Below are some of the flip chart notes, from the section on the Team Performance Model.

Overview of this section – 7 Steps to Team Performance

• Explore the creation and sustainment of High Performance teams.
• Co-Create Solution Focused questions and methods for advancement of each step.
• Leave with a working model and application to your work and team lives.

Lessons Learned from this section – 7 Steps to Team Performance

• Knowledge of how to put this model into existing teams to improve effectiveness of people on the team.
• A series of question and tactics that can be used to move a stuck-team into motion and success.
• Examples and ways to implement this system into your organization, teams and individual contributors.

To learn more about this program and others like it…Click Here

Click on any of the photos to enlarge

michael cardus is create-learning

Network in Aging of Western New York, Inc.

Contacted by my friend Nancy Weil to lead a team building workshop for a group that she is a part of, The Network in Aging of WNY.

Mission

To help our members enhance their efforts to improve the quality of life for older persons and their families by providing them with opportunities for resource exchange, professional development, and stimulation of interdisciplinary collaboration.

outcomes from the Team Building Time:

• Increased trust and membership communication
• People got to know and learn from each other in an enjoyable environment
• Increased alignment of mission, vision and personal perceptions of the agencies mission and vision as it applies to the individual members, and the community at large.
• Created a shared understanding strengths and abilities of the people on the team.
• Awareness of the team and personal preference style for communication and information sharing.
• Take-Away information on improving their own work and Team performance.

Jeff Reed from Mount Calvary Cemetery Group was the contact person, and wrote this great testimonial about our time together. 

“My heart stopped pounding once Michael began to speak. Coordinating a team-building workshop for thirty people is stressful enough. Add to the mix that the thirty people attending are not co-workers or close personal friends, they are members of an organization you belong to and you are hosting the monthly event.

The stress started at our first meeting when we began to entertain the thought of a structured team-building program. Will people come? Might they be intimidated with the topic? Will they think, “Great another boring session of what not to do?” Will they even participate? We even thought of running the team building session on our own until one of my employees said she heard Michael Cardus speak at a retreat she attended and “he was amazing”.

Michael was engaging right from the start, he easily shifted us into groups where we did not know one another. Instead of telling us why team building was so important he walked us through an exercise that quickly opened our eyes as to how much we have in common as individuals.

A team was formed through our common bonds. No one was singled out or put into an uneasy position you could feel the positive energy within the room.

After a short break we returned to our tables only to find a black bag positioned in the center of the table. This test of connecting the varied lengths of plastic pipe and connecters made us one. As a group we had to work together, think through every suggestion that was made to complete the task and be flexible enough to change gears mid-stream when our best laid plan was going to fail us. While only one group completed the task, we observed and learned that there truly is strength in numbers.

The time we set aside for Michael’s program flew by, the bonding in the room generated by our interaction was infectious and the noise level kept rising as we moved forward with our assigned tasks.

We all walked away with a better understanding of what a “team” can be, how important communication is between people, and realized when pursuing a common cause or goal, having teammates to lean on makes the task at hand achievable.

The time spent with Michael was invaluable!”

Interested in similar results for your Professional Group, Organization and team? Contact Mike…and be the reason people stay with your team.

michael cardus is create-learning

Here’s what I’m Talking About:

Your Solution Will Not Work For Me

You must learn and determine your own solutions.

Listening to how someone else solved a problem is helpful.

BUT YOU must learn how to apply that solution to you, in your context and how you work.

We always want to share our experience and how we solved problems. When someone shares a problem they are facing, we quickly jump into the “If I was you…” “Here is what I would have done…” “That happened to me and I …” “why didn’t you just…”

That does not work and you are not helping that person you are just making them feel more helpless. STOP IT!

In this 20 minute talk we will explore a method that you can use to find your own solutions to challenges, find your own voice.

Developing action steps, based upon your past success and what works for you.

Leaving you with identifying what it is you want to do (the solution),  where you currently are, how far you have already gone, steps to move further along, and some definite decisions and direction for achieving your solution.

Ending with you finding the Solution that works for YOU!

Register Now!

Other speakers include;

• Robin Wilson Old Ghosts
• Amanda Twentyfive An Owner’s Manual – A Twitter Guide to Being You
• Bill Knoche Fake it til you make it…What a crock of Crap!
• Lisa Coppola The Verdict is in: Presentations That Persuade.
• Nancy Weil All Stressed Out and Ready to Blow

Hope to see you there!

Register Now!

I was interviewed by The Buffalo News about resolutions that companies and individuals can make for a prosperous new year.

Sound Advice

• Local business experts offer resolutions that companies and individuals can make for a prosperous new year

Below is what I said.

