Management Blog

Team Building Outdoors - Why it Works

 

 

Team building at its best results in synergy i.e. 1+ 1 = 3 the sum is greater than the individual parts. The power of outdoor-based team building lies in the experiential nature of the learning that takes place. Well-designed and well-facilitated outdoor leadership and team building tasks have several advantages over traditional classroom based methods, a list of these advantages would include:-

 

• Environment-research has shown that  taking individuals into an unusual and stimulating environment can have a noticeable effect on the desire to develop new team skills.
• The tasks have real outcomes-Well designed challenging programmes will include tasks that have real and measurable outcomes for both individuals and teams; this is an ideal metaphor for the workplace.
• Teams are able to make mistakes and learn from them with no consequence on the business.

 When developing our team building courses Call of the Wild aim to give teams the chance to enhance several aspects of team working.

 

• Communication
• Trust
• Open and frank discussion
• Goal setting
• Problem solving
• Listening skills

 

It is through the development and implementation of these skills that teams can begin to work to their potential.

 

Critical to the success of our any team building programme is the amount of time allowed for feedback and facilitation, as it is only on reflection that learning can be identified and consolidated.

 

Team building is important to most organisations and should be seen as an essential component of any training plan.

 

Fior more information on team building programmes  and outdoor team building visit our website.

McDonald's Offering Foundation Degrees

Fast food restaurant McDonald's is offering its managers the chance to study for a foundation degree writes the BBC.

More than 60 staff have swapped flipping burgers for a two-year business management course. The company already offers apprenticeships and says it wants to help staff become more qualified.

Stuart McWilliam is 27 and from Warrington. He started working at McDonald's aged 17.

 "I started as a crew member. I was cooking fries and grilling burgers," says Stuart, who works in one of the Warrington restaurants. "I started from the bottom."

But recently he's swapped working at McDonald's for late night studying. He said: "I'm doing a foundation degree and I hope it will open doors and help me progress further."

He's one of 53 managers who have signed up for a foundation degree through the fast food restaurant.The company worked with Manchester Metropolitan University to create the course in managing business operations.It's only open to managers, so other staff cannot apply.

 
However, some members of the hospitality industry are concerned that the courses will not be immediately accepted by other businesses. For instance how would you view someone who came to you for a job and had one of these degrees. There are also questions as to whether such degrees are too introspective and give the wider business learning gained from other simialr qualifications.

Any thoughts?

Related Themes

ILM Awards and Certificates

Foundation Degrees with our online Development Academy

 

 

Department of Education to Continue with Leadership Development for Teachers

The Department of Education  will continue to support programmes which are successful in developing leaders in schools. Through the new Teaching Schools network, we expect the National College to enable many more clusters of schools to offer their own high quality ‘middle leader’ (e.g. heads of department or heads of year) development programmes. This will be significantly more cost effective than offering centralised programmes, and builds on a successful pilot.

2.42 We will also support third sector organisations to expand the availability of their programmes. For example, Future Leaders is a three-year programme which is designed to support highly talented teachers to progress quickly to leadership positions in challenging schools. Teaching Leaders is a two-year programme designed to support the development of outstanding subject or middle leaders in challenging schools. We will continue to support both programmes. The Future Leaders programme will place 50–100 talented teachers a year in challenging urban secondary schools across the country, and we will expand the pilot of the Teaching Leaders programme beyond London, to develop 75 outstanding subject/middle leaders each year.

For more information on our leadership development programmes and ILM Awards visit the Call of the Wild website.

Technophobes Still Out There in Wales

25% of small and medium-sized firms in Wales have no website and only 58% have a high web presence according to research by search engine giant Google. The report, commissioned by Google also scored badly compared to other parts of the UK for web access. "It is more surprising when you look at the rgowth we are seeing in small and medium-sized businesses that do have an active internet presence," said Paul Zwillenberg from Boston Consulting Group, the author of the report. "These grew seven to eight times faster thatn those that didn't over the past two or three years."

