In a program that we conducted for Exxon Mobile, 82 people from 8 companies were gathered in Capella Singapore at Sentosa to emphasize their commitment to safety and share about their safety processes.

In the afternoon, 10 teams of people competed in an Adventure Race to outwit, outlast and outdo each other in a series of team building challenges.

Here’s a short video that on the fun they had:

If you have any needs in the areas of Adventure Races and Team Building, please contact us.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I have spoken to many clients about their teambuilding needs and realised that many companies want to have teambuilding programs without very clear objectives. Generic statements like the ones below are often uttered:

“We want them to be more cohesive and have a spirit of camaraderie.”

“Foster closer ties and have teamwork.”

“We have gone to __________ (insert your previous venue) before, can we go somewhere else different this time?”

I know that there are reasons behind those statements but what is it that they are really tackling? Whenever I talk to my clients, I try to help them gain clarity in their purpose to make it a fun and yet meaningful experience for them.

Most teambuilding programs have severe limitations and here are the things that it cannot do:

1.    Solve deep rooted resentment among specific individuals. If certain colleagues are already angry with each other, teambuilding programs might not be the best answer. It is better to trash it out openly between them then send them to a teambuilding program.

2.    Streamline processes in work, thus making things more efficient. You need a process consultant, not a teambuilding expert.

3.    Change corporate culture. Culture is already embedded into the company and it does not change overnight.

So, after knowing what teambuilding cannot do, the question is then “what can it do?”

1.    Inspire change in mindsets. My experience is that we can shift or break certain old patterns of thinking by introducing new ones through activities. Using activities are great because most people have better retention rates if they experience the lessons rather than just hear them through a lecture.

2.    Get people to start opening up and sharing with each other.

3.    Create a sense of belonging to the company. When people play together with each other and not against each other, there is a sense of unity.

4.    Give important principles about team concepts and winning with people. Principles are easily remembered and will not change with time.

5.    Help participants know that the company cares for them. Companies provide what I call “meaningful fun” rather than just play games and not learn anything serious.

So, before you start to choose a company for teambuilding, consider your objectives first and then get a company with a great track record. They must be consistent in providing an experience where your colleagues can feel inspired to make a change in their lives.

Here’s an interesting video on how everything goes wrong in a teambuilding exercise by American Airlines. Enjoy!

Popularity: 49% [?]

Consider you have a hammer and with that you need to break a rock. You start hammering and after 50 blows you finally manage to break it. Now what if there were five of you hammering at the same time? With five hammers going at once, you probably won’t need more than 5 blows to crack the rock into pieces and that is the power of teamwork!

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” It’s called synergy and what it means in simpler words is that teamwork helps you achieve more with less.

More on Synergy:

Synergy is when different entities work together harmoniously to create the final result. In a business, synergy would be when two or more people form a team and produce a result that is better than if each individual was to work independently. If you are still working alone without a team, you will realise that the amount of impact you can make will be extremely limited.

Synergy is indeed miraculous and can be seen in every sphere of life. For example, when technical staff and organizational staff work together in a company, the result is something that can never be achieved on an individual basis. A football team working closely together must have their players in all positions to provide a strong offence and defense.

Teamwork and the thought process:

If you and I have a dollar each and we exchange, we still have a dollar each. But if you and I have an idea each and we exchange, we have two ideas each! This is how teamwork helps achieve more with less. Teamwork helps in synergizing each other’s thoughts and ideas to give enormous results. By exchanging thoughts with team members, each one of the members achieves mental and intellectual development.

Teamwork and inspiration:

If you are on a weight loss plan and you need to exercise, what will work better – individual efforts or teamwork? You may start off with a lot of zeal but soon lose steam due to lack of inspiration. While if you pair up with a weight loss buddy, most definitely the both of you will lose a lot more weight and maintain your weight over a longer period of time. That’s inspiration from teamwork!

Conclusion:

Teamwork is the ultimate advantage that helps you achieve more with lesser efforts. If you want a better work life, greater productivity, more profit, and better results at work, then form a team!

Want to know ways to increase your team work and by helping your managers work on their team management abilities? Contact Kenneth now.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Image from lifeinthenhs.wordpress.com

Trust is the currency in all relationships, whether in office or at home. If you do not have enough of this currency, you will realise that whatever you do, you will need more time, energy and money to perform a task. However, you will realise that the reverse is true as well.

Imagine how things can be done faster if people had their trust in you?

Imagine that business deals are done simply with a handshake rather than countless pages of contract?

Imagine how you can align people to a common objective because they trust that you will deliver?

Before we carry on further talking about Trust, let’s define what it is in the first place.

