Wrap up!

Hi Folks

I've had several conversations with people recently about the economic situation.

I've been comparing the current situation with the metaphor used by Jim Rohn. Rohn says "Life and business are like the changing seasons." If that's right, we are clearly heading into an economic winter right now.

And this leads me to question the assertions of government and journalists that the solution to our problems is for everyone to keep spending - for the government to build bridges and hospitals, and for people to spend their 2.5% VAT savings on the kind of consumer junk we've been wasting our money on for the past 15 years since the last recession.

It's like the government telling us: Turn up your heating and open all your doors and windows, and we can stop winter happening!

1. It won't work. We'd all end up as cold as Canute was wet.
2. It'd cost us a flipping fortune.

The appropriate behaviour for winter is to huddle down, conserve what we have and watch out to stop our neighbours starving or freezing to death. It certainly isn't to don your cricket whites and go out on the green in the hope that acting summery will make summer happen!

In team terms, I wonder if the metaphor of the seasons tells us anything useful? There's a lot of hype (usually by people selling books and trainign courses) about High Performance Teams. The science shows that all high-performing teams, companies, individuals, regress to the mean in the end; high performance is cyclical, not permanent.

If your team is in summer now, you need to think like the ants think (thanks again, Jim Rohn) and remember that winter is coming. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Thankfully not for the rest of your life - if it's winter for your team (you're struggling, nothing seems to be going right, you feel under seige) you need to remember that every winter that's ever happened has ended sometime, and hang on in there. Recognise that things are tough right now, and look out for each other to make sure no-one is lost or damaged in these tough times.

And cook yourself up a mid-winter festival to keep everyone's spirits up. After all, that's what we do in real winters!

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd - http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com
Campaign for Real Teambuilding - http://realteambuilding.co.uk

The truth about team development

A great article on Behance reminds us that recruitment and selection is not the end of the story when it comes to setting up your team. What actually goes on inside the team, and the relationships between members, have far mroe impact on team success than simply choosing excellent talented team members.

When I started working in training, I was running a programme in which participants developed their confidence, communication skills, interpersonal skills, presentation skills and enthusiasm over several weeks. When each group came to its final session, they had without question turned into an effective team - and then all went back to their respective organisations.

What was happening? Well, I think that the activities we undertook to develop these skills in the group also ahd the effect of creating the "chemistry" that Scott talks about in his article. that's why, when I started working for myself, I took those same techniques and applied them to real working teams, and got the same great results.

What can you do this week to improve the Chemistry in your team?

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

5 symptoms of dysfunctional teams

A great article on REX. It's a book summary, which neatly ties up the main points of team effectiveness.

1: Trust
2: Challenge
3: Buy-in
4: Accountability
5: Results

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com

Herding Cats?

I am priviledged to be running a workshop today for MIND, the leading mental health charity here in the UK.

I was just chatting with the regional Change Director and getting her views on how an organisation like her manages its operations, given that they rely heavily on volunteers to deliver much of their service.

She told me that while the approach had to be different, there were many things in common. While there is no employment contract, the stick that many commercial and public organisations use to control employee behaviour, all volunteers have to sign up to the charity's statement of values and agree to conform to organisational norms.

I read recently that commercial companies should start to treat their employees as if they were volunteers, especially those who are in Handy's "Strategy Core" of employees. The days of treating them as servants (the approach Handy takes to the Peripheral Staff in his "Shamrock Organisation" model) are, or should be over. This will become more important now, as companies compete in ever harsher conditions to retain their most talented employees.

The danger is that companies will use voluntary redundancy and cost-cutting on benefits to respond to the current market trend. The results of voluntary redundancy are almost always that you lose the most experienced and the most talented and are left with the mediocre - not exactly a sustainable competitive advantage. Cost-cutting on benefits, including transferable skills training (declaration of interest here, Dave) drive away the most talented in the same way.

Be very careful that you do not act like an industrial baron towards your most valuable employees in this recession - you must act like the Lord of the Manor and show them your loyalty now to secure theirs through and beyond the current crisis.

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com