Holiday Harmony

S[NO]w More Stress

The holidays bring us a great deal of magic and wonder. Though with all the good, it is also – unfortunately- a time of the year that becomes extra stressful for many of us.

It is typically not possible to let our work slowdown in the weeks just before the holidays. There are so many critical year end tasks to complete and those business activities often conflict with our personal need to prepare and attend events and celebrations with our family and friends.

This month is ripe for improved self-awareness and self-management. Nowhere more so than concerning our stress behaviors – whether the source of that stress is work, the holidays or a combination.

It is possible for you to improve your resiliency to stress.

Resiliency is the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched. I think we all feel somewhat ’bent, compressed and stretched’ during the year end and holiday season.

Build stress ‘resiliency’ by using the Succeed Under Pressure report in imapMyTeam®

The Succeed Under Pressure report is descriptive and prescriptive. It helps you understand exactly what is making you feel stressed and a quick tip on how to rebound.  Successfully managing our stress behaviors is a path to Holiday Harmony and a true gift to ourselves.

The Push to Year End:

Less than one month remains in 2014.  Chances are you will be attending a number of important meetings over the next couple of weeks that are focused on one or both of these key topics:

1.     Look Back: Some debrief and analysis of what has happened in 2014,

2.     Look Forward: Setting objectives and goals for 2015

Make these end of the year meetings your best ones yet. Productive and meaningful team meetings are not about one person.  A great meeting encourages collaboration among the members; it should foster a sense of belonging and identity; and help coordinate interdependent work of the team members, even those who work virtually.

The most important guidelines in a meeting are not necessarily sound meeting principles, but internal motivational expectations.

Despite your best intentions and planning, people will largely evaluate the meeting based on how well it meets their own internal motivational needs. When the meeting is in sync with those needs participants will be engaged and think they are in a productive meeting. If the meeting is out of sync with motivational needs, it is easy to disconnect and feel as if the meeting is a waste of time.

You may remember that red and blue needs are opposite as are yellow and green needs.  That means if you are managing the meeting according to what a Red needs person expects, you are probably turning off all of the Blue needs participants.  The Reds judge it a great meeting and the blues consider it a bad meeting.  You stick to a pre meeting agenda and while the Yellow needs are happy, the Greens feel that lacks flexibility to add topics on the fly – so it is ‘too rigid’.  We can easily polarize our audience.

Use imapMyTeam to close out the year with your best ever meetings. As part of your planning, use the bottom right corner “My Meetings” section to better understand the motivational needs of those involved. Select the “Team Dynamics” report and go to the “Team Needs” tab. Note which quadrant each person in the meeting falls in and use the attached grid report to better understand what they need out of the meeting. Plan to meet not only your business goals for the meeting, but also the critical motivational needs of each person.

Using imapMyTeam.com to understand the “needs of the meeting” will save you time in planning and help you make sure your meetings are meaningful and productive for everyone.