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Showing posts with the label team work

Lead Your Team Into a Post-Pandemic World

During the Covid-19 crisis, I’ve spoken with many CEOs who have shared that a key priority for them, naturally, has been the safety and well-being of their employees. And there are many examples of inspiring actions taken by CEOs and companies in support of their employees. But as we’ve come to recognize that this crisis will last more than a few short weeks, companies are now defining their approach for the long haul. I’ve seen two crucial ideas take hold with corporate leaders. One: Given the magnitude of the shock and the challenges that this crisis represents, companies must consider the full breadth of their employees’ needs as people. Safety is essential, of course, but it’s also important to address higher-level needs such as the want for truth, stability, authentic connections, self-esteem, growth, and meaning in the context of the crisis. Two: Many CEOs have begun thinking about this crisis in three phases. They may assign different names or specific lengths to t

The Best Teams Hold Themselves Accountable

Want to create a high-performance team? Want to limit the amount of time you spend settling squabbles between team members? It turns out those two issues are closely related: Our research shows that on top-performing teams peers immediately and respectfully confront one another when problems arise. Not only does this drive greater innovation, trust, and productivity, but also it frees the boss from being the playground monitor. I first saw the connection between high performance and peer accountability years ago when consulting with a very successful financial services company. It had an unparalleled return on capital, breathtaking sales growth, and the highest customer renewal rate in the industry. In my first face-to-face meeting with the CEO, whose name was Paul, and his direct reports, I committed a major faux pas. I discovered halfway through the meeting that I was calling the wrong guy, “Paul.” It was an innocent mistake. When it was time to begin, one member of the executive tea

How to Get Experts to Work Together Effectively

How should teams of experts working on knowledge-intensive projects be structured? Should they be hierarchical? Or will flexible, self-organized groups perform better?  Teams often struggle with how to get the most value from the members’ expertise, to minimize conflict, to integrate their diverse expertise, and to leverage it during all phases of a project. The traditional approach is to put the person with the most experience and expertise in charge — for example, a head coach or a chief programmer. The assumption is that this person has the expertise to make the best decisions about how to allocate tasks and responsibilities. Teams that adopt this model feature a rigid hierarchy, whereby final decisions are centralized through this single, formally designated individual. The downside of this approach is that when projects increase in complexity and team size, the central individual can become a communication and coordination bottleneck for the team. Another approac

Why Team Input Is the Key to Successful Benefits Planning

To understand what benefits fantastic employees truly value, why not just ask 'em? Every entrepreneur knows how important employee engagement and retention are to the success of any growing company. You’ve probably read the data yourself about how much time and effort go into replacing a good employee; surveys describe a cost equating to  six to nine months  of that employee’s salary. You're probably aware that countless factors come into play in an employee’s decision to stay or move on -- including benefits and perks. In my experience growing my  content marketing agency , I found that benefits and perks themselves weren't the main reason employees choose to stay or leave to pursue other opportunities. Instead, what contributes significantly is the satisfaction they feel about their work, their long-term career-development opportunities and the support, respect and appreciation they receive from managers and co-workers. But the benefits offered matter, too. An

3 Tips For Finding Your Ideal Workflow

When most of us think of flow at work, we may think of charts, project plans and deadlines. But there is another kind of work flow that is incredibly important, especially for entrepreneurs. Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularized the concept of “flow” in the early 1990’s. According to his theory, flow manifests itself when a person’s natural skills align with the challenges they face. When people operate outside of their flow, problems arise.  For example, if an individual works in a highly challenging environment in which their natural skills are outclassed, they tend to experience terrible anxiety and stress. Conversely, if an individual’s advanced skills are wasted in an industry that is neither interesting nor challenging, boredom and apathy quickly set in. In the world of business, this situation occurs when an individual’s natural skills and proclivities are simply not a fit for the career they chose. That’s why I believe that finding the right

How Using The Force Of Job Connectivity Can Help Your Team Work Better

“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”   Obi-Wan Kenobi When it comes to working in Hong Kong, the employment market is our galaxy, and we, hopefully, are the stars within it. For the first time, we can start to  visualize  the Force that binds our companies together, that helps hold our relationships with colleagues, teams and departments. We can also begin to understand potential individual pathways for navigating companies, and which directions are possibly the most open and closed for us to take. The Force graph below represents the top career networks that exist between job functions in the  entire  Hong Kong Job Market. The size of the arrow illustrates the frequency of movements. Hong Kong Career Network Force Diagram (Source: Richard Hanson) There are a number of interesting observations to be made from studying this data; 1. M

How to Handle the Pessimist on Your Team

Turning Negativity into Productivity Dealing with a pessimist on your team can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. Attempts to ignore or counter frequent negative comments may simply incite further negativity. Good news: by being proactive you can help the pessimist change his behavior and enable your team to achieve greater productivity. What the Experts Say The first step is to figure out what is causing your team member’s negativity. Roderick Kramer, William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that it is the role of the leader to understand the underlying cause of the pessimism before acting. “Some people are dispositional pessimists whose knee-jerk reaction is to see the negative in everything, while others may be expressing a pessimistic point of view based upon informed logic,” Kramer says. Some common sources of pessimism include resentment at not having been promoted, a need for attention, or a