What questions would you ask your team?

1. How do we make money?

2. How could we save money?

3. What is your unique contribution to our success?

4. How can I help you do this more?

5. What should I do more often?

Add any other suggestions in the comment box below.

Everybody has different ways of recharging, make sure you know your way and that you spend time doing it.

Hotels and holiday cottage owners are increasingly promoting ‘free wi-fi’ knowing that it’s a key attraction to potential guests.  Keeping in touch and being able to instantly research local restaurants or even suppliers for a forthcoming work project are high on our list of vacation priorities.  So much so that many holidaying executives report feeling anxiety when they find themselves ‘unplugged.’  And that anxiety only gets greater when they near the end of what should be a relaxing break, fearing the bulging inbox and a pile of unread papers.

But like the processor inside our smart phone our brains also need to re-boot from time to time.  Simply slowing down and just checking emails a couple of times a day is no substitute for switching off completely.

And a change really can be as good as a rest, so even if you don’t have time to escape to the country cottage or the beach, don’t pass up the opportunity to turn your attention to something completely different. Managing Director of head-hunters Odgers Berndston, Kester Scrope reboots his brain as a pilot with the British Aerobatics Team: “Flying is incredible relaxation. It’s intense, it’s challenging and it gives a wonderful sense of freedom.” Fully applying our minds to something other than work breaks the cycle of rumination which is the primary trigger to stress.

When we take a real break we gain clarity and perspective, enabling us to spend extended time thinking without distractions.  It could be argued that those in senior leadership roles whose primary responsibility is to set the vision and make decisions especially need time away from their responsibilities to think.  Vision requires time and space to dream dreams, imagine and visualise what could be.  Good decisions can’t always be made on instinct –  we need ‘thinking time’ to consider the facts, weigh up the pros and cons.  For those big decisions a few days off can provide the time and thinking space needed to reach the right conclusions.

So for the next Bank Holiday don’t just slow down. Unplug, switch off and reset your most precious gadget, your mind.

Make sure you find time to find your team's common ground

Overview

A great icebreaker activity, this activity is best used at the beginning of the day to get participants communicating and finding out a bit more about each other. You simply ask each team/table to come up with a list as long as possible of things that all team members have in common.

Key Themes: communication; getting to know one another

Participants: 5 – 500

Timing: 5 – 20 mins

Prework

• Ensure that there is paper and a pen for each table/team.
• You might want to have some examples/suggestions to get their lists started (for example everyone loves chocolate, or everyone watches a particular TV show).
• You could also provide prizes for the winning team(s).

Running the Activity

• Let participants know that they have a set time in which to come up with their list of common things shared by the whole team/table.
• All team members must have the item in common.
• Teams can’t simply list similar body parts, such as “We all have eyes.”
• Teams will have a limited time to create their lists, so they need to work quickly – give them regular time checks to let them know when they have 5 mins, 2 mins, 1 min, 30 seconds left.
• The team with the longest list wins.
• Similarities can then be shared with the group at large.

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

Mr Carson, Downton Abbey’s indispensible butler, with Lord Grantham

Let’s assume you are already reliable, dependable, proactive, diligent, teachable and trustworthy.  Here are five behaviours that will help you to stand out from the crowd:

1. Ignore job descriptions. Be adaptable and ready to muck in where required and do whatever it takes, regardless of role or position, to get things done.  Remarkable employees have the initiative to know when there’s a problem and the energy to lend a hand without being asked — even if it’s not their job.  Without assuming a senior role they think at a higher level than their job requires, anticipating the challenges their line manager is facing and smoothing the way.
2. Don’t conform.  The best employees are often a little different: eccentric, quirky and sometimes irreverent, but in a good way. They shake things up, make work more fun, they aren’t afraid to stretch boundaries and challenge the status quo, so they often come up with or identify the best ideas.  Truly remarkable employees know when to play and when to be serious; when to be outspoken and when to yield; when to challenge and when to back off.  It’s a tough balance to strike, only those who are really outstanding can walk this fine line.
3. Publicly praise and privately complain.  Praise from a boss means a lot. Praise from a respected peer means more.  Outstanding team members look for opportunities to publicly recognise the contributions of others, in settings where the impact of their words is most valued.  Mediocre employees may attempt to elevate their status by bringing up controversial subjects in a group setting, whereas outstanding employees think ahead and raise the sensitive issue privately.
4. Fiddle and be curious. Some people are never satisfied.  They are always seeking out ways to improve the outcome, tighten a timeline or adjust a process.  Outstanding employees will willingly deviate from established processes if they believe they can find ways to make those processes even better.  They will ask the questions that others dare not raise.  They believe in better and refuse to accept adequate.
5. Value your values.  Too many employees leave their personal beliefs at the factory gate.  Outstanding employees choose to work for organisations that reflect their principles and even under commercial pressure they resist compromise.  In turn they positively influence their organisation from within to act responsibly.

