Team Building Video

Here is an example of a team building program where we removed conflict within a diverse, divided and physically spread out team of 130.

Read our unique and fresh view of Team Conflict Resolution Strategies

Ownership - Victor, or Victim

November 30, 2008

One of the most amazing things that I have observed, time and again, in our transformational team building programs - is how easily some people give away ownership for their lives. In so doing they destroy themselves, their relationships and groups that they belong to.

The deeply ingrained, Industrial revolution-linked, top-down management style prevalent in many families, companies and organizations, has left behind a bundle of non-performing victims. They do not take action for their own behavior and are constantly looking for reasons why things “just will not work.”

They are the perpetually unhappy, not-yet grown-up adults who constantly run to “mommy”, with their problems. Of course “mommy”, is either their manager, or some member of the team/ family or community who happens to listen to their stories.

In our more extensive Celebrating Humanity Harvest team-builds, teams set-up its own Values Circle. This is a peer-created and managed code of conduct - where the team determines what is acceptable and desired behavior within the team. And, as importantly, they decide which behaviors are undesirable and taboo. This invariably includes gossiping and backstabbing.

In these sessions there is a clearing, of all past inter-personal challenges. The team and its members are rewarded with an agreement, in which they are safe and accountable for their own behavior and for that of the members of their team. They are empowered to be in charge of their future interactions, as fully-functioning adults, working together in harmony. “Mommy” is no longer needed.

Case Study 1 - Still infiltrated by Victims

I met this team for our normal follow-up - 1 month after the initial team build, clearing and agreement session. And their case is not unusual.

Most of the team members had gained through the team building and found a marked difference in the way in which they, and the team related to each other. They commented in the following manner:-

1. “ I am feeling more comfortable with the care within the team. Previously no-one cared, and I felt it.”
2. “I really enjoyed understanding more about other cultures. I now know how to work differently with different people.”
3. “Understanding my communication style, and having the ability to assess other people, means that I now adjust my communication for each individual person.”
4. “When you know your personality type, and how it can affect others, you can change your behavior to get better results.”
5. “I am always monitoring my overbearing personality, to ensure that I grow my team without dominating them.”
6. “What I realised is that if I want respect, I must be respectful.”

The bulk of the members of the team had taken responsibility for their own behavior. One even owned up to gossiping, prior to the team building - saying that this had now stopped.

And yet there were a few strongly verbose people, of varying levels, within the room, who stated that “nothing had changed.” “There are still people not adhering to the agreements,” they said. These are the victims and they are very dangerous and will actively, or unconsciously, work to destabilise harmonious environments.

I was not surprised. These were the spectators, that will be found in any organization.

Spectators

Spectators are observers and complainers - they wait for things to change. They do nothing positive to ensure that good things happen.

If all is going well, they cheer for their team. Sadly, when there are problems - they immediately complain to, or about “mommy. “They must do something about this.” Or, “This was just a waste of money, nothing changed.” Challenges have nothing to do with them.

These poor people simply have no power whatsoever, unless they are bringing something, or somebody, down. Unfortunately their ability to destroy is very strong in weak organizations, and divided families and teams. They will never have anything because they are victims. And victims will make sure that they do not allow others to succeed either.

7 Rules to work with victims.

1. Set behavior principles and behavior rules with the entire team/ family. List and decide on what you will and won’t do. Set the amount of transgressions, before action is taken. Ensure that all of you manage the agreements, fairly. No-one is above the rules and they must be applied at all times.
2. Involve them in finding solutions. Challenge them to look for answers.
3. Don’t listen to their negative stories, or gossip. When they are complaining, ask them what they are doing about it - or put them in front of the person with whom they “have a problem.” Then open their conversation with, “X has a problem, with something you have done. You should talk about it.” And move on.
4. Never agree with, or get involved in their negativity. Once they have you in the “inner circle”, you will find it very difficult to get out.
5. Praise them for what they do well.
6. Guide them on what they can do differently. Never attack them, as a person. Always talk about the actions that they can change to get better results in their lives.
7. Remember to focus on your team agreements and love the victims anyway. If the team/ family environment is sound, they will either adjust their own behavior and fit in, or find other places to be destructive. Let them go.

