fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Last team meeting of the year. Goal setting for 2021!
By: Justin R. Simmons Bronx Homes
Tags: Team Building, Goal Setting, Work From Home, Connecticut, Bronx

I serve the real estate needs of clients in the Bronx and nearby areas. My main goal is to help you accomplish yours.
Planning for Remote Team Activities
By: Wayne Schepens
Tags: Team Building, Internal Communications

The events of this year have been unexpected and downright challenging for absolutely everyone. Our team has been grinding away non-stop as clients, established and newly added, put an increased emphasis on PR and Analyst Relations. Like other teams, we are missing out on the perks of office life that help keep team spirit strong, such as casual banter while making coffee, free lunch Fridays, and birthday celebrations; and with the holidays rapidly approaching, in-person gatherings are still not a viable option.

Fortunately, we have found ways to keep team morale high despite these important in-person team interactions. Specifically for this upcoming holiday season we are planning a virtual gathering complete with company supplied party boxes and trivia! Here are some ideas for what to include in your own party boxes, or ‘just because’ boxes:
Designing a successful homesite: Follow the rule of 3s
By: Kristen Swanson
Tags: Offsite, Facilitation, Team Building

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

A few months ago, I organized my team’s first fully virtual “homesite” — an offsite held remotely from home.

We used the same format that we had for past in-person meetings. We set objectives, generated powerful discussion questions, and spun up a collaborative Google Doc. We booked the better part of a day on our calendars and set up a nice, long Zoom.

And while it seemed like everything was set up for success, discussion had slowed to a crawl by the second hour of the offsite. There wasn’t tension or angst — we were just exhausted from multiple, uninterrupted hours on Zoom.

Trying to do a “lift and shift” with our former in-person processes didn’t work. In fact, we left the session early with many important tasks undone. Over the next few months, I tried a number of different strategies and designs for homesites. After a series of experiments, I’ve identified a clear strategy for designing virtual homesites.

It’s called the “rule of 3.” 3 sessions, 30-minutes each, with at least 1 session where people are in groups no larger than 3.

Each day should have only 1 clear objective with only 90 total minutes of programming — and you can add additional days using the “rule of 3” format as needed.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you have 2 objectives for your offsite:

Build clarity around the mission and vision of the team

Increase skill redundancy by having team members cross train each other

The agenda would look like this:

A few other important tips to try:

When possible let people turn off their cameras

Play music during breaks or working sessions

Over breaks offer optional “move around” options like yoga stretches or cardio moves

Zoom breakout rooms work very well for splitting people into smaller groups as sessions change

Following the “rule of 3” when designing your virtual homesite will reduce fatigue, generate good discussion, and help you achieve your goals!
iTalk Part-3: The Startup people
By: Amrita Mishra
Tags: Team Building, Startup Lessons, People Management, Startup Tips, Hiring For Startup

If you don’t know how to start a startup yet, check out this article to get an idea. If you want to know our story, you can always go through Part-1 of this blog series.

Coming back to the topic that we will cover this time, it’s about the people who are as responsible as you for the success in your startup. It is your “team”.

As Gary Vaynerchuk said, an idol for so many budding Entrepreneurs like us,

“Hiring is not the most important part; Firing is”.

It is easy to include people in your team, but it is difficult to tell them to leave when people stop working as efficiently as they used to do.

Here are a few key takeaways:

If two out of three people are working, convince the third person to work, otherwise, get rid of the third person. Because investors invest in a TEAM, not just in an idea or a plan (they are important too though). EXECUTION is the most important thing in a startup and Execution depends on the Team. Keep people who you REALLY TRUST. You need a team because you cannot do everything alone. Be very CLEAR ABOUT EQUITIES and be sure of who is working. Don’t underestimate the Power of LinkedIn. Leverage it to find your ideal team.

You improve only when you work, learn and adapt. No one learns without mistakes. :)

All the Best for your next Venture! Feel free to reach out to us anytime on any social platform.

Don’t forget to Follow us on Medium.
Done is better than perfect - François [The Keepers]
By: Tristan Delafosse
Tags: Stratup, Interview, Entrepreneurship, Team Building

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

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Know Yourself & Use Your Strengths
By: Gokce Gizer
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Coaching, Team Building, Leadership

We each have a unique combination of preferences, tendencies, and styles that play a critical role in our quest for success. Perhaps, certain ways of expressing one’s self (extroversion), creating routines (being a morning person), and approaching work (systematic and orderly) have been promoted as being better than the others. The reality is that your natural preferences, however different they may be from what’s praised in society, are better utilized as strengths to build on to create a more fulfilling life. A better understanding of your own unique preferences enables you to better express your needs to the people in your life, understand how you might be perceived, develop strategies to enhance your style, build support mechanisms, especially with people who would complement your style, and most importantly enable you to seek (or create) an environment where your unique qualities serve as your superpowers.

