How to use Good Teamwork to Achieve Company Goals

The importance of teamwork cannot be underestimated, especially in a business environment where a group of people are working together to achieve set goals. The successful outcome of their teamwork will reflect upon their individual abilities, their performance as a unit and on the company as a whole.

It is not always possible to choose the members of a team who will be working with you on a project. As this might be already done for you, the next best thing you can do is get the group together and work out a plan on how you all hope to achieve your goals. This will give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals in the team and the fields in which they specialise in or feel comfortable working. Having a range of different skills and personalities working together can be a bonus especially if each member of team is straight forward and honest about his abilities and is happy in the role that he will be assigned in the team.

Communication with one another is an important part of good teamwork and a group of people who share information and ideas freely with one another have a definite advantage in achieving what they have set out to do. Ideas should be communicated across all levels of the group so that a supervisor or team manager knows exactly what the others are feeling and their views are at every stage of their work. Coordinating and cooperating with each other are a direct result of good communication and the more easily information is shared the more responsive and proactive is the group.

Having respect for one another is a good foundation for any team as is encouragement, support and appreciation for each other’s efforts. Having favourites and ignoring some members of the team creates divisions and animosity and will bring about negativity; an attribute any good team can do without. 

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11 Easy Ways to Finally Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

Knock your next presentation out of the park with these public speaking tips.

How successful we are at selling ourselves, our products and our services depends on our ability to stand up and be heard. What often prevents us from telling our story successfully is not our inability to articulate what we do, or how strongly we believe in the value of what we offer. Instead, it is simply the fear of speaking in front of an audience. Being nervous while presenting can put a dint in your credibility and have an adverse effect on achieving your business goals.

To manage the fear of speaking in public, you need to first understand the root cause of the fear.

Understanding that our brain can't tell the difference between a real threat (a pack of wolves about to attack you) and an imagined threat (a group of your peers watching you present) is the first step to overcoming the fear. This awareness can help you manage the "false alarm" that happens in the absence of real danger. How so? As you feel your heart racing when you first start your presentation, you can consciously and deliberately interrupt the fear response with a quick deep breath and a rational thought, "This is just a false alarm." The more you get into the habit of interrupting the fear response as soon as you feel it happening, the quicker you'll prevent it from being your default response every time you present in front of a group. You must ingrain in your mind the thought that the fear of public speaking is simply a misfiring of the caveman "fight or flight" fear response, and that you can overcome this.

Here are 11 practical tips to help you manage performanceanxiety so you can focus on your key messages:

1. Reframe the questions you ask yourself.  

9 Easy Ways to Remember Your Presentation Material

Crush your anxiety with these methods that will help you thoroughly remember all of your slides before you get to them.

One of the most common reasons we experience presentation anxiety is the fear that we will forget what we have to say and risk losing credibility. A method many use to address this fear is to create PowerPoint slides as a memory aid. However, this is short-sighted because nothing erodes your credibility as a speaker faster than signaling to the audience that you are dependent on your slides.

Seasoned presenters are able to announce a slide before showing it. At a minimum, they know their material so well that all they need to do is briefly glance at the slide to know what's coming next. You can achieve this by doing simple memory boosting practices to remember your presentation material and, in turn, reduce your anxiety.

Here are nine tips to help you remember what you have to say.

1. Use the Palace Method

Research into brain science has proven that there is a very deep connection between the way we remember an event and the space in which it occurred. The brain system that is important for memory is also important for space; in other words, we remember things on the basis of spatial locations or "spatial scaffolds." This is an ancient memory technique, commonly referred to as The Palace Method or Mind Palace. To learn how to use the method, watch Joshua Foer's video, “To Remember Better, Build a Mansion in Your Mind", or read his book, Moonlighting with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.

2. Use mind maps

Mind maps are diagrams that allow you to lay out all of your presentation material in a visual shape rather than in list form. 