The book starts by describing 9 paradoxes – are each of them as worthy of consideration in the society of 2012?

Charles Handy wrote ‘The Empty Raincoat’ in 1994, but the predictions are so precise that it could have been published last week.  Here, guest blogger Nick Robeson summarises a book perhaps more relevant today than when it was first published 18 years ago.

Back in 1994 the term ‘digital economy’ had not even been invented, but the changes in our society, our economy, work and our careers were already clear to Handy.  The book starts by describing 9 paradoxes – each of them is worthy of consideration in the society of 2012:1. The paradox of intelligence: it’s a new form of property, which does not behave like other forms of property. It has a low cost of entry and that will radically change our society. Now – 16 years after its publication – we see that the means of production for intellectual work are available to anyone, that transaction costs and shelf-space costs are close to 0, and that the “Wisdom of crowds” enables completely different dynamics.

2. The paradox of work. Handy defines work as “Society’s chosen way of distributing income” as opposed to a measure of efficiency. This is where the paradox lies: organisations are in charge of the way employment is created or reduced; and they will not pay for slack or buffer. As a result workers are conditioned as ‘employees’ to perform repetitive and empty tasks. When they are made redundant, they are not capable of being creative and resilient entrepreneurs. Second, as organisations are reengineered to be lean to the bone, they have no surplus capacity that allows for creativity or change. This is what we see today: anorectic and stressed-out organisations with a tunnel vision, completely missing the point about our changing society – doing the same things over and over, and expecting different results.

3. The paradox of productivity: how do we define value? 18 years ago Handy found out that by pricing our work, we can ultimately destroy it. New insights today (see Dan Pink’s “Drive”) underscore the perversity of rewarding.  This is a very fine insight that is currently known as driving the gift economy.

4. The paradox of time. Handy refers to time as a ‘strange commodity’. The application of modern technology means less time is needed to make and do things. People should have more spare time. But time has become a competitive weapon and getting things done quickly is imperative. As a result, many of those who work have less time than ever before.

5. The paradox of riches. economic growth depends upon more people wanting more things. But increasingly, the things people want most (clean air, safe environment) are collective and cannot be bought by individuals at any price. And because there is no customer, organistions cannot produce them.

6. The paradox of organization: today, organisations need to be local and global at the same time,  to be small in some ways but big in others, and to be centralised some of the time and decentralised the rest. Managers are expected to be more entrepreneurial and more team-oriented at the same time. No one knows what is needed to run organisations now.

7. The paradox of age. a lifelong career no longer exists. There is a gap between adolescence and adulthood and we cannot seem to fill it. 18 years later we call this the ‘digital divide’. The point is that most organisations are led by people whose experiences do not equip them to lead in today’s environment.

8. The paradox of the individual: who do you represent? Handy sensed a tension between individual rights and collective will. Today we see that it has never been more explosive: consumers and employees are calling out to brands and employers that they are individuals, not numbers.

9. The paradox of justice: people want the organisations they work for to treat them fairly. But being treated fairly means different things to different people.  Handy continues by proposing three paths to guide us through these paradoxes. His advice comes down to three different ways of looking at the world:

A. Start a second curve. Handy adopts the idea of a sigmoid-curve to demonstrate what the lifecycle of our career looks like. He argues that we are not restricted to one single lifecycle. We can live more than one cycle in a single lifetime if we are smart enough to start the second curve before the first curve has reached its point of saturation.

B. The doughnut principle. Handy compares us to a doughnut and says the core is what’s essential. It’s the agreed given of a job, or a project, or a person. And the outside of the core is the potential. The potential is variable and you can develop as much or as little of it as you want. But it needs to have a boundary, or a limit in order to be balanced. Without a boundary it is easy to be oppressed by guilt, for enough is never enough. The point is that we are responsible for balancing our own doughnut: with a core (a duty) that matches our destiny, and an outside that caters for our potential.

