Know Velocity

Every employer should want to boost morale, improve communication between staff members and in the end increase productivity, so why don’t more organisations send their staff to team development events?

Maybe it’s because some of these events can suffer from the fact they evoke bad connotations – many connected to the humorous events depicted on TV shows?

Certainly, the wisdom of David Brent from TV’s “The Office” have forced middle management to look in the mirror and wonder if that’s who they reflect.

Amongst Brent’s many, now famous, quotes the one that best summarises his thinking about working as a team reads: “There may be no ‘I’ in team, but there’s a ‘ME’ if you look hard enough”.

If you watched the show, you may remember the excellent instalment in which a team development expert visited the Wernam Hogg offices. Brent quickly took control, and transformed the meeting into essentially a celebration of himself, including an interpretation of his seminal 1980s pop ballad “Free Love on the Freelove Freeway” on the guitar.

Yet, team development events in real life are never like the cringeworthy and destructive nightmare depicted in The Office.

Many companies across the country now offer business organisations the opportunity to take their staff out of the office and away on a team building day.

Team building allows employees to learn and develop the tools and skills necessary to push business growth plus sustain development and improvement.

And in spite of worldwide economies being in the midst of a recession, staff development remains crucial to the growth of a business. Actually, it is even more important, as when the recession stops there will certainly be chances for the best-managed businesses to take advantage of the developing marketplace.

Team development can take many different forms, from in-house teaching to getting out into the wilderness and taking part in adventure courses, high ropes trails and personal challenges – which will be sure to inspire and be memorable for staff members.

All these activities are fashioned to encourage staff – regardless of age or background – to work as part of a team for the common aim of your company, and they all contribute to the common long-term goals of your business.

That’s why team development events are crucial to the growth of any business. Just don’t follow the example of David Brent, whose hiring policy was straightforward: “Avoid employing unlucky people – throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them”.

Filed at 5:26 pm under Adventures, Self Improvement Center, Your Business
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Never in my life-time would I have thought that I would endure hair loss. My hairline begun receding shortly before my thirtieth birthday. It was hard to believe that I was losing my hair. I even started balding on the rear of my head.

It was the first time in my life I felt that age has finally caught up. I felt like the best years of my life were behind me. I even stopped seeing girls. My love life was nearly non-existent. There was one girl I had been seeing nonchalantly and even though I liked her, I just stopped returning her phone calls. I realised that I hadn’t found the woman of my dreams with a full head of hair so there was no way I was going to find someone with my growing bald spot. I was too demoralized to even try having a loving relationship.

Hair loss changed me from a confident, socialable guy into a depressed loner. I’veI have always been the type of person that would not let problem overtake me. I started trying several hair loss treatments that are available in the counter. I have tried every single treatment and solution obtainable from the drug store, none of it worked. After many failures, I decided to stop trying for a while. It was a real low point in my life. I even stopped going out with my friends, I was so gloomy.

Fortuitously, one night a good friend of mine took me out for a few drinks. Throughout the night, he noticed was I appeared a little down. It took him a little while to figure out why. He mentioned to me about the hair loss studio in the city. My friend had gone there for hair loss treatments and had been impressed with the results. I was even more impressed. I wouldn’t have thought that he had endured from hair loss, he had a full head of hair. He made me promise to give them a try and I agreed.

I could not have been happier with the hair loss studio recommended to me. Only after a few treatments, I had a full head of hair again. The results were outstanding, they did not just give me my hair back but also my self-confidence.

Filed at 1:49 pm under Health + More, Internet Gender Issues, Self Improvement Center
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We oftentimes get stressed out about their monthly budget, not handling your budget can contribute to placing you further in debt if you are not aware. The benefits that come from handling your budget properly not only saves you money but help ease some of your stress over debt. Always keep in mind that a budget is primarily a plan for your monthly expenditure. Your budget, like any programme, requires some level of management to make it work for you. The manner I oversee my budget, for example, is by focussing on keeping information organized and controlling my spending.

My main focus is on coordinating the information in my budget. I keep track of recurring expenses like utilities, auto and mortgage repayments, insurance, and the like, for example. I can very easily lose track of my expenditure without organising my budget. By being conscious of what expenses repeat every month, I have an imminent hold on the minimum amount of money I have to put away each month before I spend on other things I can moderate a little more such as entertainment, clothing, and vacations.

To make a financial advancement, I make sure that I watch my expenditure in my budget. A genuine measure of advancement is placing money into a savings instrument or paying down debt. However, if I over spend, the opposite is true because instead of saving money I will use debt to help me cover the monthly expenditure in my budget. Clearly, giving in to the stresses of budgeting can have expensive consequences for my finances, specially if I am not capable to pay down my debt.

There are two benefits for controlling and coordinating my budget: First, I save money by avoiding unneeded expenditure. Second, my finances are targeted at achieving financial goals. Fundamentally, by not buying things I do not need, I am actually freeing up money that I can either use for something else or save. The extra money can also be useful in paying off debt or saving it for a holiday. In addition to having extra money, it will also allow me to establish longer term financial goals like saving and investing for retirement or paying off my mortgage or student loans. With my budget being coordinated and moderated, not only does my financial position become more healthy but successfully managing my budget reduces the stress that often comes with being in debt.

Filed at 1:25 pm under Finance News, Self Improvement Center
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Did you see the film, “Field of Dreams”? Probably. And, if not, I suggest that you rent the video. Even if you have not viewed the film personally, you at least know its most famous line, repeated often in the film and in our conversations: “If you build it, he will come.”

In the film, the voice did not say when or how or why or even who! The voice only said, “If you build it, he will come.” Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) agonized over the message, took actions that were ridiculed, and spent all his resources. (Do you know anyone like this in real life?) He did not discover nor do we as the audience know what the message really meant until “it” was built.

He trusted the process of his inner guidance, supported by a loving family, tenacity, curiosity, and disillusioned writer Terence Mann (James Earl Jones). And Ray built it. Then, not only did “he” come, but “they” came, filling the field with electricity that drew more people.

Had Ray trusted the paradigm which claims we must have all the facts and proof before proceeding, he would not have built the field. The film is about many issues: clarity of vision, dreams and dreaming, building and rebuilding, trust, goodness, relationships, hope, getting a second chance, taking risks, love, reconciliation.

It is a picture about positive power in an unexpected place.

Copyright © 2006 Marshall House. Jeanie Marshall, Empowerment Consultant and Coach with Marshall House, produces Guided Meditations and writes extensively on subjects related to personal development and empowerment. Voice of Jeanie Marshall, http://www.jmvoice.com

Filed at 11:33 pm under Self Improvement Center
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