or at the end? – and how helpful it was to have seen it at either stage)
• It often is difficult to communicate an overall aim or vision in work situations, especially in large complex projects – so how should we approach this challenge and what are its implications, especially if a vision or aim changes half-way through a project?

Follow up
This exercise works well to lead into facilitated discussions focused on teamwork and communication. Alternatively see the Fresh Tracks programme “Paint your Perfect Picture” for a longer, themed challenge.

To download the the Perfect Picture instructions as a PDF click here.

We hope you enjoy using this team building task and if you have any suggested activities for our blog do contact us at mail@freshtracks.co.uk.

Conventional wisdom would suggest not but history tells a different story. In the midst of America’s Great Depression in the 1930s a bereaved father whose wife had walked out on him brought an undersize, knobbly kneed and lethargic racehorse. He found a introverted cowboy living as a tramp to be its trainer; the cowboy recruited a short tempered jockey who was blind in one eye.

Despite their individual failings these three men and one horse worked together towards a shared goal of winning races. This they did, culminating in a competition dubbed the race of the century, watched by a crowd of 40,000 and listened to by a 40 million strong radio audience right across the United States. Seabiscuit’s win despite 1-4 odds against him is said to have given the American people a renewed sense of hope after 10 years of economic depression.

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.This apparent crisis might be just the thing to breathe new life into your next conference.

At Fresh Tracks we’ve been able to identify a number of excellent conference venues with availability along with some ‘alternative’ options such as our ‘Pop Up Conference Centre.’ Inspired by the Pop Up Restaurant movement we have created a conference facility that can literally appear and disappear. Using the grounds of country houses, parks and woodlands we are able to install a variety of high spec tents and camping huts (some with en-suite bathrooms) set around a giant tipi or barn that plays host to the formal presentations and evening entertainment.

Like the best music festivals, precautions can be taken to protect against the varied British weather, with fire pits providing heat, and boardwalks to keep feet dry along with sun screen at every water station. For the few that really can’t face a night under the stars back up hotel rooms can be made available.

To find out more request a call back here or call 0192 082 2220 now.

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 some organisations are phasing out the use of email in favour of more sophisticated social networking tools that filter and sort the most relevant information on the user’s behalf. Atos the IT services business have committed to doing away with internal email by 2014 and the Canadian business Klick, which employs 200 people, have developed their own internal messaging service called Genome. Ebay no longer send emails over the weekend and Intel have ‘no email Fridays’.

A leading pharma company with sophisticated spam filtering was concerned to discover that 70% of messages received by a typical employee are not business critical. For different reasons, increasing regulation has resulted in some bankers reportedly sending hand written notes where an audit trail isn’t desirable.

It’s too early to say when email will be replaced, so for now here are a few tips for reducing email overload:

1. Send less and get less
2. Add a footnote that explains how frequently you check your inbox ie before 10am and after 4pm
3. Use your out of office to suit your working patterns ie when travelling or working to meet a deadline
4. Create a primary and secondary account, use the primary account for critical messages, mobile devices and unsubscribe from any unsolicited mailings
5. In the subject bar of all emails you send add either PLEASE REPLY or NO REPLY NECESSARY, it might catch on

More tips in our previous blog: 10 ways to beat email overload.

Register now for our next workshop “How to be more Productive with Less Stress” on Friday 16th March 2012.

It takes more than chocolate to motivate a team – but it’s a start

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.

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.