Doing It Right As a Team

There are several reasons why there is a need to explore and even implement periodic exercises within a team for spoken communication training. Some of the elements that should be addressed within the spoken communication training are as listed below: Ensuring that all involved learn to speak clearly and audibly is the first step to effective communication. Taking the time and effort to stop where the impact is needed for all listening to understand the importance of a particular point being made help to emphasize the point. Using “clever” or bombastic language is often more confusing than enlightening. By the constant use of such language the listeners would either lose interest in what is being said or worst still go about doing things in a way that is quite contrary to the purpose at hand, thus causing even further complications. The idea of effective communication is not to impress but to ensure the contents of what is being said is completely understood by all. When delivering important instructions, adopting a method where the listeners are asked to repeat the said instructions, ensures a complete understanding of what is required by both parties. Also giving the instruction in an orderly format helps to keeps confusion levels minimal. If the intention is to keep everyone relaxed, simple and easy-to-understand language should be used. Avoid making too many jokes especially if the connotations are ambiguous, as it can not only cause confusion but also cause misinterpretation and the feeling of being slighted. Using active rather than passive language patterns is also encouraged. There is more emphasis on the importance of the action requirement through active language patterns. Qualities of a Good Leader Supportive A good team leader should be able to encourage and support his or her team. This is what can help build a strong team. Enabling people to be the best that they can be, also improves the general performance of the team as a whole. A good team leader also listens to the grievances and requests of the team and presents this to the organization. The leader should be willing to effectively represent his team whenever the need arises. Great Interpersonal Skills and Strong Relatable Character A good leader should have good character. He should be someone that the team members can easily talk to. A good leader knows where to strike the balance between being friendly and authoritative at the same time. If a team respects their leader, they will be able to follow and work together effectively. However, a team that fears their leader will not be able to work well together. Confident A good leader should always be confident in everything that they do. A team may easily fail to follow a person who seems to be unsure about themselves or the tasks in hand. The team may also fail to respect such a leader. A confident leader can also easily inspire others to be their best and work hard at attaining their set objectives. A confident person is more likely to lead a team effectively. Committed to Excellence There are different types of teams. There is a team that may just try to complete assignments fast without paying attention to quality. There are others that can’t be bothered and normally fail to meet objectives or deadlines. These teams have weak leaders who fail to lead them in the right direction. A good team leader should always have integrity and commitment to excellence. They should seek to have the performance from the team. Such a leader ensures that the team remains productive at all times. As a leader, you have to set high standards and equally high expectation levels. This will help your team embers to aim high each time. Focused If a team leader isn’t focused then it’s very hard for the team to work together to realize their goals. A distracted team is likely to postpone assignments or even fail to work together if at all they don’t share common objectives. A focused leader will be firm at ensuring that every member of the team participates in helping achieve the set goals and objectives. He normally has his mind set of increasing productivity and the output quality of the team. Excellent Communication Skills You can’t lead people if at all you can’t express yourself effectively. Communication is about just being able to be understood. You need to watch out for small issues that may bring a communication breakdown. Learn to be polite and to talk to your teammates with respect. A leader who constantly yells doesn’t inspire his or her team. You should also not issue orders. Learn to discuss and make requests or assign roles. You should also learn to be listener. This is a very effective communication skill. You can learn a lot and get to work well with others if only you learn how to listen first. Innovative An effective leader should know how to think outside the box. Such a person will be able to make the team develop and progress well. Motivating A team will not be able to perform well if they aren’t motivated. You need to keep the team in high spirits. You don’t have to give incentives but just simple things can keep your team motivated. For instance, if someone does something good, it’s good to take not and compliment them. There are teams that acknowledge “the employee of the month/year”. This form of appreciation is also very effective as it motivates the team members to work hard. Once your team a member excels in a project you should congratulate or show them some appreciation. This will motivate them to work harder. Good at Conflict Resolution A team is normally made up of people of different personalities and ideologies. This means that from time to time, there will conflicts among members. A team leader should be able to resolve these conflicts without taking sides or making unfair judgment. He should always ensure that the team gets
