Teamwork and Teambuilding Efforts

As a facilitator, I have been asked if I conduct teambuilding. My response: yes, I conduct teambuilding events. Can you help my build my team? My unreserved answer: no, I can’t.

There are limitations to teambuilding activities. You own your team. You have built your team. You can do more to enhance your team capability. Teambuilding events and activities provide a platform in which to challenge an organic team, to allow it to express itself distinctively, through its team dynamics and team values. No facilitator, worth his/her weight in integrity, can help build your teams. What they may do is, facilitate discussions around the team, with the team, to explore and build on their collective competencies and potential. Through astute observation and acute clarity, a facilitator can bring into your awareness what is working, or not within your team.

Team engagement involves participation and involvement. You want to engage as much of both from members. You want to activate functional dynamics instead of dysfunctional dynamics. You want your team to focus on useful behaviors, team values, and healthy relationships. High-performing teams avoid the energy-sapping efforts of ‘office politics’. They focus on seeking solutions instead of only shame-bringing problems. They regularly indulge in productive conversations, and they create experiences of worth. They feel valued as individuals and as professionals. They believe that you are fair, equitable and impartial in your decisions and delegation.

Build as much value as you can when in your team. Engage in synergistic collaboration, and collaborative synergies. Your team can then face any challenges that comes it way with a sense of optimism, purpose and clarity.

Efficiency & The Time-Crunched Athlete

Being efficient is the key. Efficiency is the value of reducing wastage. It is not merely about doing things fast, often mistaken for efficiency. Expediency and effectiveness are factors in this simple equation of being efficient.

1) Planning and organising

Where will your training take place? Proximity and ease of access is critical. Will you be doing your core-strength workout at home, or at the nearby fitness park? You can do a warm-up jog to the park, then do your exact sets based on your prescribed menu of exercises. If riding, factor in warm-up and cool-down time, so you are not late in your appointments, thereafter. Today, as planned I did a 60-minute pool-run, and this evening a 105-minute ride/60-minute swim 'brick session'.

2) Specificity of Sports

You can do one type of exercise, or a combination. Squeezing in too much into one workout may be counter-productive. Our body responds specifically to the type of activities we do. Type refers to any of the platforms of fitness including flexibility, aerobic, anaerobic, strength, power, agility or balance. For triathletes, you need to do 2-3 sessions of each discipline depending on your next race. For maintenance, two sessions of each discipline will be adequate to provide the ‘training effect’. It is akin to musicians practising occasionally once they have mastered the chords/keys. Amplify the workouts to three each before a half-Ironman or full one. Rule of guide: one workout for endurance, one for strength, and one for race-pace. If you are training exclusively for a marathon, you can still incorporate cross-training. That is why I run only three times a week, and I rarely exceed 40-45K in total mileage. My base fitness allows me to train with less chance of injuries, and I enjoy integrated fitness from my swimming and riding.

3) Stay focused on your goals

What is your intention of training? Is it to complete a race, earn a personal best time, to maintain basic fitness, weight-management, or to enjoy more vitality and vigor? Every session, however long or short must serve its purpose. You must also inject a modicum of commitment to completing the sessions you set out to do. Excuses are easy to formulate, however when they accumulate can/will impair your progression. There is no reason you cannot achieve more, with less (more concerted, focused and scientific approaches) sessions (total hours). Even a short 30-minute home-workout can comprise proprioception (balance) work, core-development, muscular strength, flexibility and anaerobic/power work.

Leadership Lessons: How do you organize your life? How much planning and preparation goes into your day and week? How efficient can you be at both your profession and pastime? How do you pack more bang for your buck with your time? By the way, I wrote and published this piece in 25 minutes after helping a friend remove her pedals from a road-bike.

Focused On Your Priorities

There are those who still think multi-tasking is a core skill that adds value. Instead, multi-skilling adds more value than juggling numerous tasks. As a manager, you can delegate specific tasks to your staff as long as these tests them adequately and engages their capability. Never delegate to staff work that is yours to do, for that is irresponsible and creates risk of disappointing results.

Steven Covey (author of the ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’) proposed a 2X2 matrix on time management. The axes of ‘Important/Unimportant’ versus ‘Urgent/Not Urgent’ describe tasks that need to be attended to immediately, or later. Your manager (reporting officer) and you decide on the priorities based on their relative importance to you.