Through assessments, we can get insights into how we prefer to think, act, and behave, and why functioning a certain way works better for us. This piece offers tools for you to understand, embrace, and use all your unique qualities, your superpowers, to set yourself up for success.

Habits & Routines

Let’s start by looking at our natural tendencies as it relates to forming and changing habits. I’d like to emphasize the “natural” part because we tend to put so much effort into fitting the definition of “the successful individual” that we may overlook the fact that somethings just don’t work for us. For example, if you actually feel most energized, productive, and motivated late in the evening, then you are “naturally” a night owl and should not put too much effort into becoming a morning person, as it would not only drain your energy but also might lead you to a path of disappointment. Additional questions to consider and to build the right systems around:

• Are you a marathoner, a sprinter, or a procrastinator?

• Are you a moderator or abstainer?

• Are you an opener or a finisher?

• Do you prefer to take small steps or big steps?

Once you understand what works better for you, then you can build the right systems to help you build good habits, break bad ones and create routines that amplify your energy, productivity, and motivation levels.
3 Cara Menentukan Struktur Tim Produk
By: Shaffa Tasyani
Tags: Team Building, Product Team, Product Management, Binar Academy, Product Manager

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Why Employees Leave Organizations? | Team Management
By: Faraz Javed
Tags: Team Building, Leadership Skills, Teamwork, Team Management, Leadership

In this article, we will be discussing some factors that indicate why employees leave organizations. As in our previous articles, we will again discuss WHY in this post, and HOW in the next one. Please note, that being a tech guy, most of my content is related to the tech industry. Definitely, I will write the things that I have experienced or someone from my circle has experienced. Also, this article doesn’t intend to hit a specific organization. I may be wrong from the reader’s perspective.

In that case, you are welcome to criticize. 😊

Introduction

Due to Covid-19, where a lot of people lost their jobs (lives also 😞), technology got a boost. People who were running their businesses at physical addresses are now forced to go online as well. They have to use technology; mobile applications, websites, web portals to run their business models. This shift towards the online market opened a massive opportunity for the tech guys. Organizations have now started to hire more and more employees to meet market needs.

Under these circumstances, where there are a number of opportunities available, why would an employee stay in such an organization where he is not being taken care of. Organizations have to put extra effort to reduce their turn-over rate. They have to give their employees quality of life & quality of workspace; have to let their employees believe that they care about them. They care about their happiness, health, family, and time.
Creativity is Important. But, is It Enough?
By: Megha Sharma
Tags: Team Building, Business Strategy, Creativity Hack, Agencylife, Creativity

It’s no secret, creativity is a game changer. If you already don’t believe it, creators are screaming from their rooftops, go ahead and check any social media platform of your choice and you would know what we are talking about. But this isn’t one of those agency blogs which which preaches and we definitely are not pacing towards an ‘I told you so’ moment but something people don’t talk enough about. Creativity is not enough.

Yes, yes, ironic to come out of an advertising agency but hear us out. We have this perception of creativity as this shiny thing which dawns upon the mind of creatives, unannounced. And that moment when you get the idea, a spotlight falls on you as people watch you break out the elixir of success. It isn’t all that romantic. The getting of an idea is not the same thing as innovation. Your abstract wonder is not the same thing as implementation of day to day activities, wired in routine, which actually runs your company.

We aren’t trying to be a buzzkill here, we are advocates of creativity. But proposing an idea of creativity being useful, being problem solving, be innovative, be functional and above all, inclusive.

Two things to begin with, one, work with the situation, as is. Usually the ‘creative types’ have this perception that a brief will be crafted for them from the cloth of creative lineage. The executives have enough problems to deal with already, how about the next time you walk into a meeting, don’t just talk ideas to solve the problem, great ideas which present as solutions to the problem. Second, when as a creative you present an idea, don’t just end it there. Give them some visibility on execution, cost, results, risks, manpower, resources you would need. This isn’t your school project, act like it. This is responsible behaviour. This is creativity turning into innovation.

While it’s true that some companies are more demanding of creativity than others, we all stand on one line when it comes to the need to leverage to sustain in the dynamic business of today. And for that to happen, creativity isn’t sufficient in itself.
Virtual Team Lunch & Game — Polarity Technologies Ltd.
By: Polarity Technologies Ltd.
Tags: Work From Home, Team Building, Virtual Meetings

Yesterday our team had lunch together, virtually!