The True Meaning and Significance of Team Building

The term team building may not be new to us but it is not surprising that many of us still do not have a full understanding of what this term really means. More often than not, we see team building as an opportunity to get away from the humdrum of everyday work and experience a paid vacation with our colleagues. To others, it is merely a waste of corporate or organizational time and money as it does not really help build teams, but only gives employees a reason to take a long break from work. It can be quite difficult to fully define what this term really means. When used in a business context, it refers to a wide range of activities geared towards the improvement of team performance. It can be pursued through many different kinds of practices which can range from simple bonding activities or exercises to complex work and situational simulations to multiple day retreats that are all designed to help build or develop a team. The term should not be confused or interchanged with team recreation, because team recreation merely consists of different activities for teams that are purely recreational. Team building is often associated with business organizations and is generally discussed within the theory and practice of organizational behavior and development. However, it is not limited to enterprises and organizations alone – it can also be applied to school groups, civic organizations, sports teams, and many others. Many business and organizational executives, managers, leaders, and even regular employees believe that this concept plays an important role in any environment because it focuses on and specializes in bringing out the best in a team and in each of its members. With improved team performance, teams can better ensure that there are enhanced leadership skills, positive communication, and self-development within the team. This can result to an improved ability to work closely together as a team to solve problems more effectively and efficiently. While there are business enterprises and organizations that focus on specific individuals and personal goals (with rewards and recognition that single out the achievements of certain individual employees), this does not mean that teams no longer have a place in the company or organization. This tendency of focusing more on individual achievements only emphasizes the growing challenge of developing effective teams within the workplace, civic group, sports club or school organization through team-building activities.
The 10 Most Powerful Tips for Leaders

So with all that said and done, there is an awful lot to take on board here. Hopefully you have a much better idea now of what really makes a great leader and how you can win the respect of your team and steer them to victory almost without trying. But still, putting all this into action can be challenging and that’s why it’s useful to break this down further and to recap on some of the most potent tips we covered throughout this article. So here they are… 1. Have a Vision You Believe In This is by far the single most important point if you want to make sure your team respects you and that you are making the right decisions for your organization. 2. Focus on Your Mission Statement As a leader, you need to see the bigger picture and that means focusing on how to deliver results and how to grow the business. 3. Build Resilience and Plan for Contingencies Make sure that your business is able to handle crises and that you know what you’ll do in any of the worst case scenarios. 4. Hire the Right Team Your team should be diverse in their skills and their abilities but they should be united by the common goal that you all share and the common vision. 5. Give Your Team Autonomy and Credit This is the best way to make work intrinsically motivating for your team and to ensure they work hard and passionately. 6. Stay Calm, Be Respected This will keep your team calm and it will make you seem more confident. This is most important when you are challenged by dissidents and when you are going through tough times. By showing your passion, doing what’s best for the team and being friendly but distant, you can endeavor to be respected. This is better than being liked or feared. 7. Be One Step Ahead Use financial modelling and other techniques to stay one step ahead. 8. Take Responsibility If things go wrong, you must always take responsibility. This gives your team confidence and assurance but also wins their respect. 9. Be Knowledgeable You won’t be the best at anything and you need to know how to delegate. BUT you should also make it your business to understand the role of each team member so that you can oversea the course of your ship. 10. Take Risks It is important to take risks and be courageous as a leader. This is again what will allow you to grow and what will make your team achieve above the rest.