You can focus on one thing at a time, in order to do it well. Too many distractions will only shift your focus. The ability to shift focus fast and with purpose will enhance your value as a staff who can manage crisis, as well as interruptions, meetings and time-wasters. As a manager, focus on what matters to your staff, even the small, seemingly unimportant things. Create a happy working environment that enhances the value of every staff.

In sports, focusing on your weakness can be useful in promoting your overall fitness. There are so many facets of fitness including strength, power, agility, endurance, flexibility, and coordination. By focusing on one positive aspect at a time, you can build a more stable, strong and steady body that is injury-free. This will make assist you in performing to your best (and optimally) during races.

Focusing On Key Factors

Many runners I spoke to have claimed that they gain clarity and focus when they run. Even if they experienced a bad working day, the exercise seems to make things feel better. We can attribute that to neuro-chemicals and hormones that purge the body of mental distress and physical discomfort. Also, running is a form of positive distraction that relieves the body of the negative aspects of life. You may have read about runners whose short runs became long ones. Recall the scene from Forrest Gump where the idiot-savant announced ‘One day, I decided to go for a run…’ and it was three years later when he decided to stop.

How do you create focus for yourself?

1)    Focus on what you can control on.

2)    Shift your attention to smaller parts of the larger experience.

3)    Pay attention to your surroundings and environment instead of your body.

4)    Manage smaller chunks, instead of the entire larger experience.

5)    Learn from others. Gather different perspectives. Macca interviewed as many of the best athletes that he could and learnt what worked for them.

6)    Collaborate with others, and take turns to lead in the event. Cyclists take turns to ‘pull’ the pack along when there is strong headwinds.

7)    If you cannot use electronic musical devices, then play your favourite songs in your own head. Everybody has the capability to do that since we dream in multi-sensorial ways.

8)    Imagine that you are your favourite athlete, and emulate their attitude of racing. Adopt their posture, racing attire or facial expressions.

9)    Have some fun! If not, what’s the point?

Steady – One Thing At A Time

A lot can happen at the last moment. Crises and exigencies can surprise us like digital ambushes from cookies and pop-up screens. It is not these startling events that tend to throw us off kilter, but rather how we respond to these challenges and distractions. Think about coping mechanisms: to adapt, to adopt, and be adept.

Focus is best activated, for one thing at a time. Those who claim to be multi-tasked alone, fail to appreciate the notion of being multi-skilled. As a manager, you can delegate if you have too many tasks that restrict your movement. Delegate the task to those who need the challenge, so that you can focus on the bigger issues. However, delegate those with some degree of competency and are motivated by such offerings. Never delegate because you are lazy and de-motivated!

To remind me of my state of equilibrium and balance, I stand one foot (stork-like) and then close my eyes. This immediately activates my sense of physical and mental balance. When you deprive yourself of vision, it allows you to consider your strengths and weaknesses.

With swimming, you focus on one thing at a time: buoyancy, glide, hip rotation, sighting, breathing, kicking, and more. However, each element extends your potential in the water: faster, smoother and safer.

Leadership Lessons: How do you manage last-minute requests? How do you shift your priorities? How do you regain your equilibrium when you are thrown off course?

Billboard Philosophy

I happened to notice this quotation by Alfred Lord Tennyson (from his Locksley Hall) on an unassuming billboard at the International Airport in Auckland, New Zealand.

As I read the verses in my mind, I felt that it reminded me of my recent Ironman triathlon in Lake Taupo. Each line seemed to resonate with my experiences of race week, and thereafter.

Think about it - if you begin noticing things around you, you may consider the power of details in observation. The fictitious character, Sherlock Holmes was acutely observant about little things. The devil is in the details, so it is said.

Until we have cast our eyes above us, and seen the splendour of a star-studded sky, do we see the beauty of the night. Certainly, if our sky is filled with clouds and haze our observation has to shift perspective and purpose to be able to capture the myriad details present, but hidden from sight. Have you ever described clouds as familiar objects? The maiden and the rabbit on the bright face of the moon, is one centuries-old example. Tennyson saw magic sails, pilots and costly bales.

If we focused on dysfunction, disappointment and dissent in our teams we may sabotage our efforts to focus on things we can be grateful for with our members. Instead, by focusing on the collective intelligence, efforts and results of projects gone well, we can appreciate more of each person and the value they bring to the team.

What do you relate with/to in Tennyson's poem?