• * Pare down priorities. Create no more than six goals for 2012, said Michael Cardus, founder and CEO of Create-Learning, a local leadership development company.
• The goals should take from three to 12 months to accomplish and have definite deadlines. You should have a system in place for measuring the success of each.
• "[They] must have the ‘what’ — what the outcome will be — and the ‘by when’ — when the outcome will be achieved," Cardus said. "The ‘by-when’ drives the prioritization."
• When prioritizing, it’s just as important to decide what needs to be changed as it is to decide what needs to stay the same.
• Business owners should decide what is already going well within their company, and then leave it alone or build on it.
• "Do more of what’s working to bring in revenue," Cardus said.
• When it comes to what’s not working, Cardus suggests business leaders "judiciously eliminate." Look at what is not serving the company well, then make thoughtful decisions about getting rid of it.
• "Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive," Cardus said.

To read the entire article click…

Michael Cardus is Create-Learning

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To register

High Performance Team Development: Quality Tools for Quality Teams

I presented a similar workshop last year. This one is going to be similar yet different. Some major differences are going to be more time spent on Clarification of Role Responsibilities (who does what when; who is accountable to whom; authority of assigning and taking away existing work and project tasks.)

Who should attend and why?

If are a Project Sponsor / Champion, Team Leader, Team member of a Quality Team and want to enhance your skill sets in Team Development, Facilitative Leadership, Project Management and people skills then this is where you should be. The material and learning simulations in this workshop are designed to make you a better leader and team member, plus we will have fun!   

This will be accomplished through;

• Interactive delivery of content.
• Experiential application and practice of the content
• Followed by processing and steps for integration into your team and organization.

The material is able to be used and understood by people, who have a working knowledge of Quality Teams (6 Sigma, Lean, Process Improvement, etc…) Whether you lead teams or are a team member the material covered and techniques shared will be useful for you to harness the hard skills, interpersonal skills and political skills (Soft Skills) needed to complete successful Quality Projects.

Outcomes:

You will walk away from this workshop with;

• How to develop high performance Quality teams; With a prescriptive model that can be applied and utilized. 
• Facilitative leadership of teams.
• Effective Prevention and intervention methods of maladaptive team member behaviors.
• Steps to create “buy in” for the Quality projects from people who are outside the team.
• A community of professionals that will share resources, best practices, and serve as solution finders to Quality Teams within their organizations.

If that is enough for you – Register Now

If you need more information look below.

High Performance Team Development: Quality Tools for Quality Teams – Agenda

• it is lofty and subject to change depending upon who is in the room and time constraints.

Roles and Responsibilities of Quality Teams

• Pitfalls common to all teams
• High Performance Teams Model and its application
• Define Roles & Responsibilities of; Project Sponsor / Champion; Team Leader; Team members; stakeholders
• * Task Initiated Role Responsibilities (TIRR) – are cross-functional relationships in which A is authorized to initiate B’s doing something but where it is B’s manager and not A who is held accountable for whether or not B does it and for B’s output. TIRR define who can do what to whom. These are generally lateral or horizontal relationships. (Jaques 1998)

Team Leader

• Facilitative leadership
• Exploration of content vs. method and ways of providing evaluations and feedback on both
• Establishment of team ground rules
• Agendas for agreement
• Decision Making Methods
• Dealing with project de-railing behaviors of team members
• Team prevention and intervention strategies
• Pressure Paradigm activity

Managing Quality Team Projects

• Getting buy-in from people outside of project team
• Defining and showing relevance to project stakeholders
• Influence Strategies
• Communication with people outside the team who’s help is needed
• Pitfalls of emails to Quality projects and how to avoid them
• What to do when you are not getting cooperation

If that is enough for you – Register Now

• Questions? Contact Mike

michael cardus is create-learning

image by GollyGforce trying to catch up on commenting

I had the honor of giving a speech to Nardin Academy sharing some insight and lessons on Innovation and how it is or is not connected to 21st century learning.

Here were some of the benefits from the talk;

• Determining where the organization currently is (Current Applied Capacity).
• Setting action and ideas into what could be better.
• Talking about the necessity of core pedagogy, while creating separate methods for innovative practices within the Organization, Classroom and personal levels.
• Identifying blocks to innovation.
• Learning a method to overcome the innovation blocks and grow the school to reach its potential.

This talk is valuable to corporate as well as school groups taking the time to determine what 21st century learning is, and how to drive innovation into your existing culture is a necessity for survival.

Quality is skilled knowledge of our practices; Quality is just what we do and what is expected from us.

Innovation is about identifying outliers from our quality work to continually improve and strive towards potential. For 21st Century Learners innovation MUST align with our quality – Being what we do, and what is expected from us.

Interested in Mike being a speaker at your next meeting, event or conference? Contact us and make your team and leadership better.

michael cardus is create-learning