As you might already know if you follow Polarity Technologies’ blog, our team has been working remotely since March 2020. We use Slack and Zoom for our everyday communication, in addition to the Virtual Coffee Breaks we organize a few times per month.

Yesterday we had lunch instead, and we played the usual quiz, where each member was supposed to answer correctly as many questions as possible. The meals where delivered to our houses by Foody, just on time!

Casual virtual meetings help our team remain connected even if team members are working from home.

Meaningful interactions among team members are important to keep the bonds strong during these times, and Zoom helps a lot.

Teamwork is Polarity Technologies’ core value. We invest heavily in building strong teams, because as our conference room’s wall sticker says “ Teamwork Makes the Dream Work”.

If you have enjoyed this article follow Polarity Technologies Ltd on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
「実践的ふりかえり講座」を企画してみた
By: Yasuko Naito
Tags: Agile, Team Building, Japanese, Teamwork, Retrospectives

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Jayway ‘Bäst i Test’ — Week 3. Task #13 Weekend challenge: Score a…
By: Chloe Nauta
Tags: Remote Working, Team Building, Task Master

Week 3 was the final week of November, and the week we most appreciated the boost of seeing people’s challenges come in.

Task #13 Weekend challenge: Score a goal. Best goal wins. Bonus points for the best goal celebration.

This was the peak of the competition and the entries were incredible! Commitment from animals, children, family, braving the freezing weather in ridiculous outfits, assembling IKEA furniture and toothpick goals. For anonymity sake I can’t show you any of that — but you can enjoy a small taster of some of our goals.

Task #14: Paint/draw the best blue thing. You may ONLY use the colour blue. You have a maximum of 15 minutes to execute your idea. Best picture wins.

Getting people out of their Tuesday brain with a quick art challenge! Constraints give the best creativity, and we had some awesome subissions in paint, VR, code and good old paper and pen.
Jayway’s ‘Bäst i Test’ Challenge
By: Chloe Nauta
Tags: Team Building, Remote Working, Task Master

November in Sweden is always a tough month for motivation. Add to that the added challenges of remote work and tough COVID restrictions, and we really needed to find a way to connect and have fun.

Welcome to Jayway’s first ‘Bäst i Test’ challenge.

‘Bäst i Test’ is the Swedish version of a British tv show (Taskmaster) where contestants complete random tasks for points. The tasks are deliberately weird and specific to encourage panic and lateral thinking.

We made our own version to keep ourselves busy on these dark November days. Our challenge had two elements — physical activity + special challenges. This was to help us stay active when working remote, and get our brains engaged in something different to our normal routines each day.

Physical activity: Participants gain 1 point each day for their choice of physical activity. The physical activity must last for at least 20 minutes and raise your heart rate. Streaks (consecutive days) give bonus points. Special Task: Each weekday has a new challenge, with an extra special challenge on weekends. Participants get one point for completing the challenge, and bonus points for the best submission each day on slack.

Tasks were posted daily in slack, and winners announced the following workday. Our goal for the tasks was to make them small and quick enough to do on a fika break, but have enough potential to be able to spend free time on if you wanted to go all out.

How did it go?

Daily we were surprised by how creative, cheesy, intelligent and extravagant our colleagues could be. We had a lot of fun (see the results of week 1, 2 and 3) and got good feedback from our colleagues:
How to be productive working from home — Josh Vignona
By: Joshua Vignona
Tags: Josh Vignona, Team Building, Work From Home, Covid 19, Travel Blogger

Got the work-from-home blues?

In his latest post, business travel blogger Josh Vignona (that’s me!) looks at several simple but effective ways to adjust your remote-work mindset, overcome challenges, maximize productivity and unlock your home office potential.

Yep, Here is a teaser for you! Read the full post at: https://joshuavignona.wordpress.com/2020/12/02/how-to-be-productive-working-from-home/ — Josh Vignona

1. Designate a Space for Work

Setting aside a kitchen nook or guest bedroom solely for work isn’t always possible.

Still, having a dedicated spot for making phone calls and completing daily tasks can provide some consistency to your work-at-home regimen — a reliable central location from which to shut out distractions and get things done.

If COVID-19 has you working from home, having a designated desk, area or home office for conducting business is key to establishing an efficient, productive workday routine.

Read the full post to see steps 2–7 and some other helpful tips that work for me:)- Josh
strength of team player
By: Robina Ali Ahmed
Tags: Team Collaboration, Team Building, Teamwork, Strength, Teams And Teamwork

Today’s child tomorrow father..