C. Make Chinese Contracts. Handy learned from the Chinese that a contract is needed only when trust is absent. Trust and optimising the relationship is becoming more important than maximising the individual result at the expense of others. Adam Smith’s invisible hand only works when it is preceded by an invisible handshake.Furthermore, this book is full of thought provoking ideas. To name but a few:

• Subsidiarity versus empowerment: the first assumes that the power is already decentralised; while the second is a conditional giving away of power and taking it back when it does not suit you anymore.
• Membership and involvement is more important than ownership (now 18 years later – this is more true than ever).  “One can only add meaning and value to his life by living those lives.“
• Balance four types of work: paid work, gift work, home work, study work.
• Nine types of intelligence: Factual, Analytical, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Practical, Physical, Intuitive, Interpersonal. The point is that we need a more complete view on intelligence in order to pick our strengths and build our doughnut.
• The three C’s of learning (the essence). They are conceptualising, coordinating, and consolidating.
• Four phases in everyone’s life (each lasting approximately 25 years): The age of preparation, the age of main endeavour (and the danger of getting trapped in someone else’s time cage), the age of a second life and the age of dependency. Comparable to 4 phases – learn, contribute, change, depart.

This is a guest blog by Nick Robeson, Chief Executive, Hemming Robeson Interim Management.

The programme included our unique a large-scale team building exercise, The Team Machine

It’s a fast paced company with recent growth placing increased pressure on the leadership team. We were asked to come up with a leadership development programme that would enable them to:

• spend time together
• get away from daily pressures and distractions of the office
• get to know one another better
• build trust
• create a positive environment in which to work on strategy

A tailored programme was developed to include:

•  plenty of time for discussion to look at how the team could work together more effectively
• a large-scale team building exercise, The Team Machine, based on a fun construction challenge
• the Strength Deployment Inventory to identify individual strengths across the group

Review and discussion sessions pinpointed learning throughout the day, concluding with a “Team Commitments” session that established key follow up actions for the team back in the office.

“Fresh Tracks’ approach was great – they dealt with the team dynamics very well and made sure everyone had a chance to speak.”  

Feedback from participants back in the office was very positive: “We have developed a greater understanding of each other from the activities. We spent the following day creating plans for the year and this was made easier by the things we had learnt.”

Attention to detail is a good quality to possess in many roles but leaders must be able to trust their team to take care of the details while they attend to strategy

Here are our top 5 leadership don’ts:

1. Unclear Vision
Teams need to understand clearly their reason for being, where they are heading and why it’s important that they succeed. Managers who fail to restate their vision repeatedly will find that their teams lack motivation and that team members will often expend time and energy working on unimportant tasks, rather than tackling the work that matters most and which drives the organisation forward.

2. Failing to Listen
Whilst it sounds obvious that a manager’s primary role is to manage, one of the most common mistakes leaders make is to fill their schedules with activities that keep them away from their team. The best leaders carve out a significant portion of their time for formal and informal conversations with members of their team. They ask powerful questions that elicit critical information, enabling the leader to take good decisions.

3. Not Giving Feedback
These conversations also provide an opportunity to monitor progress and keep team members on track. Like a good coach the best leaders set clear goals with their team. As these goals are achieved they use praise and recognition to motivate, knowing that “behaviour that’s rewarded is repeated”.

4. Poor Recruitment
Less confident managers are fearful of hiring people that are brighter or more experienced than themselves. This not only holds the team back, it often leads to lowered expectations across the team. Consequently the best people move on to a more challenging environment leaving underperformers in post.

5. Micro management
Attention to detail is a good quality to possess in many roles but leaders must be able to trust their team to take care of the details while they attend to strategy (the big picture). Probably one of the greatest frustrations team members report is that their manager constantly questions their work, appearing to doubt their ability or assuming that because they approach their work in a different way, it must be the wrong approach.

Our top five might not be the same as yours, so if you think we’ve missed a leadership howler, please add yours in the comment box below.

Have a great Easter from all at Fresh Tracks

“Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces” Judith Viorst

“There’s nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE” Linda Grayson, “The Pickwick Papers”

“Chocolate causes certain endocrine glands to secrete hormones that affect your feelings and behaviour by making you happy. Therefore, it counteracts depression, in turn reducing the stress of depression. Your stress-free life helps you maintain a youthful disposition, both physically and mentally. So, eat lots of chocolate!” Elaine Sherman, Book of Divine Indulgences

Seen on a tee shirt: EMERGENCY ALERT: If wearer of this shirt is found vacant, listless, or depressed, ADMINISTER CHOCOLATE IMMEDIATELY.

