I attended a very inspiring talk by Karen Schmidt of Let's Grow!

Karen is a motivational speaker who made the observation that a negative person in the office is like that one bad raspberry in the punnet.

They infect the others around them, slowly but surely, until all the raspberries in the punnet have gone off.
 

Last month, we hosted the Success Through People Webinar Series which featured our experts discussing how the TMS suite of Profiles can be used to achieve higher performance in the workplace.

We had a fantastic number of participants from around the world; some new to TMS, and some very long-time accredited members, join the session.

The use of psychometric profiles in business has been growing in popularity since the 1970’s. The business case being that you have more control over the factors which you are aware and can measure.

Organisations are finding that training plus coaching can be 4 times more effective than training alone.

That is because coaching is about personal bests. It’s about showing someone how to become the person they want to become.

And you can’t do this without self-awareness, that fundamental emotional intelligence upon which many others are based.

The TMS team had a marvellous time at the IOP conference in Brisbane on 24 & 25 June!
 
One of the more interesting papers was presented by Dr. Randall White, who talked about optimism as a distinguishing factor for leaders.

In his article Australian Mateship: an ingredient of successful teams? Michael Burns argues that it is the spirit of mateship that not only helps Australia win on the sporting field, but also in business.

As Managing Director of Brumby's, Michael Sherlock took an ailing franchise operation to be positioned as the second largest bakery franchise in Australasia.

For examples of resilience one needs to look no further than at the brilliance of nature. Penguins are a perfect example of this. To survive unforgiving Antarctic climate, they generate body heat by staying active (penguins are able to jet through the water at speeds of up to 15 mph). Whilst on land, penguins tuck in their flippers to reduce the surface area for heat loss, absorbing heat from the sun via their black, back feathers and reducing their contact with the ice by tipping up their feet and standing on their heels. How ingenious is that?

Humans have to put a bit more thought into being resilient, as unfortunately we are not as well programmed in this regard. So how can you improve your level of resilience and adaption to change?

You walk into your client’s office, knowing that a team building programme would successfully address their workplace concerns. However they’re dead against it.

Waste of time!
Not worth the money!
I don’t’ need that airy fairy rubbish!

I attended the Thought Leadership Summit recently in Brisbane and was very glad I did! I met some very interesting and inspiring people from whom I could learn a lot. The format was “open spaces” - very informal and unstructured – which suited us, as those attending seemed to be very flexible and open to a new experience.