Good team player is tomorrow’s captain…

When all talented and motivated person work together, it gives a great team. A team act like a driving car which complete depend on its tyres.

If one of the tyre doesn’t work or having minor difult, car neither drive nor reached at its place or destination.

So we can say that team work based on the strength of players. One of player lose hope, confused, not be confident, team can’t reach at his goal and become fail..

For big gaol, team strength important thing…
Teamwork: More than working together
Tags: Team Collaboration, Team Building, Skalar, Teamwork, Cocreation

Teamwork: More than working together

If you have ever worked in a startup, you know that the team is the core of everything you do. Skalar Follow Dec 1, 2020 · 2 min read

It is often stated that many startup failures can also be traced to a lack of focus within the team. This raises a few questions about creating a well made team: who are they, what are their backgrounds, and why do they work together? In this short piece we will answer how we see this at Skalar, how we work in teams, and why we know that it’s the right way for us. In teamwork nothing can be set in stone.

Opposites attract

At the beginning of co-creating with a client, the team will consist of several people working in a broader scope, focusing on getting to know the market, position the idea and implementing the prototype with the right features at the right time. We have different teams in Skalar, catered to the challenges they solve. If a product team is well underway with their strategic collaboration, they will most often be a smaller targeted force. In these cases we have mapped out the path and are well on our way to implement and run our co-created digital product. Our targeted approach makes sure we continue to create value together with the client. At Skalar we work at the intersection of business, design and tech, which is always reflected in our teams. This means that they can rely on the skills of each other. We work this way because we know that different mindsets push things along.

The trinity

Every team consists of competence in tech, design and business. The team works closely together to initially create a tailor-made product with the client. Like a tailor, we need the client to be involved in the process so we can get to know their pains and bottlenecks. Then we begin to develop a holistic view of how their business works and how we can help them grow. Our aim is to first build a team within Skalar dedicated to create and implement their digital product, making value throughout.

There is no “I” in team.

Having written about teamwork in our previous article on co-creation, it is evident that teamwork is vital to everything we do. Teamwork is the backbone of all our processes, especially the ones we have with our clients. We build long strategic partnerships, aimed to help companies experience growth and to be a part of co-creating digital products of value. We find opportunities to build solutions with talent who are amongst the best in their field.

With competence in business, design, UX/UI, communication, creativity, music, art, hammocks, Kubernetes, JavaScript, Ruby and so much more, the teams at Skalar are ready to take on the innovative challenges that come their way.
Why Escape Rooms Are Great For Dates
Tags: Team Building, Escape Room

Escape Room Dubai

Discovering something to do out on the town can be extreme, regardless of whether it’s a first date, arranged meeting or night out, there’s an entire universe of choices out there and you need to take care of business. You might not have considered an escape room as a date choice, yet I’m here to disclose to you that escape rooms are incredible for dates!

Escape Rooms For Two Players

Here at Hungarian Games, we’re sufficiently fortunate to be one of the main escape rooms for two parts in Dubai. Most escape rooms expect you to have at least three players, yet we have planned our escape rooms with the goal that they can be finished by just two players. We likewise never blend gatherings, so it will simply be you two in the room, nobody else. You’ll truly get that quality alone time together!

No Distractions

There’s no telephones, workstations, Netflix or whatever other interruptions when you’re in an escape room. It is simply you and your accomplice and you can have some good times without checking Instagram at regular intervals.

You Can Work Together

Escape rooms allow you to cooperate and this is most likely something you don’t regularly will do as a team. This unites you and you will most likely gain proficiency with certain things about yourself and the other individual that you didn’t have the foggiest idea!

Improves Communication

One reason that escape rooms are so well known with organizations for team building exercises occasions is that they improve teamwork and communication. You may have heard that communication is likewise very valuable in a fruitful relationship, so as a team, doing escape rooms can help improve communication among you.

In an escape room, you should convey obviously and viably to illuminate riddles and work towards a shared objective, something that is incredible for connections.

You’ll Get To Know Them Fast

On the off chance that it’s an arranged meet up, or a first date and escape room for two in UAE is the ideal spot to become more acquainted with somebody quick! You’ll be secured together for 60 minutes, with no different interruptions. It’ll simply be you two and individuals’ actual characters come out before long under tension! You’ll before long realize whether they’re a manager or somewhat of an insane individual…

Sentiments Of Elation

There aren’t numerous preferable sentiments over the sentiment of beating a truly testing escape room. At the point when you complete it together, the mutual achievement will bring you closer!

