Team Building

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer,” according to late management guru, Peter Drucker.

And there’s not a multi-channel marketer out there who doesn’t know the importance of a sound CRM strategy—and how critical it can be to the success of a business. CRM is all about acquiring and retaining customers—and enhancing your customers’ experience and relationship with you.

But can you have good CRM without good ERM—Employee Relationship Management?

A number of clients have told me that being better customer-centric has a lot to do with being better employee-centric. Because if your employees get no satisfaction, watch out. You just can’t bully your people into being customer-centric because you say you are.

One of the ways that some of our clients are boosting their employee satisfaction is through team activities. Give it a try. It...

Leaders are interested in people who will help them accomplish the many goals that are set for their teams. Self-starters, initiative takers, independent, results oriented individuals are in great demand on any team.

As part of a team, it’s up to you to help your leaders reach the team’s goals. Following are some tips that will help you build a better relationship with your leader, while helping the team to succeed.

Put yourself in your leader’s shoes

From their perspective, what are the problems, the pressures, and the demands they are dealing with regularly? Do you have a good understanding of the goals they are trying to achieve? When you gain a clear understanding of these, you are better able to make decisions, tailor your communications, and make contributions that will enable those around you to perceive you as an MVM—most valuable member of the tea...

Building critical thinking approaches, skills and processes into the structure of a business is an imperative of high performance, at both the individual and the corporate leadership skill development level.

Effective and high performing businesses create an environment of continuous learning, where critical thinking capabilities are honed, developed and encouraged. Debate and discussion are welcomed and encouraged within a supportive and high-energy collegiate environment.

There are three fundamental elements that must be incorporated into the culture of the businesses for this critical thinking capability to be developed.

Element One - Scan and Understand the Environment

High performance corporate teams “read the times,” build assumptions about their environment and document their thinking, so that the people around them can understand precisel...

If you are looking for a way to develop team team work skills, there are a couple of ideas that have been proven successful time and time again. It is up to you to decide what kind of team work project you need to incorporate, and how much time, effort, and money you are willing to put into the project. Building team work capacity is one sure fire way to get better production for your employees. If you can build team work and happiness in your employees, they will in turn reward you by improving that all mighty bottom line.

In the past few years, team building has taken off to become one of the biggest trends in the business sector--and there are plenty of people who are willing to write about it, including business psychologists and professional consultants. Take the advice of these professionals as they have studied the field much more than you have and will have invaluable ad...

If you are in need of a way to get your employees to work together, you should contact a professional team building company. These companies are available all over the world, and have many years of experience in the field. They have helped to improve the team building skills of companies in many different ways. One of the nice things about a team building company is that they will have many different activities that your employees can choose from. The team building activities that are available will differ from company to company, but rest assured that you will be able to find one that suits your needs because there are many to choose from.

One of the most popular team building activities is one that takes place on a boat. In this activity your team will be drilled on how well they work together. They will learn that working together to achieve a goal is much easier than trying ...

Those who are not in favor of systematic approaches and methods should read about this way to facilitate the communication process.

Communication is a very wide area, but normally includes the process of a group of people that are exchanging ideas or thoughts. Now, how would you structure such a process? Imagine that there are eight team members of which you would like to know the individual opinions. People get easily influenced in a discussion. Sometimes your opinion is not finished, but being assembled as you go through an (interview) process.

Also for the sake of the team you do not want an individual opinion make that others keep quiet, because they do not quite agree. The communication market is a market like any others with a demand and supply side. And too much supply of a single opinion will get the communication unbalanced.

In such a case where individual...

What do you think about when someone mentions time management? Is it making copious lists or prioritising perhaps? If time management isn’t one of your strengths have you gone beyond the dismal cry of “I’m just no good at it.” to examining why that is?

Of course it might be that you really are a disorganised person and have heaps of stuff all over your desk but know precisely where that report is or that important proposal. I usually find that it gets to a point where I can’t find the thing I want and waste unnecessary time looking for it, only to find it was in the first pile I tackled. This will make me tidy up and vow to keep my desk tidy for evermore. Until next time……..

