It won’t surprise you that most companies plan to spend less on training this year. Rather than lament the fact that there’s less money in the budget for traditional training, consider this: Less-formal training might be more effective than formal training, and it still allows you to develop your career.
Collaboration works, until it starts to resemble groupthink. That’s when healthy dissent evaporates, self-defeating tendencies surge and negative emotions corrode the group’s work. Make sure your team is working more like the Manhattan Project and less like Enron.
February 5, 2009
Categorized in: Teamwork
If you were ever considering morale boosters, now is the time to act. Here are two easy, affordable ways to build teamwork and morale.
You probably know that a diverse group is likely to yield the most creative work. But you may not realize just how diverse a team should be, particularly if it needs to come up with new, innovative ideas. Your team needs diversity in three areas: job function, age and gender.
You are in charge of a committee at work that no one seems to care about. Meeting attendance is lackluster, and those who do come rarely speak up. Here are 11 ways to make people feel more engaged.
Pick up know-how swiftly by swapping spots with someone. Here are two ways to do it, stolen from two company playbooks.
Do you want a brainstorming session to generate one great idea or several above-average ones? A new study looked at two models: 1. Assembling a group of people and having them come up with product ideas. 2. Asking individuals to work on ideas by themselves before sharing their thinking. Who came up with better ideas?
The latest trend in workplace training may be “in the moment coaching.” It challenges employees to stay focused so they don’t leave meetings or conversations wondering what just happened. Staying in the moment keeps our minds from drifting, so we can really listen and retain critical information.
Break the ice with this activity, geared toward a group of 20 or more, taken from Quick Meeting Openers for Busy Managers by Brian Cole Miller. The goal isn’t a “meet and greet,” but for everyone to really get to know a few new people.
What’s the most fun you’ve had at work? We posed that question to our readers, and you responded. A few of your morale-boosting answers: “We had a department-wide contest to see which team could build the best race car out of office supplies in two weeks" …
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