In case you’re searching for indoor activities in Dubai or simply an escape room for two in Dubai, at that point you’ve gone to the correct spot!
5 Things You Need To Know About How to Manage Team Expectations
By: Hamdi Küçük
Tags: Team Collaboration, Team Building, Teamwork, Team Building Ideas, Team

Being on the same page in terms of expectations as the rest of your teammates is crucial. Setting the standards and expectations from the onset is the way to do it. It is not advised to wait and introduce expected principles halfway through a project as this will consequently create unnecessary confusion and will not allow the team to fulfil its full potential. Below, i outlined some key tips on managing team expectations

1. Meetings

In order to effectively oversee team expectations, it is necessary to manage them on an individual basis first.

For this to take place, 1–1 meetings help ensure employees are on track and hitting performance standards, personal commitment and making sufficient effort towards team goals.

These meetings are also valuable times and ideal for acknowledging good work and praising employees — formally or informally.

Additionally, maximising team performance is a key part of managing expectations, as connecting with employees’ strengths and abilities will encourage them to work energetically.

2. Goal-Setting and Review
How to recognize & appreciate employees without spending any money
By: Faraz Javed
Tags: Team Building, Leadership Skills, Teamwork, Team Management, Leadership

In the previous article Why Appreciation Matters? we discussed why it’s important to recognize and appreciate employees and acknowledge their efforts. In this era, most of the employees want a quality work environment. They want to get quality in their life. If an organization fails to bring quality to their employee’s life, he or she is most probably going to get it from another organization.

In this article, we will continue our previous discussion. Here we will be looking into the ways of how you can appreciate employees or your team members, acknowledge and recognize their efforts for the organization.

Every employee has his own priorities, own ways to feel accomplished. Being a team lead/manager, it’s your duty to find out what motivates your team members. Most of the time, employees feel motivated by the things that cost too low.
3 Thankfulness Activities for Your Work Team
By: Camille Bryant
Tags: Teambuildingactivities, Thanksgiving, Team Collaboration, Team Building, Give Thanks

November is a season of thankfulness and coming together. Here are several activities that you can facilitate with your team to encourage a positive spirit of gratitude and show how you are thankful. Just click on the titles below to get the directions.

“Thankful for…” Mad Libs Activity

This fun activity is a twist on mad libs. Be thankful and have a good laugh too.

Easy Ways To Quickly Show Gratitude At Work

Try these simple ways to express thankfulness to your teammates.

Fun Thanksgiving Icebreaker For Your Remote Team

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, have a laugh as you share how you prepare your feast. (This works with virtual meetings!)

Summary

Try any of these activities to spread the spirit of gratitude and thankfulness with your teams any time of the year.

About the Author: Leigh Ann Rodgers, Founder of Better Teams and Forward, is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator with 20 years of experience in the human development field. Leigh Ann is a skilled meeting facilitator, trainer, and coach working across the globe to help leaders cultivate teams that are happy and high-performing.

Join Forward, a global online community for facilitators, trainers, & coaches!

Forward is a virtual community with workshops and resources for experts like you. Get a sneak peek here.
Team Management: Why appreciation matters?
By: Faraz Javed
Tags: Team Building, Leadership Skills, Teamwork, Team Management, Leadership

In this article, we will be discussing; what is the impact of appreciation and acknowledgment on employees/team member’s loyalty. This article is divided into two parts, firstly we will talk about why appreciation matters a lot in team management. In the second part, we will discuss what steps we can take to appreciate our team members.

We will try to understand the concept with an example. Let’s suppose you own a car. The basic need of the car to start is fuel. But you spend money on other parts of the car as well. You wash it, keep it clean. You take care of the tires. Now let’s suppose, you have to go from one city to another. It’s a long journey. What you will do? You will verify that all the parts of the car are in good condition. Water to keep the car cool, air pressure in tires, Ac is working fine, and so on.

If you just start driving the car with fuel in it and ignoring the other requirements, your car will probably be broken down after a few miles. It can make your journey uncomfortable. It can slow you down. And at the end of the day, you will not reach your destination. And you will blame the car for it. In fact, it’s not the car which didn’t take you to the destination, it’s YOU, who didn’t maintain your car when needed.
Find the perfect balance between Build and Run.
By: Wei Huang
Tags: Balance, Team Building, Operations, Leadership, Build

Today I want to talk about how to find the perfect balance between the BUILD and RUN for your company or your team.

BUILD, which means the new use cases, new business opportunities, first in the market, or the battlefield to win or lead the business market place.

RUN, which means Keep The Light On (K.L.O.), makes sure your application runtime safe, meets the business defined Service Level Agreement(S.L.A.), supports your business line or stakeholder is mostly the operationalization.