Trust is basically summed up in one work “Confidence “. We do place our trust (or confidence) in people and objects every single day of our lives. We trust what people say (or similarly, we distrust what some people might say), or we trust objects to fulfill their functions (eg, our car will work well and take us to the intended destination).

I will just focus on one of the most challenging areas and that is how do we get people to consistently trust you in what you ALL that you say.

First of all, Trust building is a function of 2 things, namely: Character and Competence.

Character:
If a person has a great character or good intent in all he does, you will tend to believe him. If he is congruent in his speech and actions, there is absolutely no reason to even doubt anything he does. Character is important because most people have values and if these values are in conflict with what they believe in, they will leave your organisation.

When I was younger, I kept asking people to trust what I have to say. To my dismay, there were quite a few times people didn’t believe in me. This was because my character has not matured to the point where I ‘walk my talk’ or am clear on my values. I realised that when you have strong values, people actually respect you in what you do and will be drawn to what you say or share.

This is indispensible especially when you need to organise groups quickly or even make difficult decisions. Although what you do might be painful for certain individuals, they will still trust you because you act in good character and intent.

I am absolutely convinced that most politics stem out of distrust and ill-intent. The only way to combat such issues is to demonstrate good character and intent.

Tips on developing good character and intent:

• Be clear on your values and stand up for them.
• Honour everything you say (this includes your commitments to family and kids).
• Be careful of making rash commitments that you cannot keep.
• Trust others so that they can trust you. Trust is a reciprocal relationship.

Competence:
While character is important in developing trust, I strongly believe that competence is the other element. I mean, are you able to trust a person who does not have the capability to do what he said he will do? Will you trust an inexperienced surgeon to perform a major surgery on you? Trust seems to be developed when you consistently deliver what you promised. You simply cannot trust someone who regularly shows poor performance at work. Therefore, in my opinion, competence inspires trust.

One of the fastest ways I learnt about building credibility and trustworthiness is when I have a track record. Being able to show for results do matter to a lot of people. When I first started out in business and talked about my inspirational teambuilding programs, it took a lot of convincing for decision makers to use my programs.

In recent years after running so many mindset change teambuilding programs and giving keynote speeches for government and corporate clients, it was so much easier to get the buy-in from them! I realised that I was actually spending a bit of time sharing about my experiences with the different types of clients and what kind of results that I had achieved with them. Most of them wanted to hear them and know whether I could deliver it for them as well.

That is why competence is important in establishing your trust currency. You have to show that you are capable to perform a task well and it will automatically inspire confidence within people. That is why to convince people quickly is to show them results and that you are competent in doing what you said you can do.

Tips on developing competence:

• Constantly read and attend seminars to be an expert in your field.
• Achieve mastery in what you do for a living.
• What kind of results am I currently displaying in my work? Is it helping me display credibility in my work?
• Take responsibility for your results and make a decision to constantly improve it.

Conclusion
Character and competence sums up what you need to get people to constantly trust what you have to say. Since trust is developed over time, therefore character and competence also takes time to build. Where do you think you are in your character and competence level?I hope to hear from you.

Related Articles:

What’s Your Trust Meter Like?

How To Develop TRUST Within Teams

Teambuilding Lessons From Growing Orchids

Popularity: 17% [?]

Another one of my articles appeared in the Straits Times on 22 Mar 2010, Recruit Section.

Trust is one of the biggest issues that faces any team and everyone says that you need it but how many of them actually teach you how to establish trust step by step?

This article will teach you how you can consistently get people to trust your every word.

You can download this article.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Let’s start with a little analogy of teamwork. Have you observed how a flock of geese fly? They usually fly in V formation and those at the back will usually honk at the one in front. This is to encourage the lead geese who puts in most of the work to overcome wind resistance. Once the leader tires, he moves to the back and another geese moves in to take his place. This form of support helps the entire flock of geese to fly about 71% further than if each geese were to fly on its own. In addition, if a geese were sick or got injured, two of them will slow down to help or protect him.

Isn’t it a wonder how birds know the essentials of teamwork? We humans can do far better with the brain that we’ve got. Explained below are the 10 ways how leaders can inspire team members to consistently give their best for the entire team.

1. Develop trust

Trust is the principle by which the team functions. If the leaders and members have the trust of every person in a team, everyone will be motivated to give their best without inhibitions or fear of being exploited.

2. Involve everybody

When the leaders share information with team members and ask for opinions, a feeling of camaraderie is created and members feel motivated to perform better. Important note: People want their opinions to be heard and know that it considered and acted upon if reasonable.

3. Be a good leader

As a leader, you must be 100 percent clear and confident of what you are doing and what you are getting done from the team. Faith in the leader boosts motivation among the team members. I have been consulted many times by leaders on how to improve their teams and the first place I always look at is the leader. Great Leadership = Great Teams.

