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Is Your Team Hearing Two Voices?

Why is Communication Challenging? Is Your Team Hearing two voices?

We're not all crazy, but many people immersed in corporate cultures hear two voices - they hear what their colleagues are telling them, and then a little voice inside their head attaches all sorts of meaning to it.. meaning which is inaccurate 50% of the time! 

I'm a pretty practical person most of the time; I believe in the power of human potential, and I'm keen to see people and groups perform at their peak.. but don't normally attend seminars with the Anthony Robbins crowd, it's a little too far-out for me sometimes. About a year ago, I was dragged out to one of these types of seminars, and some lady is at the front explaining to us that we all hear two voices.. "huh?" I thought to myself, "two voices.. this lady is nuts, I can't believe I signed up for this?" then I listened again, and this voice told me, "the guy next to me must go to these things all the time, like he has too much time on his hands." Wow! this second voice of ours is pretty harsh!

The next day, in the boardroom, I watched someone ask a colleague a simple question, and it turned into a cordial version of world war two! That one question could have been answered directly and in five seconds, and we could move on, instead we spent an hour completely immersed in office politics! So now that we realize how much politics has a real cost to the organization, as well as the welfare of our team, what can we do?

A Few Ways to Open Up Communication & Understanding in your Organization:

  • Start all meetings with a light-hearted opener
  • Use a moderator who has control of the meeting
  • Celebrate victories together
  • Use failures as learning opportunities
  • Actively discourage politics by acknowledging that it exists and agreeing that nobody likes it!
  • Encourage full event participation
  • Create opportunities to develop camaraderie with the entire team
  • Run great events that aren't all business
  • Do fundraising events together

 


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Leadership Development

Jim Collins' Level 5 Leadership

Jim Collins' best-selling book Good to Great, is more than a great read, many of North America's fastest growing companies credit a large majority of their success using it as their operational guide. One of the most astounding discoveries that Collins and his team of 50 made, when studying companies that have had extreme and consistent growth for over 2 decades, was that the CEOs of these companies were very different than the celebrities we sometimes read about...

There is one thing Jim Collins' "Level 5 Leaders" don't worry about - their leadership abilities! Not because they are cocky or arrogant, but because they are humbled by the goal that their entire team has rallied behind!!

Collin's book was a comprehensive study of companies in a crossection of industries who over a period of over 20 years consistently outperformed their sector by over 100%. Like a true academic, Collins and his team compared these companies to their 'control' companies, and discovered some remarkable differences; one of the most suprising difference for everyone was the qualities of the CEOs of these companies. Almost every one of these leaders was very different from what is generally understood by people and many management professionals beleive to be


what we generally




 

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Team Building

10 Elements of Trust in Teams

Most business leaders agree that without trust, teams lack the fundamentals to deliver phenomenal results.

In his article, 8 essential elements for trusting teams

Blaine Collins asserts that "One of the most telling predictors of a team’s success is the extent to which it builds trust among team members."

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
- Henry Ford...more