Team building exercises Help Your Business Performance

Team building programmes can help your business by improving the communication, levels of trust and general understanding between the members of a team. It is important that you plan it carefully. A negative experience can irreparably damage your team’s morale and have the opposite effect that you were hoping to create. If you have no in-house expertise in this area it may be worth calling in the experts. Depending on your budget and/or plans this could involve someone offering an initial consultancy through to designing and administering a bespoke programme for you. One of the benefits is that they have experience of using a range of recognised diagnostic tools and instruments. This means that you can be confident that it is a positive experience, meets all of your chosen objectives and makes a positive contribution to your business’ performance. There are a number of different types of team building exercises that you could use depending on the areas that you want to address. For example there are problem solving exercises with an objective of encouraging flexible thinking and creativity. There are also planning or communication activities and these can develop the importance of these business processes, as well as exercises that have the aim of developing trust between the members of a team. Within these categories the activities can take a range of different forms from social and/or group bonding activities through to personal development activities or activities to analyse team roles and dynamics. One of the first factors you need to take into consideration is to ensure that there is understanding of the need for the session and one way of doing this is to connect any activity to the team’s day to day work and any obstacles that have been identified. It is also important to create a sense of ownership and to follow up any of the outcomes of the session as agreed. Other ways to help your team building session to be a success is to get the individuals within the team involved in the preparation of the event. This could be by simply seeking initial feedback on their issues and concerns, holding a survey of what the team members think the obstacles are in improving productivity or getting a small group to work with the consultants to plan the whole programme. By making the event something they can buy into rather than something that is ‘done’ to them, team members will have a positive approach to the event from the beginning. If some of the team members are hostile to the idea of team building exercises, possibly because of negative experiences in the past, try linking it with other activities. Perhaps the whole team needs training on a new computer system. Rather than a simple IT training session why not link in a team building strand to the event. As well as things to build into your event there are also a number of things to try and avoid, for example try and make sure that the session is pitched at the right level. While some may enjoy fun ice breaker type activities, chances are your team are already very busy people and if they think that you are wasting their time it will probably put them in a negative mindset for the session. Similarly though overly complex tasks or physically or emotionally draining activities should also be avoided, you want to try and engage everyone. While there are many benefits to be gained from taking your team out of the office for some outdoor and/or physical development activity make sure you take into account the makeup of your team and make sure that all members of the team will be able to contribute to activities and complete them in a satisfactory way. Team building programmes can give a business a vital competitive edge over their competitors by not only improving productivity but also improving morale and leadership skills, developing new procedures and processes or identifying blockages that are holding back the team’s and therefore the business’ performance. They can also help teams to identify their strengths and weaknesses and to clearly identify the team’s goals and objectives and to help them feel ownership of these goals and objectives.
How to Inspire Your Team

Now you have a broad idea of what it means to be a good leader, it’s time to break this down and to examine each of these points in more detail. But the most important point we can discuss is inspiration. If you can inspire your team to work, then you can get the very best out of them no matter what else. If they believe in your vision, they will be absolutely loyal and absolutely committed to what you’re doing. They will work harder and longer hours and they will drive your business, department or startup forward faster than anyone else. Notice the word ‘vision’ here. That’s very important and we’ll come to why in a moment. What’s more, is that if you have a vision for your team, you’ll help to inspire others. That means your customers and your potential business partners. More people will want to work with you. More people will want to buy from you. And more people will want to be loyal to your brand and to think of themselves as a ‘part’ of what you do. It goes deeper too. That’s because having a vision can also help you to make the right decisions for your organization. We talked briefly about the importance of not just keeping your team afloat but of growing and avoiding catastrophe? That all comes from having the right vision. Your vision is what gives you your goal. And if you get it right, it should also be what gives you your drive to succeed and makes that passion contagious. Many of the points we talk about later in this article will stem from that vision. Introducing: The Golden Circle Perhaps the best way to illustrate what is meant by this, is to look at a concept in business known as the ‘golden circle’. What is the golden circle? Well, if you believe the highly popular TED talk by Simon Sinek (who first proposed the concept), the