My Holland, Author at EQuest Asia

Is Your Team Stressed Out? Tense? Burnt Out? Help Them Cope.

It’s hard enough confronting and managing your own stress. But, there’s no running away from it. When your team members are faced with feelings of burnout and disengagement … when they’re on the verge of giving up, as the team leader, you have got to help them. You have got to put them back strongly on their feet! Stress Is Not Uncommon Stress is one of today’s realities in the workplace. When the job gets to be too complex, intense and demanding … when a lot of us now work in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week environments, anxiety and stress almost inevitably will set in. The bad news is that this situation is not likely to change in the next five or ten years. The good news is that the team has got you! You, the good, old reliable, professional leader who’ll always be there for them, to help manage their situation and become more resilient and effective. One of the approaches you, as a team leader can apply is to focus on your members’ personal growth and development. Have a mindset of creating the happiest, healthiest and most productive team on earth. This kind of a perspective is the first step towards producing creativity among your people, unleashing their potential and sustaining their productivity. Here are 3 other very doable, easy to implement approaches team managers can adopt for their teams: Place priority on activities that foster well-being for you and the guys. These may include coming up with some personal development tools as training sessions on mindfulness and resilience, or you could encourage your team member to take some time for exercises or get into some renewal activities like having meetings while walking leisurely in the park. Then you could also build some buffer time for deliverables so that your people can have some flexibility and manage their jobs at a reasonable pace without compromising objectives. Allow time for your team to disconnect from work. On average, workers around the world spend 34-48 hours a week working. Many of them can’t let go of related work activities after office hours. Experts say being “always on” can be an unproductive mind frame. Even the best athletes need time to rest and recover. So, be clear about when to disengage. For instance, no meetings after six or no emails, phone calls and messages on weekends. Be compassionate. Empathize with them. It’s not going to cost you a penny to be kind. And the benefits? Great! A research project at the University of New South Wales found that the single, most important influence in creating productivity within a company is the ability of its team leader to go the extra mile developing and recognizing their people, being open to feedback including criticism and encouraging teamwork. Additionally, being compassionate, understanding employee motivations, hopes and difficulties and having the right support set-up to allow them to be as good as they can be, spells high productivity. Remember, personal development, over time makes each person better, enabling him/her to produce high performance and engagement while on the job.

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Happy Workplaces Are Good For Business

Emotional Intelligence, Mindfulness, Positive Psychology, Productivity / My Holland

In management circles, it’s generally believed and accepted that a positive environment in the workplace leads to higher productivity, minimal employee turnovers and over-all better healthy outcomes. On the other side of the coin, a workplace that is hostile and insensitive, reeking with anxiety and negativity usually produces poor job performance, low creativity and little innovation. A fairly recent Harvard research study has shown that when leaders and top honchos are humble, inclusive and frequently encourage their staff to voice out their feelings or seek help, employees are generally happier and become more engaged. An oppressive corporate culture over time, simply goes against achieving positive results. What You Can Do If you’re one of the team leaders or senior managers of your company, here are three tried and tested rules that will help bring out honest and constructive feedback, important to managing your people, and ultimately, your company better. When you want to correct your employees, do so in a positive context. You may even want to criticize or confront your subordinates. That’s okay, but give out as many as three or four positive statements for every negative one you make. This makes a lot of sense. Our brains tend to focus more on negative feedbacks than on the positive feedbacks. So, when you say a lot more that is encouraging, supportive and appreciative, these will sort of neutralize the brain’s partiality to negativity and will ergo, lead to a higher degree of employee engagement. Research studies say that where there is positive communication, you’re likely to see the best results; good engagement and high morale. Center your communication on the strengths of your colleagues and employees and their unique contributions. It has almost become a habit for us to harp on what’s wrong with our employees. However, by focusing on their weaknesses alone we may just inadvertently be creating competence. By centering on their strengths, we are creating excellence. Be as specific and detailed about your positive feedbacks as you are about the negative ones. Sometimes, we’re guilty of simply glossing on their strengths much like a ship that passes in the night and yet we delve on their weaknesses like the 4th of July fireworks. Put a lot of emphasis on teamwork and commonalities. When talking about the negative incident, be objective. Try to describe the problem in detail rather than evaluating it, and identify the specific consequences that resulted and your personal feelings that came with it without placing blame. Try to stay away from arguing who’s right or who’s at fault. Instead suggest acceptable, reasonable and fair alternatives in correcting the situation. Given an understanding of the foregoing, it won’t hurt to do an honest and candid self-critique to objectively find out where your corporate culture stands. If you feel it could do with some improvements, the guidelines above could pretty well serve as starting points for your top managers and team leaders.

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Are you a genuine person? let’s have a look at the behaviours….