What if it’s a delegation problem though. You are trying to do everything yourself rather than ask your team to take on some of your tasks. What’s the real reason behind that? If you’ve found yourself ...

A lot of people are in the need of a way to build teamwork at their company, but do not have the money to hire an expensive company to assist them. If you are looking to find a corporate team building exercise that you can complete at your office, there are a number of options available to you. It is important that you explore all of your options before deciding on which one to use. Since there are so many different books and movies available, it is important to do all of your research before deciding which corporate team building exercise is right for your company. This is an important undertaking and you should exhaust all resources before making the final decision on which one to go with.

One DVD that you may want to check out is Leadership, Team Building, and Decision Making, which is available online at Amazon.com. This DVD will give you the tools you need to teach your tea...

A new team member has been assigned to work with another department on implementing a decision that her own team has struggled over for quite some time. In describing the decision to the other department, the team member says, “I’m not really sure why my team decided to do it this way. It seems kind of backwards to me. I bet you might have to change how you do it.” What’s going on here?

Obviously she is not representing her team confidently enough. This team member has broken a team rule: “We may disagree in the team meeting, but once we make a decision, we all have to be behind it 100%.” Why did she do that? The answer is simple: her supervisor did not properly orient her well enough with the team rules.

It is important that new hired staff or team members for that matter have to be oriented and taught how the team operates. What new members need is a clear description o...

How do I identify and justify teams within my organisation that could operate as a remote team?

The two elements of this paper look at simple broad terms that can be applied to help you identify if remote team working has a place within the organisation and justify further investigation.

What is remote team working? – Where a team of people can work from different locations and still perform the functions they did when office based.

Identifying teams We would always recommend looking to identify more than one team initially, but no more than four.

The following factors will help:

1. Interaction with other departments or customers/suppliers – What information is exchanged both internally and externally, including within the team?

2. Level of physical exchange - What physical information, paper-based or objects are received or sent? ...

We all deserve to be appreciated, yet we tend to expect others to take notice automatically when we do something worthy of appreciation.

Studies show that most people prefer receiving positive recognition more than monetary rewards for their work. Here are 5 ways to seek a more satisfying level of recognition:

1. Receive appreciation well. To reinforce expressions of appreciation, respond with enthusiasm and gratitude by smiling and saying, “Thank you. It’s great to have my work recognized – I really appreciate it."

A negative response such as, “Well, I did my best with what little time I had," discourages people from offering their compliments.

2. Accept your own achievements. Many of us have difficulty acknowledging our own accomplishments. It’s perfectly acceptable to allow ourselves to experience the joy of achievement.

3. Show appreciation for others...

Introduction

At CAL we have been involved with remote teams for a number of years and have spend time understanding was makes a good team and what makes a great team. The problems with a team that is not located in one place are different to standard office-based team issues and although there is no magic wand or standard problems here are a few classic issues.

Communications – It can be frustrating to be waiting on information from other team members and this can cause tension in the team. Of course the cause can be due to poor procedures, lack of training or inadequate technology, but is a management issue even if it is only a perceived problem. The results of these factors in a remote team will be isolation and the feeling of being out of contact with the organisation’s heart beat.

Collaboration – Where more than one team member is involved in a project or task. T...

Do you inspire your staff?

My experience tells me that a very small percentage of managers, presidents, and supervisors truly inspire their staff. They might build solid teams, set clear expectations and reach most of their goals, but they fail to inspire their people to reach and become better.

But, if you’re building effective teams and getting adequate results, does inspiration really matter that much?

The answer depends on what you want out of your organization. If you are satisfied with you current results and don’t mind replacing your best people every few years, I would put down this article and get back to managing your staff. However, if you are interested in creating a remarkable culture that exceeds expectations - keep reading.