These 2 are totally different games; however, they are also relative to each other so badly and directly impacting each other and equally important for your business or your team.

Who build it, and who fix it.

This is the most popular saying to describe the relationship between the two; however, this focuses on the technical angle. In the real world, you will find out this is not going to works. Why?

The business context, priority, and different reality.

Most of the companies, medium or large size. The most popular delivery and operational model is:

By having a delivery team (A.K.A project team) deliver the feature to the market or the stakeholders, then transfer it to the operational team to run; however, the main challenges are:

Lagging the process of knowledge transfer, especially when the project planning phase, due to timeline or operational team always in action, can sometimes not include the operation team in the first place. Project team lagging the knowledge of operation reality and complexity.

When production incidents happen, the Ops team sometimes, besides looking at the logs, missing documentation, missing the application context, which leads to SLA breach, and impact the business.

Screenshot by Author

Start-up seems to handle this much easier and better; it has a much lean structure setup, easy to fetch any engineer needed in the company, with a fast engagement process. However, the impact will be mostly for the feature deliverable. Imaging engineer is focused on the deliverable, suddenly switch to the operation debugging, more or less, will impact the current deliverable.
Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
Tags: Startup, Team Building, Market Research Reports, Startupcreator

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Do you think your employees are lying to you? You may be right!
By: Joel Vuadens-Chan
Tags: Team Building, Honesty, Teamwork, Employee Engagement, Lies

Sometimes you may have the impression that your employees and team members are not giving their best, that they are hiding facts and even lying to you. You are right! Research shows that 85% of people don’t like their job and 75% are lying and cutting corners. Why?

Here are some of the reasons why they might be lying to you

1. They don’t feel well supported and developed by their manager

2. The ethics of the manager/team leader are opposite to theirs

3. They are not in the right position/job

4. The employees are not allowed to fail and therefore learn from failures

5. Their ideas are not taken into consideration

6. They feel used by the company

7. They don’t feel that they can contribute

8. They don’t trust their manager/team leader

9. They feel the manager/team leader is not really listening to them

10. They are not aligned with the culture of your company

The consequence is that they “play safe” and do the minimum, avoiding any risks and only sharing information that they consider safe to share, hence lying or withholding important information. The solution is therefore that the leader creates the right environment and supports the team to bring their best. But how do I do that?

Here are some areas you can work on

Communication: You need to communicate openly, honestly and with respect. In the day of technology and needs to communicate quickly, this is often a challenge. Team members, especially the younger, are not looking for sophisticated and polished communication but for authentic communication aligned up with your values and ethics

Empowerment: When you know what each of your team members is good at, give me not only the task (delegation), but the authority and the resources to take charge of that area. They will bring their ideas and their passion for the task and feel much more motivated.

Ethics: “Be the change you want to see in the world,” said Gandhi. The same applies to your team. Your ethics, authenticity, motivation, attitude, and growth have a huge impact on each member of your team.

Vision: Do you know why you are doing your job? Not only the what but also the how is extremely important. Your ability to explain it, and to show each team member how they are contributing to the mission of the team and the organisation will make a material difference.

Passion: Are you passionate about what you do? Only with passion, we can reach excellence, high quality, and innovation. Only if you are passionate yourself, you can help your team members finding the passion in their own job.

These are the leadership skills that can help a good leader become a great leader.

Whether you want to grow personally and professionally, to improve your speaking, coaching, or sales skills, or to connect with other like-minded leaders, you have come to the right place.
Food for Agile Thought #269
By: Stefan Wolpers
Tags: Agile, Team Building, Innovation, Product Management, Scrum

Hello from Berlin!

Welcome to the 269th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,267 peers.

This week, we delve into estimating Cost of Delay; we identify nine signs that your CEO understands Scrum, and we learn that mental models impact the efficiency and accuracy in decision-making.

We then enjoy the essence of product leadership from a new Marty Cagan book; we get into measuring real progress as a product team, and we embrace the canary product launch approach to test the waters with a restricted set of clients.

Lastly, we applaud Ken & Jeff for releasing the new Scrum Guide 2020.

Learn more: Food for Agile Thought #269: Estimating Cost of Delay, Re-Teaming, Measuring Real Progress, Is Your C-Level Getting Scrum?

Best,

Stefan
How to create a Startup and form teams?
Tags: Startup, Team Building, Market Research, Startup Ideas, Startupcreator

So this isn’t going to be another guide and some random tips to build a startup. This page is actually a product that you can use to build a startup and to create startups. I know it sounds funny but hear me out. Here is a practical product to do this.