“It’s not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let’s face it, far more reliable than a man.” Miranda Ingram

“All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!” Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)

“Exercise is a dirty word… Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.”

“Nuts just take up space where chocolate ought to be.”

“Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.” Michael Levine, nutrition researcher, as quoted in The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars

“I could give up chocolate but I’m not a quitter.”

“I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process…. It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?”

“In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.”

“Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it has some similar nutrients (calcium, phosphorus), and because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the colour and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favour of dirt.” Sandra Boynton, author of Chocolate: the Consuming Passion

If you have any other great chocolate quotes do let us know in the comment box below.

Why not try your next team meeting in the park?

Given both anecdotal and scientific evidence about the benefits of sunshine, this is an entirely sensible idea:

• It is easier to generate ideas, solve problems and work creatively in an environment where the view is always changing.
• Sunlight on our skin helps us to produce vitamin D, which is not only responsible for good bone health but also boosts our immune system, and has been linked to healthy brain aging, maintaining a healthy body weight, protection against low levels of radiation, and in some instances protection against some cancers.
• Being outdoors improves our mental state – time spent being close to and observing nature is recognised as a remedy for depression.
• Natural light overcomes the winter blues known as SAD.
• Sunlight will stimulate the appetite, improving digestion and metabolism.
• Sunlight increases the production of endorphins and serotonin in the brain which will enhance your feelings of wellbeing.
• Getting enough sunlight during the day can improve your sleep by increasing melatonin output at night. Melatonin is a natural hormone which enhances sleep and slows down the aging process.
• The ultraviolet rays in sunshine act as a natural antiseptic which can kill viruses, bacteria, moulds, yeasts, fungi, and mites in air, water, and on different surfaces including your skin.
• Plus our circle of social connections expands as we reconnect with neighbours over the garden fence or opt to walk rather than drive to the shops.

These long bright days won’t last for ever, so if you would like to take your team off-site for an away day and bask in the glorious sunshine click here for some team activities to generate that feel good factor whatever the weather.

England Rugby Captain has skippered a transformed team by building trust. “You have to do two things: play your own game, because that’s what got you there in the first place, and trust all the other leaders out there to help you. Trust the guy doing the line-out to do the right thing. Trust the front five.” Chris Robshaw’s pre-match team talk

Integrate New Blood
Very often when people leave and new team members join there’s a loss of momentum. It’s critical to mark the point where the new team begins and the old team is laid to rest. If the start of this new journey isn’t clearly marked then different team members will set out in different directions. The more memorable the occasion the greater the chance of success, so make an event of this ‘new beginning’ – get away from your place of work and spend time getting to know each other.

Recognise Strengths
A good team is made up of people with diverse but complimentary strengths; to harness these strengths there must be trust and understanding. In order to fully appreciate our team mates’ qualities it’s important to invest time in discovering the strengths each team member brings to the group. This can be achieved in part through team games and activities but for the greatest impact add some facilitated reviews and appropriate questionnaires such as the Strength Deployment Inventory and Gallup’s Strengths Finder.

Cast a Vision
As the proverb says, “Without vision the people will perish”. Teams need to have a common purpose: without this shared goal they are simply a group of people working towards differing objectives and destined to flounder.

Laugh
Work can be a serious business but we don’t have to always be serious about the way we do our work. Surgeons in an operating theatre will often wear brightly coloured bandanas and play music during life threatening procedures. A study found that teams of medics who spent time getting to know each other before surgery were significantly less likely to make errors during operations. Having fun not only makes the working day more pleasurable, it releases stress-reducing hormones and heightens creativity.

Make time
There are more ways than ever before to communicate with colleagues. Instant messaging, webinars and video conferencing are all very well but all the efficiencies technology brings can’t replace the value of simply spending time with colleagues without a fixed agenda. It’s these unstructured ‘water cooler’ conversations that often throw up ideas and opportunities that lead to breakthroughs. Teams should regularly set aside time to get away, review and plan. By being away from the bustle of the office teams have more clarity and very often breaks during the day prove to be as valuable as the facilitated sessions.

If your team have been through a period of change now’s the time to mark a new beginning, agree your shared purpose and build trust by getting to know each other better and having some fun. For a selection of sample programmes based on successful team off-sites and development days click here.