Business Think Tank

People are uniquely different, but only through their thinking: nothing else should actually matter. Differences of opinion are the cornerstone of growth in a company, but sadly conflict can escalate to confrontation, and this causes a team to implode.

Good managers will ensure that this conflict remains healthy by guaranteeing it remains as a conflict or differences of opinion only. Managing different personalities can be the key to creating success in the workplace and creating a positive and innovative atmosphere.  But how do you achieve this? Here are four tips for managing personalities effectively:

First off, the FORMING phase.

In order for any team to move into the STORMING phase, they need to be able to have intelligent conversations with each other without belittling each other, throwing insults or backstabbing. There are many profiling systems, some simple and some complex, but in our situation, we use a simple DISC (Dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance) process which helps you as a manager understand the basics of:

• The person’s two adaptive personalities and why they have these.
• The predominant traits of their decision making, communication, planning, and motivation.
• The compatibility of their work personality with the team and the team leader.
• Areas to avoid and where their traits will add value

This should be objectively discussed with the team member so that they are not fearful of its outcomes.

WARNING: don’t be fooled into recruiting only people similar to yourself or others. This will limit the team to YOU and do YOU know it ALL, can YOU do it ALL? You need difference. You need diversity in thinking as this generates creativity and innovation: the keys to growth.

Be prepared

People are creatures of habit. This means that they repeat patterns and behave in a predictable way. There are times when we want everyone on the same page, doing what is required as one, complying with managers or customers’ requests, but when it’s time for the flair to flow, we need difference. Be prepared for conflict as conflict is what you need to grow. A golden rule of dealing with conflict is:

1. Address it quickly and independently
2. Always start with a true positive statement, like “I really enjoy working with you” or “I really enjoy your creativity”. This will de-sensitise any aggression from the meeting.
3. Then move into the issue that irritates you, the behaviour that upset you and explain why it upset Don’t blame the person for the action but try to get them to explain why they did what they did and LISTEN.
4. Stress the need to find a way forward “as you want to continue working with his/her creativity”. Oftentimes they will give you the solution, and it will be your job to agree or support. Don’t go in trying to get your own way, be prepared to understand and find a compromise if necessary.
5. Thank the person for their commitment and repeat what is agreed.

And remember: praise in public, criticise in private.

Be respectful

Most normal people want to be treated with respect. No matter your differences, show each member of your team the same level of respect and courtesy. People are more likely to respond with respect, towards you and their fellow team members, ensuring that everyone works together.  Respect individual differences and how people manifest their personalities- this will go a long way in creating team spirit and facilitating collaboration at work.

If you want to know more about your own colleagues and how they should be managed to promote working together, find DISC profiling, team climate surveying and facilitated training courses through our training division.

No Team can be a high-performance team without innovation playing an important role. Robert Half, an American human resource consulting firm, has gone as far as believing that “team innovation is the backbone of every successful company.”

Innovation often means change and change for many people is seen as more work! It is essential to show the team that innovation actually comes easily if allowed. Too often we don’t even look for innovation because we are comfortable with what we have got. This comfort is the number one reason why innovation does not flow in a team.

At Beyond Teambuilding, we understand this concept and have gone so far as to not only include the “innovation factor” into most of our team builds, but we have even created team builds whose primary focus is to stimulate innovative thinking within the team:

• Manic Motion, where the team has to create a Rube Goldberg machine that allows the flow to continue
• Staying Alive, where we test the teams ability to survive in a challenging environment
• The News Room, where you create the news; fake or not?
• Animation station, where your animated creatures are used to tell a story
• Music Video Creation, where the fantasy DJ in you comes to life.

These activities are the catalysts to unleashing the innovative talent within your teams. When people are involved in a fun non-threatening activity, they tend to “have a go” as they do not feel pressured. Once we allow this to happen, it then creates confidence within the team to replicate the skill in their own work environment.

When was the last time you supported your employees by giving them innovation training and development? People need to be given the tools to think innovatively, and that includes keeping their knowledge and expertise up-to-date.

Beyond Teambuilding prides in creating events, activities and challenges that push any team past mediocrity. Get in contact with us to build your team, and allow them to express themselves in a way that unleashes team innovation.

It’s almost that time of year when employees will be expecting a nice bonus for the holidays or even a raise early next year.

While it would be the right thing to do especially if your staff have been working double-duty or on a reduced workforce, it may be that your company, unfortunately, can’t afford to give everyone a bonus this year. This fact can dampen the morale of employees and affect their performance at work.

However, there are other incentives you can provide to boost morale without handing out extra cash.

Side Hustle

Some employees have not aspired to be in their current position, but this is where life has placed them. Perhaps what they love doing does not fall under their current job description.

Find out what their passion is. Maybe the guy in sales wants to work in IT. Or the cleaner would have a hidden talent in marketing a product.

Give employees some downtime and allow them mobility to go to other departments and learn a new skill.  Let them take on their personal projects with this downtime. They could come back feeling refreshed, and you would have happier employees.

Training

Training and development programmes are usually more common in large corporations, but even if you are a small business, you can offer employees a chance to take a course or attend a conference of their choice.

In this way, you both reward the employee and fulfil the continuing education goal for your business.

Motivation

The reason you can’t afford the bonus is that the team didn’t reach the goal for the year. Remind them of the goal post and set an even higher one. Set out a game plan on how to reach it and make the rewards transparent for everyone to see.

A motivational talk might be “old school” but not when a CA and business expert is talking at a level everyone can understand. Let John Ingram do an hour’s motivational with your team to kick-start their aspirations.

Successful teams do what other teams are not prepared to do! Are you ready?

Take your team beyond with Beyond Teambuilding’s exciting events, activities and challenges that push boundaries and guarantee loads of fun.

All organisations have a formal structure and agreed on processes to ensure its productivity and efficiency. Not all are perfect, not everyone enjoys them, and most are a work in progress. Management is the custodian of these structures and efficient processes and as such is often seen as “protector” of such.

In our work, we have encouraged Management to open themselves to input from the team members. The advantage of this is obvious, the reason why it often doesn’t happen is a little scarier:

1. Fear of losing control
2. Fear of losing power or authority
3. Fear of wasting time
4. Arrogance

Here are some ideas that Managers who believe in creating a High-Performance Environment can follow.

Introduce a Debriefing Process

Jim Murray, in his book “Flawless Execution,” introduced a process which we have adopted successfully into our business. Simply put, it means that after every activity, event or project, the full team and all those who had an impact in the outcome, meet and unpack the “good, the bad, and the ugly.”

The outcomes are either good or bad or somewhere in between; the objective is to learn from whatever we did good or bad and decide whether to make these process or behaviour changes part of our new culture of High Performance.

Because an outcome can be affected by various variables, we deal with three parts of the process, namely the PLANNING, then the BRIEFING/COMMUNICATION and lastly, the EXECUTION phase.

Preceding this has to be a conditioning phase so that the team becomes open to expressing their opinions “without fear or favour”. Some of the conditioning exercises can be:

1. Group think-tanks where a current problem is given to the team, and they are asked to try and come up with three solutions (without Management)
2. Challenge the team to talk about their strengths and weaknesses in an open forum (as a Manager start with yourself and explain the impact of each)
3. Have “magic wand” sessions where the team talks about what they would do to improve the business and the team with no restrictions.

The above ideas may appear quite daunting at first, but the benefits are HUGE!

Written by John Ingram, Director of The HiSide Group/Beyond Teambuilding

Successful teams do what other teams are not prepared to do! So what are you prepared to do?

Take your team beyond its limits with Beyond Teambuilding’s exciting events, activities and challenges that push boundaries and guarantee loads of fun.