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Stuck at Work? 6 Things You Need to Do This Week

Since a lot of people take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, if you are working over the holidays, chances are it will be slow. Experts say this is what you should do with that time instead of playing Candy Crush:

Clean your desk. Office desks carry more bacteria than toilet seats. Take everything off the top of your desk and put it in a box. Dust and sanitize the surface once it’s clear — and don’t forget to de-germ your keyboard and phone, says Scott Roewer, who owns organizing company Solutions by Scott & Company. Put back only what you immediately need on your clean desk and keep the other stuff in the box, he says. ”If you need something, get it out of the box and find a home for it in the desk. After a few weeks, you’ll find the items that remain in the box are rarely needed,” he says. Chuck, recycle or re-home it.

Throw stuff out. “It’s a good time to clean your files and get rid of things you don’t need,” says Dale Winston, chairwoman and CEO of Battalia Winston. She says a good rule of thumb is to chuck anything you haven’t looked at in the past year, with the exception of tax paperwork.  

Shelve it. You’re probably not making the most effective use of any shelving space you have, Roewer says. “Deeper, reinforced shelves work well for boxes of files, cases of paper, or larger supplies,” he says. “Use smaller shelves that are not as deep for office supplies such as pens, staples, post-it notes, etc.” If you have lots of vertical space, use bins you can slide out to corral what you’re keeping there. Label containers so you can keep track of where everything is (which also comes in handy if you need to tell a colleague where to find something.)

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Importance of Teamwork in Organizations

According to HR Bible, one of the most popular myths about teamwork is that the skills of team members are more important than their energy, interest and drive for the tasks. Another popular myth is that members are not individually responsible for the successes or failures of their teams. The truth is that individuals are the smallest units within their teams and that their personal abilities affect various outcomes in their teams. Teams often arise when employees come together to accomplish a common goal. Teamwork within the workplace not only benefits your workers but also significantly affects in your business.

Work Efficiency

Teamwork enables you to accomplish tasks faster and more efficiently than tackling projects individually. Cooperating together on various tasks reduces workloads for all employees by enabling them to share responsibilities or ideas. Teamwork also reduces the work pressure on every worker, which allows him to be thorough in the completion of the assigned roles. In sharing ideas or responsibilities, every employee should have a role that suits his specialization. You should also consider employees' levels of interest in the project at hand, which positively influences the efficiency or speed of their output in accomplishing the task.

Improved Employee Relations

Teamwork is important in an organization because it provides employees with an opportunity to bond with one another, which improves relations among them. Workers who constitute a team working on a project often feel valued upon the successful completion of such tasks. A situation in which all of them find a chance to contribute towards the tasks improves relations within the team and enhances their respect for each other. Improved employee relations also result from the fact that teamwork enhances cohesion among members, thanks to increased trust among them.

Increased Accountability

Teamwork increases the accountability of every member of the team, especially when working under people who command a lot of respect within the business. 

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I want it now! How to motivate Gen Y employees

The generation raised on gizmos and social media need very different handling to their predecessors.

Generation Y, the iPod generation, echo boomers – however you describe them, this new wave of employees is steadily filtering into the workplace. Born to baby boomers, many are recent graduates and students aged around 18-30 years old and it is this generation that will soon be at the heart of a company, leading it forward into the future.

So how can you get the most out of this generation?

1. Know its defining characteristics

Compared to Generation X, people in this group are more likely to put their careers first, postponing marriage and children. They are the social media generation who like to be connected at all times. Socialising, both actual and virtual, is a top priority.

Instant gratification and a hunger for immediate information mean they often resent waiting, something applicable to both their professional and personal life. They often choose to find jobs on a short-term basis, are keen to always remain aware of new opportunities that will help to improve their skill set, and will happily change jobs in order to achieve this. These factors combined mean that retention rates are likely to be lower in this generation and that employers may find they need to work harder to keep them.

2. Adopt a tailored approach

To motivate, engage and inspire people it is naturally important to apply different techniques and approaches depending on various aspects, such as age, sex, geographic location, likes and interests.

Reward and recognition schemes should be tailored to include the needs of Generation Y. But what is it that will have the desired effect in terms of motivating them, and how can employers strive to ensure they get it right?

3. Provide ongoing communication and feedback

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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