The Importance of Inspiration

In his latest book, The 8th Habit – From Effectiveness to Greatness, Stephen Covey po...

What is your staff doing today?

Chances are good that you could probably run down your list of direct reports and provide me with a fairly detailed summary of what each person needs to accomplish by 5 o’clock.

However, what if I asked what you wanted your staff to complete by the end of this week, month and year? Even better, what if I asked your staff? Would they have any idea?

This month, I am going address the challenge of setting clear and meaningful expectations and ensuring that your staff is consistently focused on your expected outcomes.

When I introduce this topic to business owners/managers, I typically get the following response, “CJ, we don’t need to worry about this with my staff, they know exactly what I expect from them.” Unfortunately, after I meet with the staff I usually find that although they have a good understanding of the tactical duti...

If you were hoping to read a column about how to keep your star performers forever, I recommend that you turn the page – this isn’t it.

The truth is that the majority of your best people will eventually leave.

Assuming that the previous statement is a fact, how do many leaders (business owners, managers, etc.) approach this challenge? Unfortunately, they treat their people (even their most talented employees) like a leased vehicle. These leaders try to get as much out of them as humanly possible, while investing as little that they can because they know that the lease is eventually coming due.

Did you invest in new tires and brakes immediately before turning in your last leased car? Of course you didn’t. You ran the vacuum, washed the windows and hoped the dealer didn’t notice the big scratch on the back bumper or the crack in the cup holder.

So, if we agre...

What values and principles drive your business? More importantly, does the leader of your business consistently demonstrate these values?

This month, I will address an important leadership characteristic that is all too often overlooked in our society today – integrity. Although many leaders use this term to characterize themselves, I find very few that are able to even tell me what it means to have integrity.

It’s not necessarily their fault, the definition found in the dictionary “the quality or condition of being whole or undivided” isn’t exactly crystal clear.

So what does this word – integrity – really mean?

Let’s start by looking at the definition offered by best-selling Christian author V. Gilbert Beers: “A person of integrity is one who has established a system of values against which all of life is judged.”

In other words, a person with integrit...

I have worked with many leaders who failed to recognize this truth. In fact, I am sure that there have been times throughout my career where I haven’t provided the leadership that my team required.

The truth is that it’s easy to be a great leader when things are going well.

When sales are up, profits are growing and customers are happy it seems that you have all the right answers. You lead inspirational staff meetings, remember to thank everyone for their effort, and confidently wear a smile at the office.

When things are going well, you tend to believe that you have been blessed with a natural ability to inspire others and that being a great leader doesn’t require much effort.

Unfortunately, things don’t always go well.

Your best customers switch to the competition. New sales stop pouring in. Productivity slows. Star employees leave. As a leader, th...

Does your company have a leadership problem?

Most people would answer “yes”, no matter how successful their company may be. In fact, this challenge is so huge that a quick search on the word “Leadership” (Amazon.com) returns more than 115,000 entries!

In case you don’t have the time to read 115,000 books, I have developed a list of the 13 key characteristics of all great leaders. I will address a new characteristic in each column.

The first (and arguably most important) characteristic is often the most difficult skill for leaders to develop. That is, the ability to paint a current picture of the future in the form of a powerful vision. The common quality in all great leadership stories is the ability to first create a vision and then be able to effectively share that vision with the people. It is from this beginning that so many success stories have evolved. It is...

There are many ways to give much needed incentives to employees such as stock options, Christmas Bonuses and profit sharing. However, consider a start up entrepreneurial company, which is web based. What can you do to give a little back to your employees and generate some real productivity and tap into some of the creative genius of your work force? Well there are many things you can do and innovative ways to do it too.

Consider if you will a fast moving highly successful website which is a category killer in its online niche. There will be ample opportunities to expand this and develop offshoots from the core market segment. But it is also important to stay focused too.

One thought is that you take an offshoot side market and begin to exploit the sub-niche and they you spin off this site onto a Employee Team Project and run it separately. You keep it on your servers and k...