Author: Team Building

The Belbin Team Inventory, also called the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory or Belbin Team Role Inventory is an assessment used to gain insight into an individual’s behavioural tendency in a team environment. It was devised by Dr. Meredith Belbin to measure preference for the nine Team Roles discovered whilst studying numerous teams at Henley Management College.

A Belbin team role as defined by Dr Meredith Belbin is: “a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.” At Fresh Tracks we use ‘Belbin Team Roles’ a lot to develop teams but what are they? For this months video blog actor Andy Taylor explains.

[youtube width=”400″ height=”300″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0Al3Oi0-8&[/youtube]

Do you or have you used Belbin? Let us know what you think of it in the comment box below.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Team Building.

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This blog is by Fresh Tracks: Experts in Team Building, Team Development and Staff Conferences
Website: www.freshtracks.co.uk

We would like to share an idea for a team building energiser that can be run inside or outside and would work especially well with larger teams. It’s called ‘Team Jump’.

Overview:
This team building activity is a great way to re-energise the team and have a great photo memory of your day’s training.

Running the Activity: Continue reading “Team building energiser: Team Jump”

In our 24/7 world, time spent sleeping is in decline so it’s little wonder that some of us find it hard to wake up in the morning. It’s reported that we sleep at least one hour less each night than we did a half century ago.

A recent American study found that during a two-week period, 40% of workers reported fatigue. Of those, 65% reported health-related lost productive time. According to the researchers, workers with fatigue cost US employers $136.4 billion annually in health-related lost productive time.

Two-thirds of adults report frequent sleep problems, however only one in eight says those problems have been diagnosed. The ‘sleep deprived’ are also more likely to suffer from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular, psychiatric and gastrointestinal disease, and impaired immunity. So it’s not just the quantity of our sleep that matters but also the quality; snoring loudly, daytime dozing, trouble falling asleep or waking unrefreshed are just a few of the signs that a person could be ‘sleep deprived.’

“Sleep is sort of like food,” says Robert Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School. He adds, there’s one important difference: “You can be quite starved and still alive. But many of us live on the edge of sleep starvation and just accept it.” Continue reading “13 Tips to sleep more and raise productivity”

The theories behind team building could be a much older than originally thought. In fact Plato may have been the first ever team building expert!

For some years we’ve been saying “teams that play together, work together” and it seems that although team building is thought to be a comparatively new addition to business training Plato, one of the world’s most influential philosophers, had a similar view over 2000 years ago; “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation” Plato

So we’d encourage you to make time to play with your colleagues this week, take a ball to the park, eat ice cream in the afternoon or play darts at lunchtime – whatever you think would be fun.

We spend most of our waking lives with our colleagues so let’s enjoy it.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Team Building.

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Blog by Fresh Tracks: Experts in Team Building, Team Development and Staff Conferences
Website: www.freshtracks.co.uk

We all try harder when there’s a prize at stake, no matter how small. The desire to win is in all of us to a greater or lesser extent and even those who wouldn’t be described as ‘competitive’ still enjoy playing.

In business, sales teams have included competitive measurement and reward to drive productivity for generations with such great effect that very few sales roles exist that don’t have some form of prize built into the remuneration package. So it’s strange that other departments haven’t created their own ways to combine play with productive working. Continue reading “Engaging your team and improving productivity”

At the Fresh Tracks office we recently got together as a team look at the issue of trust. It made me realise how much we take trust for granted when it’s there, and how much extra work a lack of trust can create.

Although our session included event managers, admin staff and senior managers, it was fairly informal and allowed participants to look at their own views on trust – how and why trust is important at work and at home; what does trust mean to the individual and to the team; what would happen if there was little or no trust in colleagues.

In our team, it soon became apparent that there is quite a huge amount of trust; everyone seemed to take it for granted that they would be trusted and that they would in turn trust their colleagues. For us that makes for an easy and friendly work environment, part of the reason we choose to work here at Fresh Tracks. But it also made me realise that trust is ultimately at the heart of this office culture. Continue reading “Trust in your team – how important is it?”

The recession may not be feel like it’s over yet but most managers appreciate that Christmas needn’t be cancelled again this year.

Boozy parties are probably not the best way to mark the end of a tough year but that doesn’t mean there’s not value in gathering everyone together.

As we enter an era when return on investment is at the forefront of our minds the annual celebration needs to deliver more than just a few laughs and sore heads the next day. Why not think of your Christmas event as a chance to do some team building.

So, while everyone is together in celabratory mood here are a few suggestions that will turn a turkey dinner into a turning point: Continue reading “6 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Christmas party”

Travel budgets slashed, bonuses unlikely and the prospect of redundancies. Now is probably not the time to ask for cash to fund the annual team building day but it might be the precisely the right time for some team development.

The phrase team building has risen in prominence in recent years as employers realised the value of a happy workforce where, despite their differences, team members are able to get along. For many, team building is simply about getting away from the office for a celebratory meal, drink or day out and there is some value in this. It creates a social context and allows colleagues space to become friends.

In the same way that a builder differs from a developer in the property world, team development is similar but distinctly different. Builders will turn up and build a wall, whereas a developer sees the potential for that wall to become a terrace of houses. Team development is a process in which a team takes time to explore its potential – how it can become greater than it’s been before. Continue reading “Team Building vs Team Development”

In our 19 years of helping teams develop ‘communication’ has always been listed as one of the areas team members would most like to improve. In the case of the crew on US Airways Flight 1549 which successfully ditched into the Hudson River in 2009, it was the difference between life and death.

Despite all our high tech gadgetry it seems we could all be more productive if only we could communicate more effectively. Here are a five techniques we’ve discovered: Continue reading “5 Tips To Improving Team Communication”

When Southwest Airlines said that it’s important to them that staff have fun at work did anybody believe them or did it just sound like more corporate mission statement jargon?

It’s easier to put a mission statement on the wall than it is to put it into action. We know of organisations who have spent months of meetings carefully crafting and re-wording their corporate mission statements, only to find the life sapped from them soon after they’re finished. Or sometimes mission statements work for a while, but then turnover takes a toll and the new people never seem to really get on board.

It’s great to see the video, above, of David, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, keeping some of their mission statement alive. He and his colleagues make a great team because they’re committed to the same vision and they support each other. There is no doubt that team work benefits everybody – customers and colleagues alike. But sometimes people within an organisation forget they’re part of a team. One department regards another as a thorn in its side and sometimes colleagues just don’t like each other.

A key factor to success during these hard economic times was summed up by Gary Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines, when he said “Our people are our single greatest strength and our most enduring longterm competitive advantage.” Long may it last.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Team Building.

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Blog by Fresh Tracks: Experts in Team Building, Team Development and Staff Conferences
Website: www.freshtracks.co.uk