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10 Disruptive's of Team Productivity

I once worked with a colleague who always delighted in regaling us with the latest bad news or rumours about the company. Not a day went by without him venting anger at certain managers and predicting the company’s demise. Sales were down and creditors – like the Barbarians – were at the gates, was what he preached daily.

As a young lad just embarking on a new career and full of enthusiasm, I listened with an increasing sense of dread. I couldn’t think straight – or focus properly on my work. After a couple of weeks, one of the old-timers explained this guy got his kicks out of always finding fault and I should ignore him.  

There are many types of team disruptives who damage morale and productivity, affect a team’s performance or a project’s success. Here are some:

1. The Marginalised

These are the team members who feel left behind, perhaps because they are less confident and in the shadow of more assertive colleagues.

2. The Gossiper

Always seems to know the latest on who’s leaving, who was passed over for promotion, or who passed out at the office party. Not afraid to spread malicious gossip about the boss or company. A first cousin of the time waster, the gossiper believes work gets in the way of his main pursuit.

3. The Time Waster

Happy to chat about any subject so work can be avoided. In the process this individual goes through the day doing as little as possible, and in the process infuriates others who can see what’s happening.

4. Grumpy

Always has a chip on the shoulder, this employee is never happy and always sees the negative side. Not only annoying to work with, but also travels with a gray mood they inadvertently share with everyone else.

5. Talker

Every team has at least one of these. A compulsive chatterer, they never know when to stop, and are not intimidated by the volume of work others have to do as they chat away. They also like to visit others at their desks to engage in even more idleness. They could talk about work all day, without ever doing it.

6. Disaffected

Maybe someone who in the past was passed over for promotion. This employee is nursing a grievance for what might have been, and possibly can’t stand the team leader who may have taken the role he/she coveted. First to complain about everything – out of earshot of the boss, of course – and the last to volunteer for anything

7. The Know-It-All

Has an encyclopedic knowledge of the company’s problems and is vociferous in telling everyone who bothers to listen that he has all the answers. Also pontificates about the manager’s ‘defects’, and is certain to know exactly how well everything would run if he were in charge.

8. The Absentee Worker

Plagued by imaginary ailments, usually late in the week or on a Monday. Constantly complains about various health issues as an excuse to avoid tasks. Workload has to be carried by others in team, triggering negative reaction by team members.

9. Late Arrival, Early Leaver

Starts the day five or 10 minutes late and feels entitled to steal some more time when leaving. That’s 10-20 minutes a day, or 50 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes weekly. The team leader may not notice, but fellow team members know a work shy colleague when they see one. Again, if no action is taken, the offender becomes more brazen.

10. Unmotivated

They sit at their desks or at meetings never contributing ideas or suggestions. It’s not that they don’t have any ideas, just that they are disengaged from the team. They have opted out and do the minimum required to get through the working day.

Takeaway

While all teams may have one or more of the above members, it’s the team leader’s job to ensure they are swiftly brought into line. Allowing them to avoid work, or otherwise distract from a team’s performance will only spread discontent and hurt performance.

A prestigious acting school is teaching business people how to give memorable 'performances'

The Lir at Work is using stage acting to teach executives to be better communicators.

BY CONOR MCMAHONREPORTER, FORANOVEMBER 5TH 2016 5 MIN READ

THE ACTING SCHOOL that taught Kenneth Branagh the ropes is training business leaders how to become better ‘performers’ at its sister college in Dublin.

For almost two decades, London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) has been helping people in business give better presentations, get noticed at meetings and deal with tricky clients through RADA in Business, a series of acting workshops for those more used to treading the boardroom than the stage.

Now, its Irish equivalent, The Lir Academy, which opened on Grand Canal Quay six years ago, is offering the same service under the brand name The Lir at Work.

“An actor is constantly moving in terms of their character, emotion and story,” RADA in Business director Kevin Chapman told Fora. ”So is a business person. If you look in the day in the life of a leader, they are moving through a variety of different emotions.

“They might come in in the morning and have to inspire a team. They have to be uplifting. The language has to be clear and energising. Next thing they might go into a meeting where they have to be very authoritative, maybe a compliance meeting.”

Chapman, who will be advising the tutors at The Lir, explained that by using the same skills as stage actors, business people can learn to “have more conviction” and handle a multitude of scenarios while seeming ‘authentic’ — in other words, they will ‘play’ a version of themselves rather than a character type.

Three one-day, in-house courses are available and tutors can cater for groups of up to eight people.

Through a host of exercises and games, participants are taught how to enhance their vocal projection, posture and breathing techniques in order to improve their communications skills.

Inside The Lir

Source: Rollingnews.ie

Bad habits

Based on its success in the UK, The Lir expects its ‘presenting made brilliant’ course to be its most popular.