Case Study 2: Once victims and now victors

15 months after the first intervention, the supervisor sent this feedback, about where their team was before the transformational team build, what had happened during the Celebrating Humanity© program and their new workplace situation:

"I had a group of 30 people from diverse cultures. They could not get on with each other.
There was continuous friction between the different race groups, and between people from the same race and cultural group. The people were negative and were not satisfied with anything.
1. Complaints were the order of the day; this also placed our team in a bad light with management. We decided on the Celebrating Humanity© training.
2. The people were very negative about the program initially.
3. As the course progressed the people’s attitudes changed from negative to positive.
4. Communication, respect and ownership improved from all sides by 100%. The respect between different race groups has been restored.
5. Some of the people who were negative have changed so much that they have been promoted to higher positions with greater responsibility.
6. The foundation of the entire course was so successful that the group is now going ahead with a leadership course."

This team decided that enough was enough and took a strong hold of the power of ownership. They decided that they would work together, irrespective of the disrespect that had consumed their team for years before.

This was their chance to enjoy work, be more professional and above all to work in a safe and respectful environment.

Is your team suffering as a result of inter-personal, inter-level, or inter-group conflict. Are personality or mis-communication stresses tearing your team apart?

On a more personal note, are you a victor or a victim. Do you look for the good, or are you focused on the bad? If it is the latter, there is noting out there for you but misery and blame. These are normally attached to personal loneliness, stress and disease.

Here are 10 things that you can do.

1. Work from the principle that “at the level of respect, all people are equal.” Treat people with respect and you will get respect.
2. Take ownership for your life - because the quality of your life, your happiness and your successes are dependent upon your own actions.
3. Focus on making a positive difference. You will find opportunities for great change where “things are just not right.”
4. Look for ways to respect your family and your team, in the way that they want to be respected.
5. Learn to listen more and complain less.
6. Ask people - “What can I do to help.” Or, “What can I do to make this work.”
7. Don’t let your problems poison the people around you. Talk to people about your challenges and resolve them, or move on.
8. Speak up when you see something good and speak up if you are unhappy/ or uncomfortable with another person’s actions, or unacceptable situations.
9. And here is the big thing, speak to the people who are the challenge, for you - or to people who are responsibility to make changes. Never speak to people who have no power to make any difference at all.
10. And if you come across a spectator - use the 7 rules to working with victims. You will make a difference - and it will be positive.

The good thing in formulating the right kinds of team agreements together, is that those teams that powerfully guard and keep to their agreements, will take absolute personal ownership for their future. They will make sure that they have a positive empowering environment - and they will make things work.

When this happens - the victims will either change their behavior, or look for another place to be unhappy. Either way, the team and its future is safe.

Enjoy life! You only get one chance!


Brian Moore
For more on this incredibly successful program, please have a look at my eBook - Team Conflict Resolution Strategies.

brian@celebratinghumanityinternational.co.uk

Team Conflict Resolution Interventions. Standing at a Crossroads.

http://www.celebratinghumanityinternational.co.uk

Team Conflict Resolution Interventions.
Standing at a Crossroads.

Teams, businesses and organizations that are under pressure to transform their troubled teams, are often challenged by the wealth of “solutions” offered, by companies. Some of these solutions are great - and many are doomed to failure.

If your team is being forced to find a solution, your team is at a crossroads of danger and opportunity.

The danger lies in choosing the wrong “solution(s”) and yet, if you get your choice right, there are huge hidden opportunities to build individuals and teams, and thereby reap great rewards.

Self-defeating team conflict resolution programs will have strategies that:-
• try isolate to the “troublemakers”, and get them to resolve their differences.
• exclude any member/s of the team in the process.
• hand the management of the team’s behaviors, with agreements from “team agreed resolution”, to your managers/ supervisors.
• isolate, intimidate, or simply ignore certain team members.
• neglect the development of communication skills, team and individual personality skills, understanding of the carious diversities within the team.
• Go with a talk-down and divisive diversity training program.
• Use unsuitable and un-focused team building programs - that isolate even 1 member of your team..

If any of these factors form part of your attempts to resolve team conflict, the process, and your money, will be wasted. More so, it could negatively impact your team - in the long term..

The opportunity to build teams is found in the wisdom, uniqueness, talents and skills of your team. When we hire people, we hope that they are mature enough to manage their own behavior. After we sign the employment contracts, we then begin to control their every action. We put managers in charge of all decisions. Soon we have people who will not even go to the toilet without permission.

Our over-control has taken away their sense of value, ownership, accountability and responsibility. And this is where team conflict begins.

The methodologies included in Celebrating Humanity Diversity Training and Transformational team-building programs - outlined in our book - Team Conflict resolution Strategies - ensures that team transformation is non-threatening, unifying and inclusive. It ensures that we give the power back to your teams - to manage their own behavior - through their own agreements.

This takes incredible stress off managers and supervisors, and the business/organization. In turn, empowered people drive your business in a safe and respectful place created by themselves.

Our teams have been called in to resolve conflict when the psychologists, and conflict resolution specialists have been unsuccessful. The people that we meet are often disillusioned, angry and isolated. Management is stressed, backstabbing, gossiping and labor disputes are the order of the day. And all of this is after numerous “conflict resolution solutions.”

Our teams bring fun, communication, respect and understanding into the team - before we even look at developing team-based codes of conduct. And when we leave - we have put in place ongoing team-managed processes - supported by our follow-up processes. Our feed back is always taken at least a year after the initial program. And the results are always excellent - without fail!

Read the book - and use the lessons therein, or call in our teams. Whichever way your go - this will be the best decision you will ever make.

Brian Moore - Copyright. October 2008
www.celebrating-humanity-projects.com
brian@celebratinghumanityinternational.co.uk
Mobile: +27 82 552 3352
Mobile: +27 82 774 5521

Diversity Training a challenge or an opportunity?

The answers to all problems, lie hidden deeply within mankind.

As a very fortunate human being, who has traveled amongst many diverse groups of people in the world, it always surprises me when people have challenges with "diversity training."

I can see absolutely no reason to fear the skills, knowledge and perspective that other human beings bring.

Our own self built blocks to growth.

One of the biggest obstacles to growth, is our natural focus on building our "own identity." This begins the process of separation from people who are different to us.

I am a boy, I am a girl, I am American, I am African, I am Portuguese, I am Chinese, I am white, I am black, I am Indian, I am Christian, I am Jewish, I am thin, I am fat, I am old and I am young.

All of these statements ensures a separation from others, as if they were not not your human equal. Because from here we can make statements like, "Why would I want to have anything to do with them - they are not even (add your "identity" here.) No, in fact they are (add their "identity: here)".

And unfortunately, the very same people who strongly identify themselves with their own personal, group, physical, National, color, religious classifications, are those who invariably limit their experience of people and the world. Many of them will angrily speak out against "diversity training", as if it were a punishment and a mockery of who they are, as human beings. Why should I learn about THEM? Why don't They learn about US?"

And of course the people that they are asked to learn about, are never spoken of as being remotely human. They are spoken of in their classifications. These "whites". Those "Muslims". The "blacks". And a lot of really rude name tags. This always makes it easier to slip back into the comfort of our own personal identity.

Living in the question and in a state of "Wow!"

Those of us who have no limitations to who we associate with, learn from and understand, are so fortunate. We simply love the fact that, as small children do, we can live in "the question." Living in the question allows to spend most of our time asking questions and learning from others. It allows us to have our own little University of life and everyone that we meet, becomes a teacher. And we the students. "Why do you...?", "What does this mean...?", "How do you greet and ..."

This is the state of "wow!" And many children live there. This way of being puts us in the most delightful position of continuously building respect, understanding and wisdom.

Living in the answer - the dangers.

The opposite way of living in the question, is to live in "the answer." The biggest danger here is when one has an absolute impression of one's personal identity and the absolute knowledge that it brings. This is the state of "rightness." I am right and you are wrong. It is at this point that we limit ourselves.

And it is people in power, be they powerful in families, companies, teams or countries, who invariably bring aggression to their interactions. They deeply fear losing their power. And they hate the fact that the may be proven "wrong."They will fight to protect what is theirs. They will fight to keep the status quo. Because the have "the answer." They KNOW what is "right!"

We all add to each other.

When we get to the point of understanding how much we add to each other, we begin to tap into the incredible richness of humanity. The wealth of knowledge and wisdom that is encapsulated in the very difference that cause fear in some of us.

No-one wants to change others, nor take away their sense of personal identity. In fact that is your very unique human value. That is what ensures that YOU add to other people. Show it, share and enjoy it - and add to it with questions. Do not let it limit you. Or cause you to be a source of conflict.

Diversity training, or Celebrating Humanity.

Now Diversity Training has it's positives, however if incorrectly presented, it keeps on separating people as if they were of a different species. Almost as if we are curiosities - to be observed from a distance and "accepted."

This is not true. We are all human beings. We all have something unique to share, even if we are the "same." Yes, the answers to all problems lie hidden deeply within mankind.

And it is at this point where our programs change the perspective ,from one of Diversity Training, to one of Celebrating Humanity. As Steven Covey says, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

When we are celebrated, we can celebrate others. These unique programs are developed to bring that safety and celebration to all of our delegates.Through these programs, we remove team conflict and build families - through better life skills.

We deliver our particular brand of Team building in South Africa - anywhere in the world. We have worked in the USA, Zambia, South Africa and have Celebrated Humanity with 2500 miners in Namibia. And our principles are simple.

• At the level of respect, all people are equal.
• We all add to each other.
• There is only one race, and that is the Human race.

Our new Personal identity.

We are most unstable, when we continuously seek to confirm our stability and who we are. Conversely, we are most settled when we understand that we do not know everything, and that is OK. And we ensure our sense of well being and value, by continuously seeking understanding.

And that is why we should always spend time learning about others, and attending course similar to the Celebrating Humanity program. And therein lies our own personal freedom and a new personal identity - as a member of the human race. And with our freedom comes the freedom of all human beings.

Kind regards,


Brian Moore
http://www.celebratinghumanityinternational.co.uk

The Incredible Relevance of Names and Naming

Team members often do not take the time to learn, or pronounce a colleague's name. This is hugely divisive, as my article will show...

Enjoy,

Brian Moore

The Incredible Relevance of Names and Naming:

"It is amazing how something as simple as a name has the potential for uniting or alienating people. A greater understanding of how and why people are named, and the relevance of names, may assist in improving respect and thereby relationships. Brian Moore, of Mthimkhulu International, co-creator of the Celebrating Humanity program, takes a brief look at this topic.

People from European ancestry generally select names for their children from lists of names, currently popular names, family names or after friends. Often the names of currently famous people are chosen for the new-born, for example soccer supporters may choose David - for David Beckham, and a girl may be called Davidia! Other more 'New Age' families may choose names from nature, such as 'Storm' or 'Sky'. Or, to secure the child's future, names such as 'Peace' or 'Amor....'"

Resolving Team Conflict-Nine Steps to Constructive Resolution

Hi everybody,

I have found this very interesting perspective, on Team Conflict Resolution Strategies, and thought I would share it with you....

Resolving Team Conflict-Nine Steps to Constructive Resolution: "If you’ve ever worked on a team where one or more of the team members are in conflict, then you know just how stressful this situation can be. Left unresolved, conflicts between individuals can fester, spill over into the team’s relationships, and seriously hinder productivity. What’s a team leader to do?

Let’s begin with what not to do...."