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

The above slideshare is from a talk I gave at Social Media Uninhibited. The talk and process are effective with technical and inter-personal steps to find solutions. Contact Mike to speak at you next event, conference, meeting or training.

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 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!

michael cardus is create-learning

When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

At a coffee shop to meet a coaching client, arrived early to drink some coffee read some emails and prepare.

Order coffee & sesame bagel toasted with butter, sit to eat. Open my iPad and cannot get on the internet.

I’ve been to this coffee shop many time before and never had a problem. I try again nothing…

Walk up to the cashier (at this place they always act like they just woke up and your question is weird, and I kind of like that) and ask, “Is there some sort of trick to the wifi I cannot connect?”

She stares at me, vacantly…I ask again, “The internet I cannot connect, usually I have no problem, this morning it’s not working.”

Her, “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”

Me, “So, anything you can do?”

Her avoiding eye contact, “No”

Me, “Is there anyone here who can?”

Her, “We have been having problems and most people just wait and sometimes it fixes itself.”

Me, “Alright then, it will fix itself you say, thank you.” I walk away…

You might be thinking Mike it’s a coffee shop and you don’t need the internet. Yes, and this apathetic behavior is endemic of your work also.

Right now someone that you manage or your manager is telling someone “Yeah we’re having problems with that.”  NOT offering a solution, an alternative, an attempted solution.

You are paid to make decisions and solve problems

When you are working and following the path to complete your task and an obstacle to your progress happens, how you navigate around that obstacle is what you are paid for.

You are not paid to follow a rote path, A machine can do that

What do you think?

When does your accountability to solve problems stop and your managers begins? What about your work requires you to make decisions and solve problems, how do you measure that?

michael cardus is create-learning

image by LaPrimaDonna

When planning content for Team Building, Innovation and Leadership programs I use a Chalk-Board. Above is an image from a wall in my office. It is covered in Chalk-Board Paint. I have found that drawing, charting, modeling, listing my ideas in writing on this big wall where I can see everything and how it fits helps me to plan better and more creatively. 

What you see is the outline for a 5 month Emerging Leadership Program that I am creating and facilitating for about 30 students enrolled in a Local College. This challenge was unique, the Deans I am meeting with wanted “Something different than the typical Leadership program. Many of our students have already learned about Goal-Setting, Time-Management, Planning etc…We need to make this stand out”  Also they wanted a Hybrid model, meaning an on-line and face-to-face component, because many of the students are commuters. This is NO problem because the Exponent Leadership Process is a hybrid model. BUT the challenge was Something Different from the typical Leadership Program.

What are your ideas, what would you offer that was Different from Typical Leadership Development Programs?

Here is what I got so far (As you can see in the image, it is still a work in progress);

Is Leadership about me? Or we?

• Overview: The focus of leadership is impacting others, the need to focus on you is also important. How do successful leaders balance this challenge? They determine and know what they are great at, what they are developing, and what they are just bad at. All of this comes from YOUR ‘Current-Actual-Capacity’.
• Once you know your Current-Actual-Capacity then you can start developing plans and knowing with decisiveness how you can make the greatest impact on others while still flourishing yourself.

What’s my temper got to do with it?

• Overview: Your temperament an enormous impact on your ability to lead. Determining what behaviors are acceptable and how to best use, change, adjust your temperament will increase your success as a leader.
• You will take an on-line DiSC Behavior profile which will illustrate your preferred behaviors under stress and how others perceive you as a leader. We will use this information to develop normative-leadership-behaviors and determine when and how to best use and adjust your behaviors to increase your success.

Steps to Solutions

• Overview: Knowing the problem DOES NOT equal the solution. Solutions equal Solutions
• Leaders are responsible for making decision and using their judgment; Solution Finding. If they cannot find the solution, competent leaders know how to work with a team to find to solution steps to handle complexity and interacting systems.
• You will learn the 8-step solution finding model and together we will solve real problems and determine some action steps towards the solutions.

Organizational and Personal Complexity

• Overview: Your ability to handle the complexity of your work will make or break you as a leader. This workshop you will; 1. Determine your current ability to handle complexity; 2. Learn how to measure others ability to handle complexity; 3. Develop action-steps to increase your ability to handle complexity; 4. Work with others to discover solutions to complex problems.

The Best in Others Comes From the Best in You

• Overview: For people to follow you, you must show competence, learning agility, respect for self and others, and add value to their work. Leadership consists of ups and downs, you will have to make decisions that other people don’t like. How can this group and you as a leader stay healthy and focused on doing your best, while facing challenges?  

There is home-work, discussion time, and on-line content, blah blah blah… I really just wanted to show you my Chalk-Board wall and see how you think things through.

Now Your Turn;

How do you think through new, creative things? Do you still go analog for stuff or are you all digital? I tried mind-maps and they frustrate me.

What should I add/remove/change from the ideas I have above?

michael cardus is create-learning

One area of focus was decision making and how this group can support you in making choices and learning from the choices made. I decided to use an activity I call

‘Choosing Choice to Choose Connection’

• Overview: Teams of 3-6 are supplied with 4 ropes tied in loops, 1 rope connects all the ropes like a key ring. The teams have to choose which rope connects them all together.
• Outcomes: The ability to practice making decisions that have no clear answer, all that can be done is choose which one looks like the best answer. This becomes complicated when in work teams. Practice in creation of a decision making systems for agreement as well as listening + speaking for collaboration is necessary.

While processing the activity with the teams I asked;

I am going to ask you a weird question, Pretend that we all go on break and during this break your team does what it normally does on break…But unknown to the members of your team everyone else was shown which rope is the correct rope to choose. BUT your team did not know this because you all were on a break. In what ways, besides just telling you which rope was the correct choice, could the people and teams support, guide, serve your team in making the right choice?

Each team them had ~8-10 minutes to create lists and discuss the question.

WOW! the responses were awesome and really tied SO WELL into creating a community of support for the students and faculty.

Now Your Turn;

• Think about the question above; How would you respond? Your team respond? Your boss respond? Your subordinate respond?
• In what ways could you alter this question to be appropriate with your team?
• If everyone BUT you knew the correct choice – How would you go about asking them questions to find the answer? How would you treat them the same or differently?

Share your usages and ideas.

michael cardus is create-learning