“One of the things actors have to deal with is nerves,” Chapman said. “Everybody gets nervous. Many famous actors have suffered from stage fright.

“If nerves get the better of us, it undermines our performance.”

The same goes for business people who have to give presentations or speeches, he said.

“Part of the training of being an actor is actually removing bad habits. Often it’s (about) unlearning habits that are unhelpful, that give a different impression than what you want.”

A common bad habit when presenting, Chapman said, is to walk around the room or shift your weight from one foot to the other.

“When we do that, that tends to mean to the audience that you are not very grounded, not very connected to your content. If you look at an actor, they tend to be very still.”

Source: Lir at Work

Actors are also trained to know what to do with their hands when they speak — something many business people struggle with.

“People tend to put them in their pockets, fiddle with things,” Chapman said. “It’s nervous energy. It makes the audience nervous. They tend to focus on what you’re fidgeting with, not what you’re saying.”

It’s common too for nervous presenters to speak for long periods of time without pausing to take a breath. This overloads the audience with information.

“There is no space for people to enjoy and be nourished by what is being said,” he said, adding that “silence is powerful”.

‘Fig leaf pose’

As well as teaching presentation skills, The Lir will offer a ‘personal impact’ course for people who feel they are often ignored in meetings. Women in particular have a problem with being heard in formal, group settings, Chapman said.

“We have something called the ‘fig-leaf pose’ which is crossed legs and hands around the middle,” he explained. “Certain poses will move your breath from your belly up to your chest.”

This restricts the voice and reduces its resonance and power, he explained.

Throughout its 18-year history, RADA in Business has trained 3,500 businesses. Most notably, it worked with the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and hosted workshops with TED Talks lecturers.

Recently, it trained a Sotheby’s auctioneer who sold works by Pablo Picasso.

Picasso's Tete de Femme

Source: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/Press Association Images

The Lir at Work said it has already attracted a number of major clients and will expand its service to offer the same one-on-one training as RADA in Business.

Eimear Chaomhánach, who is heading up the Irish service, said demand has already far exceeded the initial target of 15 clients.

Companies in the legal, finance, education and human resources sectors have already expressed an interest, she said.

The school is chasing big companies with deep pockets: fees start at €3,230 for a seven-hour session with eight participants. The money raised through the commercial venture will be invested back into the college.

“That will allow us to supply more bursaries for students who cannot afford fees but have massive potential,” Chaomhánach said.

“Now that we’re in our sixth year, we’re still in our infancy stages. We’re at the stage now where our student base is expanding and our tutor base has to expand.

“We need to grow and develop with the demand from our students.”

Meeting Your New Team

Taking Your First Steps Toward a Positive Working Relationship

As a manager, meeting a new team for the first time can be nerve-racking. You want to ensure that the meeting runs smoothly and that you establish your leadership, but you need to do this without destroying the team's culture or dynamic, or trampling on its achievements.

Being too heavy handed can be disastrous, but not establishing the right degree of authority can be, too. However, when it's handled well, an informal introductory meeting can be a great opportunity to learn about your team, to build trust with its members, and to establish a climate of mutual respect.

This article will help you to prepare for your first meeting with your team. So, follow these five steps to make your first meeting count.

1. Find Out About Your New Team

If there's a corporate intranet with employee profiles, read up on your team's professional skills and accomplishments, and any other information that you can come by. This will demonstrate to your team that you value it enough to spend time learning about its members before the meeting. If you can't find this data on the intranet, talk to your HR department, who may have photos and background information on the new members of your team.

Using this data, try to memorise  people's faces, names and hometowns. If you struggle to remember names, try using face association , in which you make a connection between a name and a unique characteristic. Make the effort to learn how to pronounce names correctly, too.

If possible, before you take on your new role, schedule an informal face-to-face talk with your boss and the team's previous manager about people's strengths and weaknesses, about any behavioural issues in the team, or about any conflicts  that you need to be aware of.

If you're going to work with teams from other national or religious cultures, try to be sensitive to any differences that you encounter. Our "Managing In…" series of articles will give you an insight into managing people in specific countries. Also, developing your cultural intelligence  will give you a great base for working in any multicultural workplace. This involves using observation, empathy  and attentiveness to read people and situations.

Keep in mind your organisation's wider corporate culture when preparing to meet your team, whether it's formal – with clearly defined channels of communication and decision-making processes – or more informal. This will help you to act appropriately in your introductory meeting, and communicate effectively. Again, if possible, talk to the team's previous manager about his or her take on the corporate culture , so you have an idea of the beliefs and behaviours that you'll likely encounter.

Tip:

It's possible that the members of your new team are your former co-workers. Managing peers can be difficult, and you will have to reset your working relationship  to do it effectively. However, that should be done separately to this introductory meeting, so as not to cloud issues that may be raised. Be prepared for any issues that may arise, though.