We (at Spotmaze.com) are going to use links (SPOTS) to create this as startup building page that redirects to another page. So our this first page is going to consist of sectors such as AR/VR or any other sector (Pardon the short narrative. will update as the list grows. So As I was saying.) If you have a new sector or startup idea just add in the comments. And I’ll update the post.
Et toi Aristide, c’était comment ta première fois ? 😉
Tags: Volontariat, Team Building, Emmaus, Association, Solidarité

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Tricks to drive your team towards success | Ideatelabs
By: Tanmay Gadade
Tags: Digitalmarketingcompany, Onlinemarketingagency, Teambuilding

It is said that a capable leader is the backbone of an organization. A bad leader will lead a company in a state of turmoil whereas a good leader will lead towards success. A good leader determines the future of an organization by successfully implementing a well-structured plan. They are also responsible for higher productivity due to their ability to engage and motivate the employees. Research states that most of the companies succeed because of great leaders.

Leadership has its own challenges. The biggest challenge today’s leaders face is uncertainty. With the business environment constantly changing, becoming diverse and complex, it needs a leader who is dynamic, understanding and a good communicator. In order to sail through these uncertain times a leader need to practice following skills to increase productivity of the workforce:

Inspire: When the employees are confused and find it difficult to cope up with a situation, they look up-to their leader for clarity. A leader needs to take charge, be confident and guide the team. It is said that a team is, more or less a reflection of its leader. Enthusiasm and talking straight to the point are the key tricks to leading a team.

Goal alignment: It is crucial to maintain transparency and keep the team aligned with the targets and the end objective of running your business. It makes the team confident and inculcates a sense of seriousness in order to obtain the results. Seeing the clear line of sight towards the goal, employees will start showing the confidence and passion towards work. This will lead to a highly efficient, motivated and productive team.

Employee centric culture: For the longest time companies believed in putting clients first. But with the changing time we can’t help but question its wisdom. Lately, a lot of companies have turned their vision from solely focusing on clients to focusing on employees who together strive to make it happen. Employee centric culture promotes a positive working environment, job satisfaction, creativity and much more!

Inclusion: It is a well-known fact yet one of the least implemented. Employees all over the world want to be included in the processes leading to the accomplishment of the goals or the final decision. It makes wonders happen when they are involved in each stage of the company’s growth and development. It gives them the sense of belongingness and loyalty for the organization.
Standing Tall as a Solo User Advocate in an Organization
By: Rejeesh Acharya
Tags: Solo, Team Building, User Advocate, UX, UX Research

User advocacy is an inevitable characteristic for a UX enthusiast. They always think in user perspective, they stand strong to get what users needs from the product even though no one backs them.

UX or User Experience practitioner are bowed to stand for the user and lead the show. There is no space for compromise in that space. While rest of the professions can compromise user needs, but a UXer cannot.

I could help budding designers and aspirants to excel and shine in an organization if you feel that you are the only one thinking about users while designing solutions or the user problems.

First of all understand you are not alone, but you are the only one capable to bring user perspective to the screens. We UXers cannot blame any other disciples for this deed. No one will help us until we could show them how the user is going to use the product or the screen. Here are some best and healthy organizational practices and team building tips from my experience.

User Experience is not a solo deliverable. It is a teamwork. A team of cross-functional disciples involving junior, senior and director level professionals. So it is important to create a similar mindset across the organization that drives to the similar goal.

Creating rapport with the cross-functional teams

As a first step, we should build a good rapport among the entire project team. Always help them understand what the user need from the system. Bring in more scenarios, user personas and other artifacts that could help create a commonly shared goal towards the user.

Deliverables shared with a supporting story

When you deliver a prototype, share it with a story behind — why the user use the screen, how they use, when the use it. This will make a change in the reporting managers expectations. Thus, they can contribute more ideas and perspectives to your design solutions and thus help you do more satisfied user centered designs.

Iterative prototypes with more team involvement

It is very important to make other teams feel that they are involved in the solution making and ideations. This helps to bring more perspectives and ideas for the solution. Another advantage of this practice is to identify the feasibility challenges from the technical aspects.

Never spend huge amount of time for initial drafts of prototypes. This helps you prevent iterations bias and keep self open for criticism and changes.

A lways share rapid prototypes, that are capable enough to convey your ideas and help others bring in more ideas and perspectives. Once you make sure that the problems are solved, move to hi-fi prototypes.