4. Give feedback

Everybody needs a feedback on his or her work. Everyone needs to know how they have performed and what they need to do better. Nothing can be more motivating than a constructive feedback. Be sure to start with the positives though.

5. Active Listening

Actively listen to the team members. Listen to their ideas, complaints, grudges, suggestions… anything they may want to share. Just listening to them will give them will help them know that you care and support them.

6. Perform periodic assessments

Periodically assess the progress of the team as a whole and each individual in particular. If any team member is complacent, he or she will wake up and start performing to the best of his or her abilities.

7. Allow team members to give feedback to you

Let the team members give feedback to the leader at regular intervals. This builds mutual respect, mutual trust and confidence. Give them an avenue to tell you what needs to be changed.

8. Hold a weekly interactive session

Let each member of the team have his or her chance to address the team from the front. As a leader, it is always good to show how well the team has performed. If you consistently concentrate on the positives, you will tend to see a more positive behavior in the group.

9. Hold one-on-one meetings

With one-on-one meetings the leaders get a chance to know about personal difficulties of each member. Those who need extra help or extra training should be given so most gladly. Think of the goodwill it will generate.

10. Celebrate success of the team

If you constantly celebrate the successes of your team, both great and small wins, you will find that people will constantly want to share their successes and win even more! Success always breeds more success, and you need to keep the momentum up and running.

Conclusion:
If you want to multiply your efforts and receive exponential results, you definitely need a great team. For every successful person, there is always a successful team behind him/her.

PS: If you have other ideas that you want to share, please leave it down. Click on the “Leave your comment” on the top right hand of this post.

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Being in this industry of training teams and even organising teambuilding programs, I will be sharing with you some insights on why I think alot of teambuilding programs in Singapore will not work at all! This is after much observation of a lot of teambuilding companies.

In most cases, companies hire teambuilding companies for the fun they provide and games where everyone is engaged in some activity. Companies ask for outdoor activities as much as possible, thinking that they will be more fun. Games sometimes involve doing things faster, better or even a clearer way of communication. However, after such programs, people resume their own set of behaviour after they go back to work the following day. This is because issues are not addressed and mindset is not changed.

Here are a few things that can give you a low Return On Investment (ROI) for your teambuilding programs:

1.  Not being clear on the specific outcome you want
Instead of saying things like “Better cohesiveness, have fun or bonding”, it is better to ask whether you can address certain issues like

“I want my staff to be able to take responsibility for their work and not constantly lay blame.”
“I want them to be pro-active in their work and life.”
“I want to be able to consciously think of how they can add value to their team members.”

The more specific your outcome you want, the better your ROI for the teambuilding program.

2.  Trainer possesses poor facilitation skills

I had my fair share of seeing facilitators who are NOT able to bring out a lesson that really makes a Deep Impact on their clients. They just keep talking about the same things that you and I know. In proper facilitation, you actually want the participants to discover the lesson as much as possible, so that learning becomes extremely personal and impactful. Poor trainers tell people what the lesson is, Great Trainers help people find the lesson behind the activities.

3.  Most programs do not address mindset or give great guiding principles
We all know that we should work together in teams, but the question is “why do we not do that all the time?” My experience in building teams is that people usually have their own belief systems regarding teams and not everyone believes in WIN-WIN. A good teambuilding program must be able to address such mindsets and give great guiding principles to replace the old beliefs.

4.  Lack of follow up after the teambuilding program
Most teambuilding programs are just one day but how can you create a team within a day? Creating great teams require a process but most companies end it within a day. One important element is to have a time where there is sufficient follow-up for participants to review the lessons learnt. Constant emphasis and application of the same message has a better chance of helping your staff to internalise what they have learnt.

The next time you choose your service provider, do ensure that they will make a Deep Impact in having fun that is meaningful and objective. If you need a teambuilding provider, email us and we will get back to you:

coach(a)deepimpactonline(dot)com    

Here are some photos of our programs:

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Trust is one of the most important things in the world that all of us need before we can ever start any relationship or build any team. However, most people fail in this area. Allow me to ask you a few questions to see how trustworthy you are:

1.    For the past month, have you ever promised to do things and not fulfil it?

2.    Do you come late for meetings/appointments (yes, even 1 minute late is still considered late!)

3.    Does your family member or spouse doubt your words?

4.    Are there times when you have behaved inconsistently in your life?

If you have answered “YES” to any of the above statements, you really need to work on your trust level. I know that it has very high standards, but hey, people do judge you by what you say or do. Sometimes they will also judge you by what you DO NOT say or DON’T DO.

To ever build trust in the team or with people you love, it boils down to just this word.

