The Gratitude Attitude

The end of November is upon us and that moves us to gather with friends and family to celebrate Thanksgiving. An amazing feast with our families and friends is just one of the tangible benefits of the Thanksgiving holiday. However, don’t overlook some of the intangible benefits we enjoy when we celebrate with an overall mindset of gratitude.

Be grateful for what you have.

Recent studies have established when people take time to identify specific positive attributes in others or their actions, and take time to record them in some way, they tend to:

• Have a relative absence of stress and depression
• Make progress toward important personal goals
• Report higher levels of determination and energy

Using imapMyTeam® makes it easy to find and document positive attributes of your team and other co-workers.

Take a few minutes to read about what your colleagues contribute to the team by running their “Strengths Summary” report. Just login to imapmyteam.com click on their name to move them to the center pane and select that report to view it. Consider their contributions and how they add to the team’s overall success. Perhaps write down a few notes to solidify your appreciation.

We hope you enjoy some time away from the demands of work and your return from the holiday comes with a renewed attitude of gratitude!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Change or Die?

I live in the Northeast. Last Tuesday it was 68 degrees; on Thursday it was 33 degrees. The season changed abruptly, almost overnight.

Changing with the seasons is something we’re all familiar with. We all know it can’t stay 68 degrees year-round and making the necessary changes isn’t that difficult.

 What if the change was honest to goodness life or death?

Would you change? “Yes” you say?

Would you believe the odds are 9 to 1 that you would resist even the most serious change?

At a recent medical symposium discussing healthcare challenges it was reported that 90% of people in the United States who have bypass surgery have complications or need additional surgery because they cannot or will not change their behavior for the good in the long haul.

The problem of changing behavior of patients is not exclusive to healthcare; it is also a problem for business. To stay competitive in a turbulent and uncertain environment change is necessary. And it is far more difficult than getting out a winter coat and gloves.

Fear of death apparently is not a motivator to change. Doctors have discovered better success with programs that focus on the ‘joy of living’ that they say comes from the ‘mental structures that shape the way we see the world’.

Fortunately, iMapMyTeam® measures the way you see the world through identifying your motivational needs. And to better manage the stress change creates, it is important to understand how the changes impact your motivational needs.

Change is easy when it meets your need.  It’s hard when it doesn’t. The Stress of Change report is descriptive and prescriptive. It helps you understand exactly where change is making you feel stressed and a quick tip on how to fix it.

Managing the stress of change is a necessity and an ongoing challenge for each one of us. It isn’t as serious as bypass surgery, but it will positively impact your workplace ‘health.’

Winning a ‘No-Win’ Scenario

Claiming to have ‘won’ a conflict at work is like claiming a peaceful conquest – it’s an oxymoron.

When you’re having conflict at work, resolving it is a much better outcome than winning. Disagreement happens; even on the most cohesive teams. While healthy disagreement often helps a team move forward, failure to effectively address and resolve disagreement is a real threat to the ability of the team to be successful.

What makes workplace conflict so challenging is that we all have very different reactions to conflict and disagreements. Here is a very common scenario:

When under pressure Person A loses their sense of long term implications of their actions and ‘winning’ a conflict with a colleague, or being “right”, becomes their short term goal.  Person A becomes more verbally assertive and dominates their interaction. Person B, on the other side of the disagreement, has opposite expectations. Person B wants collegiality and views fighting openly about things to be counterproductive and difficult to do. Person B ‘gives in’ to Person A because he or she is uncomfortable with the open clash. Person B did have important points to make but couldn’t do it with the open conflict so that key information failed to surface.

Who won? No one of course; and certainly nothing happened that is good for the team because when the underlying issues that created the disagreement in the first place have not been solved, they will simply reappear later. Also if you damage the relationship in the process your colleague might find it very hard to forgive you for what you have done.

imapMyTeam® helps you understand why working through disagreement can be so difficult and provides some helpful suggestions through the Resolving Disagreements report.

You will find the Resolving Disagreements report in the center pane, under reports about you section.

When you find yourself in a disagreement – large or small and don’t know what to next - this report is a valuable resource to help you consider what you can do differently to manage the tension of conflict before it becomes counter-productive to winning as a team.

What is the Key to Your Long-Term Success? Relationships.

If you are reading this ‘Tuesday Tip’ it is likely because the ‘key to success’ aspect caught your eye– or maybe you are surprised that the answer we provided was relationships.

Many people we talk with don’t necessarily connect relationships with success early on. They begin with factors such as superior product or technical knowledge, improving productivity, identifying and developing strengths, improving communication skills and the like.  Those can’t hurt, but they are secondary to being effective at building relationships.

In today’s knowledge worker based economy we must get things done with others. This is equally true whether you are a first level supervisor or a senior executive. If you cannot build and maintain relationships you are unlikely to accomplish what you are responsible for.

imapMyTeam® is about- first and foremost- great relationships.

To be good at relationships you must first start with understanding yourself then consider the critical relationships you have such as:

·         You and your manager

·         You and your peers

·         You and your direct reports (if you have them)

Ignore people’s motivational needs at your own peril. 

imapMyTeam® measures internal motivational need and helps you understand it. Most of the iMapMyTeam reports you access about others are written to their needs…and if you understand someone else’s needs and follow the advice -you’ll improve the relationship.

Being better at the relationship means a greater chance at long-term success no matter how you personally define success.