15 Team Building Activities for the Workplace

Are you interested in holding team building events in your workplace? You don’t have to spend a lot of money nor do they need to be ostentatious or complicated. You just need to create structured opportunities for employees to mingle. You can schedule team building activities in the workplace and in your local community for your employees. Here are 15 team building activities that fit the bill.

• Lunch discussion and team building groups: Provide lunch for the whole company, a department or a work team. Assign employees to various work groups of up to ten people to thoughtfully discuss and respond to work related questions. One fun way to divide employees, when you don’t care who is in which group, is to put numbers on the bottom of plates. All employees who have a number 1 on their plate take their lunch and meet in the library or conference room B, for example.

--Additional ways to divide employees into discussion groups.

--Thoughtful questions for ice breakers that you can use as samples, although you will want the discussion topics to reflect the interests and happenings in your workplace.

• Take an employee to work day: Schedule employees to visit another department for take an employee to work day. Employees are always curious about what other employees do. Satisfy their interest and introduce the employees to a whole new work group in the process. The opportunity to observe in another department allows employees to participate in team building that enhances cross department cooperation and understanding. It also offers employees the chance to explore another career path. Here’s how one company put together their take an employee to work day.

• Provide comfortable collaboration spaces with couches, snacks and beverages. Ask employees to schedule the space as they might reserve a conference room. Require that all food and beverages must be consumed in the collaboration area in a group experience.

• Hold work book clubs:

5 Tips for Successful Public Speaking Opportunities

It’s October, and that means there are certain things to look forward to again. There’s pumpkin pie, seasonal beers, Halloween and, if you’re in high-tech public relations, many prominent events opening up their calls for presentations (CFPs).

Securing speaking slots for clients is one of the hardest things PR pros do, mainly because of how fierce the competition is. However, when a speaking proposal is accepted, it goes a long way toward establishing the company spokesperson as a thought leader. This serves as a PR and lead generation tool, building trust between the presenter and the audience and increasing the likelihood of customers selecting their brand over the competition. To put it simply, presentations at well-respected industry events are a very big deal, and as such, they warrant proper preparation.

Even the most seasoned speakers can experience some pre-speech jitters. When nerves are high just before taking center stage, what’s a speaker to do? Joan Detz, a nationally recognized speech coach and writer, and one of my favorite public speaking authors, has some excellent suggestions for handling this situation:

1. Make the opening lines of the speech clear and crisp. Know them by heart. Sounding confident, even if you’re not, establishes credibility with the audience and can boost your actual confidence level.

2. Speak a bit louder than usual. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of nervous energy. In fact, it can convey your excitement. Detz recommends speaking to a few specific individuals toward the back of the room.

3. Make strategic eye contact. The key word in the previous tip was individuals. Speaking to the back wall tends to make nerves worse. Instead, make strategic eye contact with a few individuals, even if it’s just for brief periods of time. This makes it feel like you’re having a regular conversation and alleviates a lot of the tension you might be feeling.

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What Is the Difference Between Leadership & Teamwork?

While leadership and teamwork are different virtues, they are strongly related in business, sports, the military and volunteerism. It is easy to state that leaders lead, while teams follow leaders to reach goals and objectives.Yet, great teams have superior leaders as members. To paraphrase a common definition of solid leadership, "Leaders are people that other people want to follow." However, most outstanding leaders are also equally accomplished team players.

Good Leaders

It is simple to explain leaders with one word: "charisma." But, superior leaders offer much more than that. Noteworthy leaders also deliver some combination of expertise, commitment, dedication, motivation, focus and concern for others. This combination can also create charisma for those that do not generate it naturally. Leaders are naturally goal-oriented and understand the need -- and the best way -- to communicate the objective to the team.

Good Teams

High performing teams buy into a "shared agenda" philosophy. By adopting the objectives of the leader and melding them with the individual goals of team members, the group becomes a stronger force than the individual strengths of the group members. Effective team members also feel a strong sense of empathy, allowing them to better understand the individuals in their group. This factor works to bring the team together to attack their common objective.

Business: A Team Sport

Except for those successful one-person proprietorships, business achievement is always a "team sport." Success requires a superior leader (coach) and outstanding teams (players). Just as top business leaders need not be "born," as they can be "made," high performing teams can be coached to success, regardless of how diversified they may be. It is possible for great teams to achieve without strong leadership. However, success comes only situationally -- or through lady luck -- under these circumstances.

Corporate Culture Influence

5 Public Speaking Tips That'll Prepare You for Any Interview

Landing a job interview is incredibly exciting –- and often terrifying. But fear not. There are clever ways to transform your angst into nerves of steel. After all, a good interview should feel like a conversation, not an interrogation. Here are five essential key tips from the world of public speaking that’ll help you look just as awesome in person as you do on paper.

1. Know Yourself

Most people dread the moment when their interviewer utters the words - “So, tell me about yourself.” But it’s actually the simplest question to navigate once you get down to the root of what’s being asked. "Tell me about yourself" really translates to: “What can you tell me about how your personality, interests, work habits and background will help you rock this position?”

Before you answer, rewind back to when you applied for the job -– the moment you decided that you and the position would be a solid match. Usually, the reasons that ran through your mind before you chose to apply are the answers the interviewer is looking for. Since you’re the most well-versed on the subject of you, this is your moment to paint the picture of what you bring to the table and why you’re the most dynamic and capable person for the job.

 

2. Bridge the Gap Between Confidence and Enthusiasm (Then Marry the Two)

How many times have you been confident in your ability to perform a task but not necessarily enthused about doing it (or vice versa)? Confidence speaks to the way you perceive you, while enthusiasm is more indicative of your feelings about something or someone other than yourself — in this case, the gig.

To make sure there’s a healthy balance between the two, draft a list of reasons you’re confident about your ability to perform the job, and pair each one with a reason why you’re enthusiastic about showing up. Youshould be able to clearly communicate these reasons during your interview.

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Tips for Staying Motivated in Your Small Businesses

As an observer by nature, I am always amazed at how individuals operate within a variety of settings and circumstances. One of the most fascinating topics to me has been motivation. I have seen people, who were driven by success or responsibility, push themselves and their families to the point of exhaustion, and wondered if they felt the results were worth it. 

Naturally, if you live long enough, you get the chance to see just about everything. I know that I am old enough to have witnessed how my, my daughter’s, and now my grandchildren’s generations, differ in their motivation. Naturally, we are motivated differently. In my youth, our life styles were not the same as my grand children’s. I was more motivated by money and what it could buy, simply because my parents grew up during the Depression and were conservative in spending.

I hear employers complain about their workforce not being motivated and I naturally ask what motivates their workers. Usually, the clients look at me blankly; answering glibly, “nothing”; they shrug; or make assumptions. Their reactions cause me to offer my “free” speech about self-worth and how it is important to know what motivates others so they, the business owner, can be a better manager. It is not always well received, but the facts are true. If an employer dangles a 25-cent- to a dollar-an-hour raise over someone’s head who is not motivated by money, but instead by “time off,” the effort is wasted.

Since I feel motivation is something of great value, I am interested in finding out what motivates business owners and how they stay motivated.

Over the past 17 years, many women-owned businesses have especially intrigued me regarding “What motivates them.” I have watched women arrive at 4 a.m. to bake bread and stay until 11:30 p.m. to clean floors (small business owners wear many hats). 

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