Involvement in the development phase

Once you deliver the design to the development team, make sure you visit the team regularly and inquire the progress in a friendly manner without bothering them too much. This will help you to understand the technical feasibility of the solution and the challenges they face. Alternate design solutions can be recommended here in case.
Redpoint Office Hours with Tomasz Tunguz and Linda Tong, GM of AppDynamics
By: Redpoint Ventures
Tags: Startup, Entrepreneurship, Team Building

From Hypergrowth to Hyperscale—What I Learned Managing Small and Massive Teams

Redpoint Office Hours with Linda Tong and Tomasz Tunguz

On Thursday, December 3rd at 11:00 AM PT, Redpoint Office Hours will welcome Linda Tong, the GM of AppDynamics.

Linda has experienced it all — both the start-up and big corporation trials and triumphs. During this conversation, we will get her take on the differences between working at smaller companies versus big corporations, and what type of managerial skills are needed for both types of roles.

In 2017 Linda joined AppDynamics as Vice President of Innovation Labs & Product Experience where her design-led leadership style drove the next phase of their product journey and empowered a company culture of curiosity and experimentation. In 2019, she was promoted to Chief Product Officer where she focused on driving the company’s product vision and strategy. In her current role as General Manager, Linda leads all aspects of AppDynamics’ business as part of Cisco.

Prior to AppDynamics, Linda was VP of Product & Innovation at the NFL where she managed the product vision for the digital properties of all 32 clubs and the league. She was also the co-founder of Tapjoy and the former CCO of Nextbit Systems. Earlier in her career, Linda was one of Google’s original Android team members, and helped launch and shape the developer ecosystem for the Android OS in its earliest stages.

Please register to attend here before Wednesday, November 25th. This event will be virtual, and we will collect questions from participants beforehand and try to cover them throughout the discussion. We’ll also answer questions from the audience at the end of the session.

We look forward to welcoming Linda and engaging in great conversation!
Jayway ‘Bäst i Test’ — Week 1. It’s November in Scandinavia, which…
By: Chloe Nauta
Tags: Team Building, Work From Home, Fun At Work, Challenge, Task Master

It’s November in Scandinavia, which combined with COVID restrictions means a lot of gloomy grey days working remote. So what better way to lift the spirits of Jayway than to get people to play a game based on an obscure TV show no one has seen?

Welcome to Jayway’s ‘Bäst i Test’ challenge.

‘Bäst i Test’ is the Swedish version of a British tv show (Taskmaster) where contestants complete random tasks for points. The tasks are deliberately loosely worded to encourage panic and lateral thinking. We made our own version to keep ourselves busy on these dark November days.

Our challenge has two elements — physical activity + a special task. This is to help us stay active when working remote, and get our brains engaged in something different to our normal routines each day.

Physical activity: Participants gain 1 point each day for their choice of physical activity (eg, running, yoga, a lunchtime walk, carrying kids around etc). The physical activity must last for at least 20 minutes and raise your heart rate. Streaks (consecutive days) give bonus points.

Special Task: Each weekday has a new challenge, with an extra special challenge on weekends. Participants get one point for completing the challenge, and bonus points for the best submission each day on slack.

Here is a look at our first week of challenges…

Task #1 Weekend challenge: “Create the best picture using a run/walk/geotracking app. Best picture wins.”

We set this task thinking it could be a good way to warm up people’s brains, get kids involved, and get us to look at our everyday surroundings in a new and creative way. Needless to say, the first task responses did not disappoint!
Everything About Hackathons-A place where your ideas become actions
Tags: Team Building, Productivity, Hackathons, Software, Knowledge

Some of the websites where hackathons are being conducted

MLH hosts many hackathons across the globe. They also collaborate with top-notch companies. And they organize webinars with working professionals. They also provide you necessary stuff that you can use during the hackathon. Like, free credits for deploying your website.

2. Hacker earth organizes hackathons actively where you can get benefits like FTE and Intern opportunities too.

3. Tech gig is another website where hackathons are conducted.

https://devfolio.co/

4. Devfolio is another website where you can find hackathons.

5. Devpost — The home for hackathons
Engaging Skeptics in Teambuilding Exercises
By: Dr Rick Goodman
Tags: Entrepreneur, Team Building, Teamwork, Entrepreneurship, Leadership

How do you build a strong team when some of the members of that team are simply uninterested in teambuilding exercises? That’s sort of the catch-22 of the entire teambuilding endeavor. On the one hand, there are plenty of ways you can strengthen and unify your professional team. The problem is, those methods are only effective if people are willing to engage with them in the first place, and some employees just aren’t.

You may have some teambuilding skeptics on your own team — so how do you win them over and get them to participate in team activities? A few tips spring to mind:
Primórdios dos boatos antivacina no Brasil
By: Simony Souza
Tags: Brasil, Fake News, Antivacina

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore