Some blog maintanence June 29, 2006
I’ve updated a few options in the back-end here - you should notice no difference. I’ve also swapped the Title and Tag-line, as I think it makes more sense this way…
Better team building part two June 25, 2006
One of the podcasts I was listening to mentioned in my earlier post is “For Immediate Release“. One of the hosts of the show was involved in a second life conference and links to the transcript of the event.
Now the event is about marketing online in a virtual world. However some of the points they cover relate directly to working teams; Combining real life with a virtual online presence, co-creation, and above all, the whole event is an example of the space for communication I was discussing in my last post.
Technorati Tags: Business, co-collaboration, Communication, Marketing, Productivity, Psychology
Build team trust for better results
Listening to a few different podcasts and interviews recently that all have me thinking about the global workforce. I have worked in disperse teams, sometime across different floors, other times across the world. It can sometimes be lonely working in a team where you only speak to other members for a few minutes a day and never see their face. The reasons for talking in these situations is usually only when there is a business need. There is often very little rapport or team building that can be done during those times.
When listening to Joi Ito talk about how his World of Warcraft guild stay together, build their own community, rapport and trust with each other, it got me thinking to how to do the same thing with a geographical diverse team. Voice over IP being as cheap as it is, and most companies having their own company wide network, it would be easy to open some audio space for a team to ‘hang out’. Think of a constant conference call. Instead of email or direct 1 to 1 phone calls, questions and queries can be answered faster and trust can be build more strongly.
Some of the companies I’ve worked in had some tools to help bring a diverse team together - such tools as instant messaging clients (MSN, Aim, IRC etc), web forums, email etc. They were all almost entirely text based. Some more recent exciting developments that companies are just starting to explore are Wiki’s, blogs, RSS feeds and more. While text is good, it leaves much to be desired when communicating anything other than bare facts. (On a somewhat different track, I’ve been thinking of the viability and usefulness of communicating accent (Eg, English upper class, American southern drawn, Australian twang) within text based communication). These tools keep the team (somewhat) working together, with the same
information. However, the tools rarely assist the team to build trust with each other. Even rarer allow for effective skills transfer because they can easily transfer information, but transfer zero experience…
Create a place where a team can communicate, even better with video, about anything. Like the water cooler or kitchen when the team is in the same office. Somewhere where they can share their experience with a difficult client, a place to be joyous about their latest success. No need or reason to pick up a phone and dial - as that implies trust is already there (you don’t call strangers and tell them about your family, for example).
Additionally, with text based communication the reader fills in the gaps in communication - tone, gestures, facial expressions and everything else. This can lead to horrible mis-communications where something written in jest is taken as serious, or something serious taken in jest. And these mis-communications are just the tip of the iceberg that just might sink your team’s trust or even company.
In setting up a space like this for the group to get together and bond will bring other issues, sure. It won’t be effective for every team or group, and there will be times when the costs outweigh benefits. Yet, if you want to give a dispersed team the best chance to build into cohesive and trusting team, I can think of no better way … yet…
Technorati Tags: Change, Communication, Companies, Learning, Policy, Productivity, Psychology, Stress, Trust, World of Warcraft
To Er in speech June 21, 2006
There is unfortunately a common occurrence that to me is like nails being dragged down a blackboard.
It’s the ‘um’ and ‘er’ that some people put into gaps in their speech.
These are sounds added in between words and sentences to fill the silence and tell listeners that the speaker is still speaking. In a normal two way conversation, the people having the conversation take turns to speak. Like a tennis match these turns go back and forth. The listener knows when to speak next, when the ‘ball is in their court’, by waiting for the speaker to be silent. So if the speaker does not want to give up their turn, they add in some form of filler noise. An ‘um’ or ‘err’.
Of course, when someone is presenting there is no need for the filler noises as there is an expectation from everyone that the speaker is not having a back and forth conversation. Yet I’ve seen CEO’s of multi-national companies presenting to a camera and have two or three of these noises in every sentence. It was excruciating for me to watch.
The interesting thing about these filler noises is that they are not needed. Not only not needed when speaking to an audience, but not even needed when speaking one on one. You can keep silent within a conversation, and still hold the speaker position. The most obvious, overt example of this is when the speaker holds up their hand like a stop sign.
You can hold the attention of all listeners with entirely non-verbal methods. Take a look a Tony Blair and Bill Clinton during interviews for examples of this. Watch their behaviour, not what they are saying. Listen to the timing and rhythm and become aware of the silence that they deliberately allow into the speeches.
There are many things that you can do to first stop the habit of ‘um’ and second learning how to keep attention. To start, consciously slow down your rate of speech a little allowing you to listen to your own words and enable you to self edit what you say. And secondly, play with how much you can slow down your speaking and extend the silence without others commenting…
Technorati Tags: Business, CEO, Persuasion, Presenting
Stupid business policy that costs over $10000 per month June 13, 2006
This happened last week.
A company policy states: ‘…any order less than $10000 is charged freight. Any order over $10000 is not charged freight.’
This month’s order was only $9950. The company, following the policy, charges the $150 freight. So, after a few phone calls, it becomes apparent that this policy is immovable. Buying $50 less will actually cost $150 more. So, doing what any customer will do when they think they are overcharged or treated poorly, they move their business elsewhere. So after 3 years of business worth over $10000 each month, the customer takes their money elsewhere.
Technorati Tags: Business, Policy, Companies
Two tips that will improve your Memory June 4, 2006
Boosting your memory has many benefits: you improve your ability to respond to problems, are perceived as smarter by others, and get more done in less time. Not to mention never again being embarrassed by forgetting someone’s name, or even your mothers birthday. When I teach someone how to improve their memory, I work on a dual method approach. First I give you a drill to boost your overall memory and recall, and secondly a new memory strategy that automates recall of important events.
The drill is to be done every day. It takes no more than a few minutes when you start, and less than a minute as you get better at it. It will directly improve your memory, even through you may not think it will. If you want to improve your recall, I know of no other exercise or method that will work as well as this. If you happen to know of another that does work as well, or better, please let me know!
The drill is simply this: Remember something you did yesterday. Now remember the thing you did immediately before that thing. Repeat this four or five more times, each time remembering the thing immediately before. Once you’ve done that for yesterday, do the same process for the day before yesterday, then three days before, then four. Do this at least once a day, more if you are so inclined, and you’ll directly boost your memory.
Next is a strategy designed to improve memory of random events. Things like picking up milk on the way home and calling someone at a specific time. It can even be used to improve recall of someone’s name, but I know of a few better ones.
The strategy requires you to imagine the future event where you need to recall something in as much detail as possible. But not the event where you remember what you need to, but the events immediately before.
So, if I’m going to pick up some milk after getting off the train on the way home, I imagine my trip home at the specific part where I need to change my direction to get the milk. I then imagine myself turning right, instead of left, and going to get milk. That’s all there is to it. You’ve now created a hook to hang the memory on. This hook will wait for you in the future, and remind you at the right time.
There is a limitation with this method though. If I don’t reach that imagined event, say I catch a cab home instead of the train, then I won’t run into the hook, and this method won’t help me remember to get milk (though I might remember using a different strategy).
When you start using this method, it might take you 20 seconds or more to set up. With practice you can do it in under a second.
Technorati Tags: Brain, Learning, Productivity, Psychology