Before any teams can actually reach their peak potential, they must first be consistent in how they approach each other and do things. This means that if I were to tell you that we will meet at 3pm, let’s start the meeting at 3pm. If we ever start late and it happens quite a few times, you will start to doubt my words. A few more times, you will start to doubt the entire team in just doing one small thing. When you cannot even have faith in the small things, how can we ever talk about the bigger things?

Therefore, to build Trust in the team, we have to be always mindful of making small agreements and keeping to them. Be faithful in the little things, before we can do the bigger things. I strongly feel that we need to work on our characters and ALWAYS say what we mean and mean what we say! This creates consistency and people know that they can always trust us to be consistent with what we say or do (or don’t do as well).

This is very important especially when we have made promises, eg. rewarding the team when they achieve their targets, letting people go home early because we said they can when they have worked hard or even sending a quotation to a client on time, just because you said so!

So… in conclusion, can I trust you?

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Transformational Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”. If you have comments, I would love to hear them. Please write your comments on the top right of this post.

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Often times we need to create a team to get a certain task accomplished. If you are still working alone thinking that things get done quicker by doing it yourself; you have not seen what it means to divide the work and double the effectiveness through a dedicated team. Your income and productivity is really tied to your ability to create and work in a high performance team. Ignore this law at your peril!

Creating an effective team can sometimes be a difficult task. This is due to the fact that people are very dynamic in character and getting that many differences to work together for a common goal is in itself challenging.

Below are three steps to creating a successful team that will be focused, committed and achieve the desired results.

1. Define the Expectations

If a team is created without expectations, the team will inevitably fail. Expectations need to be in place and clearly defined.

My Personal Tips:

- Give a solid background on why the team was created. The team members need to know their purpose.
- Let them know the importance of their role. Team members that understand that higher management will be waiting for the outcome is always motivation to get the job done well. Even in a top company like Genetech, janitors know that they have to do a good job so that the rest of the company can focus on developing life saving drugs that will make a difference!
- Support the team. Make resources available to the team if they request them. You cannot expect a team to produce the desired results if they do not have the right tools.
- Give the team perspective: the company needs to communicate to the team how their role in the team will help the company. Show them how the outcome will directly impact and affect the company and the initiatives they have laid out. Knowing how something will fit helps in building a puzzle. Essentially, this is what you are asking your team to do.

2. Commitment and Ability

These are both important factors when building a team. Select team members that are committed in accomplishing tasks. A personality trait that goes far with a team is the willingness to accept challenges with drive. Find a good variety of distinct attributes to create a successful team.

3. Central Control

There should be one person that is distinguished as the person who “coordinates” the group. It is important to note that this person does not contribute to the group thoughts and processes all the time. This person only intervenes to keep the group on track with goals set by the team.

Utilizing these three points will be a great start to accomplishing your team goals. Always be sure to set aside time to review these points with your team. The consequences of not allowing enough time is to backtrack, which takes even more time. So… ready to create your ‘A’ Team now?

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Transformational Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”. If you have comments, I would love to hear them. Please post them below.

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In all teams, whether you have been together in your team for many years or even just a few weeks, I noticed that building teams and relationships are somewhat related to growing Orchids. Here are the principles that will work in any team setting.

1. Developing Trust is like Watering Orchids

Growing Orchids is about consistency. I have to water the plants everyday and should do it regularly since Orchids are basically poor water retainers. A consistent spray of water at the roots is essential in Singapore’s warm weather. In developing relationships, we need to be consistent in the frequency of interaction.

More meaningful interaction means that you learn about your colleagues behaviour and friends, therefore resulting in trust. They do not need to take a lot of your time, but short consistent moments are important.

2. There is a season for flowering

When I first bought the Orchids, it was really beautiful and full of flowers. However, after a short span of 6 weeks, the flowers naturally died and the plant was back to simple green colour. It was after about 8-10 months of consistent watering and adding fertilisers, we could finally see another bloom of flowers. It started it small shoots growing and little buds started to appear. After a short time, flowers started to emerge and my family could just witness and admire the labour of our hands.

In all relationships and teambuilding, it requires a lot of time and energy. I could be doing a lot of work to make the relationship work out and sometimes the other colleagues do not respond as fast as I wished. However, when we keep sowing and cultivating the relationships, people will naturally feel loved and will start to open up to you. This to me is the flowering process.

3. Admiring Orchids helps to relieve stress and enjoy the work of our labour

When we start to see the fruits of our labour, we should always take time to enjoy and reflect on our achievements. Many organisations keep rushing from one project/assignment to another without calling for a short celebration. This helps staff to relax, know that their boss appreciates their work, gain recognition for work and also provide a positive work cycle where teams are encouraged that they are making progress. Work is meaningless if we also do not enjoy the fruits of our labour.

Ready to Cultivate your Team? You can contact me to advise on Teambuilding Activities or Creating a Cohesive and Dynamic Work Culture.

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