golden circle is the difference between innovating companies that grow and thrive and those companies that fail. Why is it that Apple is constantly creating more exciting products he asks? (This was a while ago, bear in mind). Why is it that the Wright Brothers’ succeeded where others failed, others who had more resources and more means? The answer is the golden circle. The golden circle is made of three ‘rings’ which can be seen like layers. On the outermost ring, you have the word ‘What’. Inside that, you have the word ‘How’. And on the innermost ring, is the word ‘Why’. So as a leader, you need to think about these three things: What? How? Why? For the sake of simplicity, we will start by focusing on this question from a business perspective. That means we can change these questions into: What do you do? How do you do it? Why do you do it? And the key aspect to all this is that last part – the why. The most important question you can possibly ask yourself as a business is why you do what you do. And what might surprise you is that a lot of people can’t answer this question. What they tell you is that they are in their business to make money. Other than that, what ‘why’ is there? This is where your company ‘mission statement’ comes in and this is something that all the most successful businesses in the world have in common – great mission statements. It is the company with the mission statement that actually believes in something, that has a strong brand and that other people can get behind. Some examples: Ikea At IKEA, our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them. Amazon It is our goal to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. Coca-Cola To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit. To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions. To create value and make a difference. Facebook Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share make the world more open and connected. Google Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Intel Delight our customers, employees, and shareholders by relentlessly delivering the platform and technology advancements that become essential to the way we work and live. McDonald’s McDonald’s brand mission is to be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat and drink. Microsoft Our mission is to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. This is important because it is what makes the brand something that the audience, the employees, and the leaders themselves can believe in – and it is what sets the long-term course for the journey. And as Simon Sinek puts it: people don’t buy what you do, people buy why you do it. The objective is not to sell to people who need what you make, the objective is to sell to people who believe in what you believe. Those are the people who will be loyal to your brand. And the same goes for employees. Employees who believe in your mission statement will stay up late at night working because they believe in what they do – they’re excited by it and they want to see it happen. Heck, people on Kickstarter will even pay to see your mission statement become a reality even when there’s nothing in it for them. Oculus’ mission statement is to: deliver incredible, affordable, and ubiquitous consumer virtual reality to the world. This is a mission that people believed in so strongly, that they essentially funded the organization and allowed it to become a real-life company. A good business starts
Leadership Development As An Art

Having a team follow and look up to you indicate signs of leadership. Having the ability to lead is a gift. It’s something that is offered to all, but only few respond to this call. That’s why, as one of the few who respond, it is your duty to keep moving forward with the skill. Leadership Development training will help you become a better leader not only to your team, but also for yourself. Simply put, leadership training is defined as the process of an individual continually trying to become a better leader. The training will definitely be of great use and advantage for aspiring leaders. The training includes all sorts of things in the process. One must look at his attitudes, the way he makes decisions, the way he behaves in front of his followers, the way he manages his time, the way he influences others and the way he makes the team efficient. Leading has things to consider. The first one is your familiarity with the people you are trying to lead. You should know what kind of words would get into their brains. You should know them well enough to know what kind of music they like, or what kind of dancing is their type. From which generation are they from? Second is your ability to teach. Of course a leader is also considered a teacher to a lot of people. You should be able to teach people how to think and make decisions for themselves, giving them a more independent way of thinking. Leadership development will provide you techniques on how to do such things. As a leader, you have to know what your boundaries are. Boundaries include having intimate relationships with your followers. As part of your behavior as a leader, you should know that it is unprofessional to be having intimate relationships with those who follow you because that could shed light on the idea of having biases on him/her. Another is that you shouldn’t abuse this power given to you. Of course, you should respect those who have faith and trust in you. Don’t steal from them, or bribe them or scare them. Be a good leader by being in their shoes, not stepping on their shoes. Leading is an art. There is honor, discipline, talent, and individuality in it. However, this individuality is different. This individuality is a personal view of what leading is. The only thing that all forms of leading is, is that they all look at the betterment of those who believes, looks up, and trusts in the leader. Be a leader, and create a future, take Leadership Development to hype it up for you.
How Talent Management Produces Effective Leaders through Performance Management

The first phase in talent management or in other companies, also known as succession planning defined as a strategic method to attract, retain and develop highly skilled individuals to serve your company is leadership consultancy. It is basically the process of identifying characteristics, traits and qualities or the exact criteria for the attributes that should make up your desired leader. This allows for creating the ideal model or framework for leadership that is aligned with your company goal, vision and mission. The second phase is leadership audit wherein the goal is to amass collective data about the existing effectiveness of your current leaders to gain insight on how they have had impact on your company, as well as identifying areas for improvement. This is used to measure effectiveness, performance, alignment, capability and value for money to be used as a comparative study against studies from other companies giving you a clearer insight in how you can improve the structure of you current leadership model. The next phase is leadership assessments and benchmarking where the aim is to focus on the capabilities of an individual, measuring the ability to lead with the help of their amassed knowledge, background experience, learned management skills and high-performance behaviors, and on preferences of an individual where personal characteristics, traits, values and motivations influence their methodology on leadership. This again is collective data across you organization to be comparatively analyzed against successful organizations to help boost the success of your company taking it to the next level. The next phase is the use of assessment and development centers based on a theoretical model in helping your leaders through learning and accreditation. Based on solid research it aims to tackle the complex relationship between behaviors and performance such as negative effects of behavior and differentiation between behaviors and its impact on your organization. These also include but are not limited to, workshops and courses on leadership skills, development toolkits, coaching and development toolkits, top team development and leadership coaching focusing on skill development coaching, transitional coaching, career coaching, executive coaching and performance coaching. Participants are usually asked to spend time going through this training until they have received their accreditation. This of course may be costly but is a necessary investment if you are serious about influencing a great change within your company. The last phase is the most crucial to a future leader and given the utmost importance by a talent management team, performance management, because affecting change does not come naturally to some and usually involves a greater emotional aspect than an intellectual one. A leader’s efficiency is based on his ability to influence favorable outcomes which is always going to be dependent on the performance of his department. The only way effective leadership is measured is through seeing his performance, the results. There are two organic key factors that can immensely influence performance, motivation and environment. Motivation is essential in driving results because it is an innate drive to improve one’s self. It is vital that the leader knows his employees on a personal so he can create an approach tailor-fit for every individual personality so he can better gear them towards a goal. There are different forces that drive motivation in every person and it is a leader’s responsibility to use that as a tool for improvement. In the same way, it helps define the preferences in their working environment. An employee who feels comfortable with his office environment does not need coaxing to do better. He enjoys his job and the company of his co-workers as well. As a result there will be need for minimal supervision in driving results once positive reinforcement has been implemented. Prepare your future leaders today.
Encourage Leadership Training

One of the things that employers look for in their employees, apart from the standard abilities like being a team player, being flexible, being detail-oriented, possessing the right skills and qualifications as well as good work ethic, is the drive to learn more and become more. From time to time, you might feel like you’re simply a tiny cog in a bigger machine that isn’t even aware of your presence or understand the value of what you do, but there is someone who is keeping an eye on what you do and how you perform, and that person is usually your immediate boss. He or she is the one who sees your performance and your contributions to the team and is able to recommend you for a raise or a promotion as needed. Employers would do well to encourage skills development in their employees. This adds to their arsenal of skills, making them more valuable to the company and ensuring that their skills are used to benefit the company. One of the workshops employers must encourage their workers to take is leadership training. Some people might think that developing leadership qualities in employees could pose a threat to the current higher-ups since it sounds as though people will be groomed to usurp their positions. This isn’t the case at all. Leadership training simply means that companies will be able to have teams of workers who are all able to take charge and have a thorough understanding of what it takes to make a company run smoothly. Encouraging leadership training in employees also means that employees have a chance for advancement, keeping them on their toes and helping them exercise their potential in their careers. Leadership training is not something that should be restricted solely to the heads of a company, although it would benefit them in the event that they forget what true leadership is about, help them reassess their progress and figure out where they may be going wrong, and allow them to be more sensitive to the needs of their workers. Everyone who is willing should have a shot at leadership training, especially since it will not only improve their outlook on their jobs and their skills but also allow them to make use of it in their lives. Keep in mind that leadership training is not just about creating the future heads of the company and it certainly doesn’t mean that participants will be actively angling for currently occupied top positions. It offers people a chance for advancement and self-improvement, and employers should recognize that having a team of highly skilled and effective with leadership abilities is much preferable to having workers who are skilled but possess a drone-like mentality.
The Difference Between Boss and Leader

Every leader is a boss. But every boss is not the leader. This defines the difference between a boss and a leader. The biggest difference between a boss and a leader is one. The boss is respected and obeyed because of his/her seniority. A leader is respected and looked up to as a example not only because of seniority but mainly because of the qualities of character and ability. Please view these wallpapers in this reference. Those who aspire to become leaders must lead by example. The team must always have a firm belief that the leader will be there during every crisis. Not to fix the blame, but fix the problem. If the team members find that the leader does not follow what he/she preaches, they will have no respect for him/her. They may obey him/her, but the respect will be missing. Leaders gain this respect by their actions. They look and act sincerely. There is no mismatch between their words and actions. They look integral in approach and character. To be a leader, every boss must display characteristics such as knowledge, planning, anticipation, foresight, action, result oriented approach, perspective, respect every team member, earn their respect, act as a friend and act as a mentor. This is quite a list, but if you want to become a good leader you need these qualities. This is true not only for national leaders but for persons in every leadership position in any organization. Once a person earns the respect of his /her team members he/she ceases to be only a boss and transforms into a leader.
Kaizen Culture in the Workplace

Kaizen is a system which requires interaction and participation from all employees, from the front line crew to the upper management and even CEO of the company. Everyone is encouraged to brainstorm and come up with suggestions for improvement on a regular basis. It is a continuous activity, carried out throughout the year. Employees from all levels of a company work together proactively to achieve continuous, small and incremental improvements to the business processes. In this way, different levels of experiences and skills can be brought together to create very powerful techniques for making improvements in the company’s processes. Kaizen is a process, which if performed correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates hard work while encouraging smart work, and motivates people to conduct experiments based on their suggestions, learn to identify and reduce wastes in the business processes. When Kaizen is implemented as an action plan through a series of Kaizen events, it teaches employees to think in different ways about their work. They are pushed to think how their current work can be further improved in order to achieve greater success. Implementing Kaizen in workplace There are three stages in implementation of Kaizen in any organization. 1. Encourage participation – To ensure active participation from all employees, it is necessary that first awareness about Kaizen is created. After the necessary awareness training sessions are provided, conduct and promote Kaizen events and provide rewards to employees on successful implementations of ideas which are the results of these events. In such events, direct involvement of management is also important. 2. Training and Education – A proper training is required for executives to learn the essence of Kaizen. The management level should thoroughly understand Kaizen in an organizational vision context, which needs to be followed vigorously to achieve the desired business results. They must also be taught how to be impartial towards everyone and encourage their employees to actively participate. 3. Quality level improvement – After training is completed, people should remain focused on making changes towards improvement. They should take measures to start making small and incremental changes towards achieving long term goals, like improving efficiency, processes and quality. In organizations where Kaizen is being implemented, transparency between different levels of the organization is very crucial. Effective communication should take place between all the levels of employees. While employees are brainstorming for ideas, it is important that management also gets involved in these sessions. The manager also should ensure that their suggestions and ideas are being acted upon immediately and not delayed by a week or month. Employees should be kept informed about other activities going on in the team and how their ideas are being worked upon. People should not feel that their ideas have all gone waste and are not being used. A positive mind set is what will help in keeping Kaizen alive in the organization. Thus, constant application of Kaizen creates huge long term value by developing the culture that is really needed for true continuous improvement.