Team Building Resources

One of my favourite blogs is one called “Chief Happiness Officer“, the author Alexander Kjerulf provides great reading on a regular basis.  A recent post is a video, an 18 minute video which seems like an eternity in terms of web videos but its worth every minute.  I’m sure I don’t need to draw the lines for you on how important happiness at work can be to achieve successful team dynamics.  This video has some really key insights, which although not rocket science, its presented in a way that make it very engaging and useful to reset our thinking and improve our “happiness factor”.

http://positivesharing.com/2010/01/srikumar-s-rao-at-our-2009-conference/

The video is a speech delivered by Dr. Rao at the 2009 conference on happiness at work.  Dr. Rao is the man behind the pioneering course Creativity and Personal Mastery. This is the only business school course that has its own alumni association and it has been extensively covered in the media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Independent, Time, the Financial Times, Fortune, the Guardian, Business Week and dozens of other publications.

Here are his key points distilled but its worth the 18 minute time investment to hear it directly.

1. We are born happy, we learn to be unhappy.
2. What makes us unhappy is the mental models we are taught
   •  If we do “something” we will get “something” that will then make us happy.
     • The problem is once we have the “something” we were seeking the mental models we have learned is to want ”something” else. In addition often the “something” we want, the OUTCOME is completely out of our control.
3. To truly increase our happiness we need to become less focused on the OUTCOME and the mental, if, then model and focus more on the process, which is really the only thing under our control.
4. Its OK to think about a specific outcome that we would like, to ensure we are committed to the right process, but once we have determined the right process we commit fully to the process, invest in the process not the outcome.  This improves our likely hood of happiness as it is under our control and if we pick the right process the outcome we hoped for will likely come to fruition.

You can apply this new mode of thinking to many things, including how to improve team dynamics.  Think of the outcome you would like to achieve and then decide on the right process to be followed to achieve that outcome and then commit fully to the process alone.

Lynn

Team Enthusiast