2. Prepare the Meeting Space

If you are meeting in person, choose a neutral space, such as a meeting room. Consider seating, temperature and lighting to make the room as comfortable  as possible. This will help to reduce stress and to promote communication.

If you're not meeting face-to-face, there are a few other things to consider. Despite the fact that we live in an increasingly virtual world, online meetings still take time to organise and often encounter technical issues. How many of us have had the "I can see you, but I can't hear you" episode during a virtual meeting?

Go to the meeting room ahead of time to ensure that everything is working, such as lighting and internet connections. This will give you time to get technical help, if there are any problems.

Tip:

There are other things you can do to ensure that virtual meetings  run smoothly. For example, if you're on a conference call , ask everyone to log in a few minutes early to make sure that you start on time. You could also ask participants to mute their lines when they're not talking.

3. Keep It Short and Informal

Before the meeting starts, let your team know that it's going to be a short, informal introductory gathering, so there won't be an agenda.

Once in the room, explain a little about yourself. Consider using business storytelling  to communicate your values and what you're trying to achieve. At this stage, you needn't go into great depth about your plans— that can come later, at a more formal meeting.

At this time, simply explain that you'll be arranging one-on-one meetings  with each member of the team, so that you can get to know them a little and find out how you can support them. Let people know that you'll schedule a formal meeting for the whole team after these one-on-ones have taken place.

Also, make it clear that you'll be spending the first 90 days learning all you can about the team and the way it works. Acknowledge that you will probably want to make some changes, but you won’t be doing this until you know what is and isn’t working well.

It's common advice for new managers to look for a "quick win" shortly after they step into a role. By all means look for an opportunity to improve things, but try to do this without making sweeping changes to the systems or processes that are already in place. It may have taken many years to put these into place, and they may be working quite well.

Spend the rest of the meeting learning about your new team. Give people the chance to ask questions — if they're interested in your background, they'll ask you. Answer questions fully, but try to show humility by guiding the conversation back toward your shared goals, rather than dwelling on your own accomplishments.

Tip:

It's natural for you to want to be accommodating with people you've just met, but be careful not to get carried away and promise something that you can't deliver. This will help you to demonstrate integrity and authenticity  from the start.

4. Model Best Behaviour

What you do in your first meeting will establish the tone of your leadership, so be conscious of creating a pleasant working atmosphere in which respect and manners  are valued.

Take care of the obvious things : make sure that you arrive on time, dress appropriately, and use professional language. You want to give your team your full, undivided attention, so switch your phone to silent mode or even make a point of switching it off completely.

Tip:

Remember that your body language  speaks volumes. Adopt an open posture and avoid accidental nervous ticks, such as tapping, which can be mistaken for impatience. Listen to our Expert Interview with Nick Morgan about manners, to learn how your tone of voice and gestures can make you a better communicator and leader.

5. Making Good Small Talk

Small talk is fundamentally about building relationships, so you shouldn't try to eliminate it entirely in an attempt to keep meetings efficient. Our article, How to Make Small Talk , will give you a solid grounding in the art of keeping the conversation flowing.

People will remember how you made them feel, rather than the specifics of what you said. Therefore, asking your team members to talk about their best moments will create positive associations for them. It will also teach you a lot about your team's values.

Practice Active Listening  when the other party is talking. This is where you make a conscious effort to understand the complete message by remaining focused on the speaker's words, as well as his or her tone and body language. Avoid the temptation to think about your response while he is talking.

A common way to build trust is to share some information about yourself  (nothing too personal!) This shows the other party that you're willing to make yourself vulnerable by being the first to give something away. Encourage others to join in, but don't force anyone to go outside their comfort zone. First impressions count, so be especially careful not to embarrass anyone.

Tip 1:

For more information on this topic, take a look at our article on Building Trust. It explores how honesty and being a team player will help you to become a role model for your team.

Tip 2:

There's a chance that your first meeting will take place in a social, not a business , setting. Whatever the setting, though, be sure to abide by the principles outlined above. Be welcoming, respectful and professional, despite being tempted to relax.

Key Points

The first time you meet your team can set the wrong tone for your relationship with people, if you don't prepare for it properly. A well-run first meeting, on the other hand, can instil confidence in your leadership, help you to establish relationships, and have a positive effect on future interactions.

So, thorough preparation is paramount. Make sure that you know a bit about who you're meeting and their culture beforehand.

Hold the meeting in a comfortable, neutral environment. If it's a virtual meeting, iron out any technical issues before it starts, so that they don't become serious problems.

Keep the first meeting informal, but schedule one-on-ones and a more formal team meeting in the coming days.

Practice active listening and model best behaviour, while using small talk, to start building relationships with your new team members.