Companies will be left behind to wither and die without a web presence and more importantly an appreciation of what new technologies can do for their business. An example of this is the increasing importance of online learning which now forms an integral part of many of our programmes. Clients have seen the benefits this can bring to their staff. These include:-

• Reduced time away from the office and its associated costs. Most training and development programmes will require time away from the office. Therefore the more this can be eliminated the better.
• You’re all busy people with heavy workloads but with the desire to further your vocational knowledge to enable improved performance and progression. E-learning is an excellent means of achieving this difficult balance.
• Retention of learning. Course material can be posted on the site together with pre and most importantly post course material.
• CPD – For continued learning after the programme and throughout your career

For more information on our online development academy then visit the corporate training events website.

 

New Staff Retention Issues in UK

20% of all new employees leave their new job within the first six months of employment according to a recent survey. carried out by yourpeoplemarket.com on 1,000 of its registered users. Chris Smith the founder of Yourpeoplemarket.com points out that that this results in companies spending double the amount of money that they need to in order to find a new employee.

In view of the current state of the economy we undertsand that it is more important than ever to develop  and recruit the right people to ensure they provide a return on your investment in them at the earliest opportunity. Call of the Wild have therefore now developed a programme to assist clients with recruitment and development of new and existing staff. The aim is to reduce costs for the client through the selection of individuals with approprite skill sets and behaviours best suited to the needs of the job. This avoids costly probabtion periods during which it is discovered that the individuals are not appropriate for the position.

A well-designed assessment  starts with a list of competencies required within a specific role and breaks these down into observable and measurable behaviours. A programme can then be developed which utilises a variety of inputs, allowing individuals to be fairly assessed against a set criteria by trained observers.

 For an assessment to be fair it is essential that a number of different inputs be built in allowing delegates a number of opportunities to demonstrate or develop the required behaviours. A typical assessment centre programme may include the following inputs;

• Interviews
• Behavioural profiling
• Experiential learning tasks
• Role Playing
• Presentations
• Data Analysis
• Group Discussions

Done correctly a comprehensive and planned recruitment policy incorporating assessment can reduce the  risk of recruiting the wrong individuals for the wrong roles. This could enormous cost savings for the company. 

For more information on Call of the Wild's recruitment and assessment programmes visit our website
 

Swansea Bay Regional Business Awards 2010 - Finalist

Swansea Bay Regional Business Awards 2010 sponsored by JCP Solicitors  recognise success, innovation and excellence across all industry sectors and are designed to accommodate small and medium to large businesses, new or old, in the private sector. The awards ceremony takes place on 26th November 2010.

“The Awards are a first class way for a company, what ever it’s size, to showcase it’s business. This event is where the regions best, get the recognition and reward they deserve” Cllr. Chris Holley, Chair of Swansea Bay Partnership. Call of the Wild are a finalist in the Leadership and Management in Business category. The full list is as follows

Award Categories

The categories are:

• Business Achievement Award sponsored by UK Steel Enterprise Ltd (UKSE)
• Most Promising New Business Award sponsored by Federation of Small Businesses
• Leadership & Management in Business Award sponsored by South Wales Chamber of Commerce
• International Business Award sponsored by HSBC
• Independant Retailer Award sponsored by NFU Mutual
• Innovation & Technology Award sponsored by ITWales

For more information on previous awards won by Call of the Wild visit the leadership website

 

Leadership Theory - Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard came up to Toronto in the early seventies to attend one of Bill Reddin’s 3-D seminars. They were both junior academics teaching in Michigan or thereabouts. They loved what they saw and took Reddin’s model and introduced what they called a “maturity curve”. (They got this idea from Fred Fiedler’s work on what he called the least-preferred co-worker.) Their proposition was that, rather than go through a mildly complex process of analysing a set of situational demands, all you had to do was assess the degree to which subordinates were able and willing to do what they were required to do. If they were both unwilling and unable the manager needed to tell them what to do; if they were unable but willing the manager had to do a selling job on them, etc. Reddin saw this as a direct theft of his model and there was a long file of correspondence threatening various things, none of which ever came to anything.

Hersey and Blanchard’s model is still widely used. It is simple to apply and easy to understand. Ken Blanchard is a very nice chap and is very bright and creative. (You may recall that he wrote The One Minute Manager, and an old publishing colleague of mine just told me that Ken sent him an autographed copy of the 7 millionth copy as thanks for his help in publishing his books!)

