Workplace 101: A Profiles Global Business Blog

Building an effective team is hard work. First, you have to select the right people to be on the team. This involves finding high-performing, engaged employees with the right skills to do the job. Once you have completed this difficult task, you have to handle the even more difficult task of establishing how work in the team will be done and how communication will flow. It’s still not over after that! Now, you have the headache of dealing with the conflicts that are almost certain to arise. Talk about hard work!

Author: Steve Deighton

Take a moment and imagine a thousand years from now, presuming humans are still around (and I’m not entirely sold on that being the case). A future archeologist is at a dig site which is your present day work space. What will they find that would be significant? Will they be able to decipher what you did? Now, let’s just go a year forward. Will you be able to know what you did that is considered significant a year from now? Two years from now? Will anyone else see what you have done as significant?  

The reality is most of what we do every day does not have much impact on the future unless we are able to reshape someone else’s thinking, attitude, and abilities. Consider the opportunities you have every day to positively influence another person to be more innovative, conscientious, or thoughtful.  Most of us on this planet will not personally make the history books, but we may influence or teach someone who will.  So the real question is, what is holding you back? Not enough time, too many competing priorities.

Creating a team-building culture starts with individual, engaged employees. Engaged employees are happier at work, get more done, and routinely go above and beyond their job descriptions. They also encourage other employees to be more engaged and productive. Most importantly, these employees are proud to be a part of their companies and are likely to stay long-term. There is no one simple set of actions that will create increased engagement levels. You will need to identify opportunities, simplify solutions, take action, and hold people accountable for following through with the policies you put in place. 

The cinema hype has died down, but The Hunger Games isn’t going anywhere. The best-selling novel and recent box-office hit is still capturing readers and viewers across the nation. If you’ve missed out, the story is about a futuristic society where twelve kids, from ages 12-18, are submitted into a televised, life or death competition. Contestants are in a constant war between themselves to see who ends up as the champion. The excitement, fear and mystery keep readers and viewers on the edge of their seats.

Sports history was made Saturday when Robert Griffin III, most commonly known as RG3, won the 77th Heisman Trophy as the Most Outstanding College Football Player in the U.S. for 2011.