Emotional Intelligence, Engagement, Mindfulness / My Holland

6 Behavioral Patterns That Say You’re A Genuine Person Most research studies have shown Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to be essential to job performance. In tests conducted among hundreds of thousands of people, it explains fifty eight percent (58%) of success in various types of jobs. Reports have it that ninety percent (90%) of top business leaders have high EQ and are known to make, on average, an estimated twenty nine thousand dollars ($29,000) more than people with low EQ. The Lowdown On Emotional Intelligence It’s a given truth. Emotional Intelligence is a force you can steer towards one direction and achieve great results. There’s just one catch to it. It doesn’t work if you’re not genuine. That’s because people don’t usually accept displays of Emotional Intelligence at face value. They’re skeptical. They don’t just want to see it. They’d like to know it’s real, sincere and honest and is not being used to manipulate things and people. This is a fact found in most surveys which say that leaders who are sincere are a lot more effective in motivating people. They inspire trust and respect with what they do rather than with what they say. In other words these genuine leaders walk their talk. Here are 6 habits that’ll help you determine if you’re one of the genuine people. Genuine people don’t go out of their way to please others. They are who they are. What you see is what you get. They know not everybody will like them neither will everybody dislike them but they’re OK with that. They’re not going to let that stand in the way of doing the right thing. They won’t hesitate to take unpopular positions or make unpopular decisions if that’s what situations demand. Genuine people don’t pre-judge. They keep an open mind which most people find interesting because they don’t make a judgment on people or form an opinion before they get to know them first hand. At the workplace, a person’s open-mindedness is important, as it makes him/her approachable allowing for access to new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. Genuine people treat everybody with respect. Whether you’re a big client or a busboy in some fast food restaurant expect genuine people to treat you fair and square . They believe they’re no better than anybody else. Genuine people aren’t boastful or swell-headed. They are not insecure or in panic that if they don’t talk about the great things they’ve done, no one will notice. No. these genuine guys are confident about their accomplishments and know the merits of what they’ve done will stand on its own. Genuine people aren’t materialistic. For them, it’s not about fat checkbooks or fancy, glittering jewels or fine dining in posh restaurants. Not that they have anything against those things. They just don’t need them to feel happy. It’s from within that their joy comes. Family, friends and a sense of purpose … they’re what makes their lives full and rich. Genuine people share. They don’t hold back anything from you … not knowledge, not resources. They’re not afraid you’ll outshine or outperform them when they give you access to what they know and whom they know. They’d want you to do well. They believe your success is theirs as well. Putting it all together, you’d realise genuine people are sure enough about themselves and are firmly grounded in reality. They’re not figuring out somebody’s own agenda or even worrying about their own. They know who they are. If you still are in doubt as to who you are, go through these six behavioral patterns. Get them all right and I’d say … “Welcome to the Club!”

Are you a genuine person? let’s have a look at the behaviours…. Read More »

The right job for your brain in your 60’s?

Mindfulness, Productivity / My Holland

Research studies are beginning to say that careers requiring more mental complexity (surgeons, lawyers, civil and mechanical engineers, astronauts, writers, etc.) could help protect our brains from deterioration as we get to be senior citizens.

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Watch your vocabulary and improve your emotional intelligence…

Emotional Intelligence, Mindfulness / My Holland

Pull “Interesting” Out Of Your Everyday Vocabulary And Improve Your Emotional Intelligence You get into a conversation with co-workers in the office and talk about how hard it was trying to fit the small budget into a critical project. Somebody says, “That’s interesting.” and stops right there, not explaining why he finds the subject interesting. Somebody else comments that the project allotment being small may have had to do with the new finance guy who had no clue of the team’s real needs. Again, somebody comes up with “I find that interesting.” What The Heck, Does “INTERESTING” Mean? “I thought the convention was rather interesting.” … “I’m interested in reading that new book on China.” When used in conversations, “interesting” comes across as something you say when you don’t want to say anything, but feel you have to, for fear of being perceived as unsociable or indifferent. Sometimes you tend to use “interesting” when you don’t know how to express your thoughts verbally, or when you simply don’t want to entertain your true feelings deep inside. In other words when you use “interesting” in formal or informal talks and not expound on why you find such subject or item interesting … it means nothing! So, doesn’t it make sense to delete the word from your vocabulary? Go for honesty instead. It’s a whole lot more productive because it’ll show you listened to somebody and took the time to think through what was said so you can give a sensible, useful response or comment. It’s when you do this that you get more in tune with your emotions that should lead to more productive, relevant interactions. In the process you just might learn more about yourself and other people around you. You shall have then raised the level of your emotional intelligence. Does This Mean You Can’t Use “Interesting” In Future Interactions? Of course you can! But use it for the right reasons and within the correct context. In most cases “interesting” doesn’t contribute anything to a conversation. In fact, it would appear that the person who says it, doesn’t want to get involved in whatever is being talked about. It’s a cop-out, nothing abrasive .. nothing encouraging and nothing too profound either. It’s just a neutral cop-out. “Interesting” very rarely means that a person or a thing or a situation is exactly and truly interesting. So the next time the word crops up in your head and you inadvertently use it, be conscious. Break down what you mean by it. Does it mean it’s something new to you or something that never entered your mind? Do you believe it’s a good idea but today may not be the right time? Do you sincerely think it’s a terrific concept but not everybody will buy into it? Then, express these things! Process your thoughts. Try to figure out what’s really in your mind before saying it out loud. You’d be amazed at how many better, more appropriate and honest words and phrases are available out there. Find them and improve your EQ.

Watch your vocabulary and improve your emotional intelligence… Read More »

My Holland

Is Your Team Stressed Out? Tense? Burnt Out? Help Them Cope.

Happy Workplaces Are Good For Business

Are you a genuine person? let’s have a look at the behaviours….

The right job for your brain in your 60’s?

Watch your vocabulary and improve your emotional intelligence…

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