There really wasn’t a breakthrough with Hersey and Blanchard, but they did bring the idea of the importance of the situation to the attention of practitioners and consultants in leadership.

Taken from our Online Development Academy

For more information on leadership development programmes and out leadership training course visit Call of the Wild's website

Photos of Our Leadership Training Courses

Here are some photos illustrating our leadership training courses. This is a sample of the full range of leadership training courses we can offer.

 

Building a Team - Top Tips To Get Effective New Team Members

Making sure the new team member feels included and understands the role

1. Set a culture of rich pictures in well-crafted stories. 

When the shape of a team changes, nothing progresses a smooth transition like a good story.  Stories can break ice among strangers to create shared experience and camaraderie.  Stories can set the stage for working creatively, welcoming differences, and they can help people relax, share talents and keep calm when times get tough.  So make it a way of life to offer rich pictures in well-crafted stories. 

A rich picture is one with lots of detail.  It’s as if you were looking closely and then showing others what’s in your mind’s eye.  Use words about colour, shape, size, the mood and feel of rooms, interplay and relationships.   Here’s an example.

What a first day for Steve.  Poor guy came in drenched after running from the parking lot under the kind of sudden darkness and torrential downpour we tend to get at this time of the year. But, since it happens a lot, Ben brought out the big towel and a steaming cup of fresh coffee and Barbara told Steve her own first-day story, which everyone found pretty funny, and Steve agreed that after all he’d look back on this morning with a big smile.

The richer your pictures, the more powerful and lasting the shared experience listeners take away.  So don’t wait until you have a new team member to start your work with rich pictures.  You’ll want to be ready when someone new comes onboard. 

2. Advertise the new role as a team / context story.  

The more you can control the responses to an ad, the more cost effective the ad and the more likely you are to draw qualified candidates who will integrate quickly.  Making the ad a bit of a story can communicate both the job and the culture.  Here’s an example.

We started as two in 1987 and now we’re eleven, looking to make an even dozen who delight our clients with the most attractive interactive customer-friendly sites on the web and enjoy the pleasure of collaborative working in a warm, friendly environment.  Home working a definite possibility some of the time.

Tell stories at interview, too.  They offer a portrait of the cast, a twilight experience of the culture and some sense of the unwritten behaviour codes.

3. Before the new team member comes on board, let everyone know the new person’s credentials and at least one story about her or his prior work. 

Even if the organisation is small and typically you all speak face-to-face, it is useful to send an email, perhaps including the new team member’s CV/Resume but certainly including an introduction that is a rich picture.  Your aim is bringing the new person to life as an individual with a personality and a style, a sense of humour -- someone who will be a little bit familiar to everyone even before they all meet.

Day One

4. Wherever possible, bring the whole team together, whether remotely or in person. 

Use VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that allows everyone to see one another using web cam.  Welcome the new team member with some company stories that leave no doubt about what it’s like to work on the team - roses and warts and all.  In fact, if it’s convenient, you might start at hiring time by involving some team members who’ll tell a story or two.

5. Promote collaboration by setting respect, compassion, openness, and integrity as the ground rules, and tell stories to show why.

Since there’s no time for politics, you’ll need to set the stage for collaboration. You want the new team member to feel collaborative and believe that the others will welcome, accept and trust  her or him.  Tell a rich-picture story about collaborating at difficult times.  State openly that you live by respect, compassion, openness and integrity, and then tell a short story about each one.

6. Ask some team members to tell a story about what the team will accomplish. 

Remind that every team member is a key protagonist in the story of how the whole team will meet the challenge.  Some people find it useful to compile the ideas, pictures, key players and anticipated futures into a document or even a drawing.  It may seem a bit naff or artificial.  However, the result is that the new person quickly knows the others as individuals, and the getting-to-know-you time goes down by orders of magnitude.

Nuts and bolts

7. Assign a mentor who’s a natural storyteller and who is primed to tell company stories with a point. 

You need a short learning curve, so either take the role yourself or identify one team member as mentor who tells stories that make points fast. If the team is ongoing, make the rotating mentor role part of what’s great about being on this team.

8. Regularly ask about how things are going. 

You want to pick up issues before they become problems.  You want to know whether a new person is adjusting quickly and whether any of the team see issues with the new person’s manner or work product.  Telling a story about something difficult is easier than making a complaint.  Use stories about how things are going for you to model the kind of stories you wish people to tell.

9. If you find there are issues or problems, bring the team together and tell the story of the issue or problem as you understand it. 

Include in the story some ways you see to resolve the problem. Your aim is to depersonalise the problem.  Here’s a snippet of an example.

You know, every time someone forgets that deadlines are responsibilities, not goals, customers call to remind us about how it is to deliver on time.  Remember?  ABC said they would buy from us even though our prices are higher because they can count on us to have the goods when they need them.

You want to present mistakes and problems as opportunities for development, and team members as sources of support for one another and ideas for solutions.  Telling a story with a problem and a good solution leading to a positive ending inspires people to work together with that story form as a model.

Inclusion complete

10. Is the new team member trusting, decisive, committed, self-confident and perhaps ready to mentor someone new? Look for clues in the stories people tell. 

The more people are trusting, decisive, committed and self-confident, the more productive they will be.  The more you foster these qualities right from the start, the more quickly a new team member will work hard, learn from mistakes, develop a loyalty to the team and a determination to do a quality job.

You might tell a story on the first day illustrating how trust, decisiveness, commitment and self-confidence can quickly see the new team member a happy, productive team colleague.

These tips reflect ideas in a paper by Dr. Madelyn Blair & Robert Clymire at Pelerei, Inc. a Washington DC area storytelling and consultancy firm.    [email protected]  . The article is taken from our Development Academy. For more information on team development and team building training visit our website.

Leadership Training Tips From Jack Welch

1	Measure three things   If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow.
2	Build confidence That's a leader’s job description. Managers hide behind complexity when they lack confidence. If you're not simple, you can't be fast. And, if you're not fast, you're dead.  So, everything we do (at GE) focuses on building self-confidence in people so they can be simple.
3	Set your people free  You've got to balance freedom with some control, but you've got to have more freedom than you've ever dreamed of.
4	Shout when you win  People feel guilty about stopping to celebrate a little victory ... but it lets people know they've won. It's so critical to an institution. It brings it alive, gives it character.
5	Think vision, not numbers Numbers aren't the vision. Numbers are the product. I never talk about numbers.
6	Fair doesn’t mean ‘the same as’ Every person should be treated fairly in an organization, but every person should be treated differently in an organization.
7	Make people share good ideas  What makes a company flourish is transferring ideas. At quarterly meetings, you must bring together the leaders of all of the businesses to share best practice ideas. Take the best of diversity and use it.
8	Do lots of these two things Spend lots of time developing people and lots of time with customers. I make a point of personally meeting GE's major customers in the spring and fall of every year. I put much of my and GE's customer insights down to these twice-a-year reality checks with customers.
9	Don’t dither; jump I've learned in a hundred ways that I rarely regretted acting but often regretted NOT acting fast enough.
10	Get out of your office - now Your job is to touch people and get into their soul. Every moment you are in your office, you are useless.
My favourite Welch story: when Jack blew up the plant One of the first things Welch did as a 24-year-old manager of a GE plant was blow up the part of the plant he was responsible for. The head of the plant called him to his office to explain. Welch, assuming this was the end of his managerial career, duly explained that he was experimenting with a different mixture and it caused an explosion. The plant boss probed further, asking him why and what he had hoped to achieve. Satisfied that Welch had a) learnt a lesson from the experiment and b) had practised sound thinking; he just needed to adjust his risk analysis the plant head protected Welch and Welch kept his job. “That act of leadership had a profound effect on me for the rest of my life,” Welch said. As head of GE, Welch championed experimentation, learning from mistakes and not blaming people unless they repeated the same mistakes. *  *  * Thanks to Leaders in London for gathering these tips. Visit their website www.leadersinlondon.com to review the  Summit where Jack Welch was a keynote speaker. For more information on leadership development programmes visit our website.

 

For more information on our leadership training course visit the Call of the Wild website.