A quick check-in. Remembering a personal detail. Giving specific praise instead of a vague “Great job.” These may feel minor, but they build trust, deepen loyalty, and inspire people to perform at their best.

The Power of Small Leadership Moments

I once worked with a leader whose team would walk through walls for him—not simply because of his strategic skills, but because he noticed.

• He paused in busy corridors to ask, “How’s your mum doing?”—and remembered the answer weeks later.

• He noticed when someone was unusually quiet in a meeting and followed up privately.

• His praise was specific, personal, and heartfelt.

None of these moments took more than a minute, but together they created a culture of connection and trust that no strategy slide could match.

At Optimist Performance, we see the same truth: when leaders combine vision with presence, they don’t just manage—they inspire.

What the Experts Say About Leadership Presence

“Trust is built in very small moments.” — Brené Brown

“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

“Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.” — Jack Welch

“Trust is like the air we breathe—when it’s present, nobody really notices; when it’s absent, everybody notices.” — Warren Buffett

💡 Quick Tips for Small Leadership Moments

(Optimist Performance recommendations)

1. Ask with intention — Put your phone down, make eye contact, and listen fully.

2. Follow up on details — Show you remember what matters to your team.

3. Be specific with praise — Replace “Great job” with exactly what you valued.

4. Notice the quiet ones — Reach out to those who seem withdrawn.

5. Celebrate effort — Acknowledge resilience and problem-solving, not just results.

Why It Matters for Business Performance

High-trust cultures consistently outperform low-trust ones in engagement, retention, and innovation. Embedding small leadership moments into your daily habits is a practical, repeatable way to strengthen trust and inspire excellence.

At Optimist Performance, we coach leaders to balance strategic clarity with human connection—because that’s how you go from great to world-class.

Further Reading & Resources

If you’re ready to explore more ways to strengthen your leadership presence and build high-performance cultures, check out our latest insights:

• Team Transformation – Read the Harvard Business Review on the Seven Transformations of Leadership

• Optimist Performance Insights – Our growing library of articles, tools, and ideas to help you go from great to world-class.

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Many leaders nowadays take into account the well-being of employees. However, we might be missing the first step; awareness. A poll conducted by Nuffield Health shows that two out of three people won’t share their mental health issues with their employer. 

It’s common practice now to have well-being and mental health policies, but looking at those numbers, we still need to consider if, as leaders, we’re creating a space where people feel comfortable and safe to share those issues and benefit from those policies. 

Read “What I have learned about stress and mental health since quitting rugby – By Ollie Phillips” here. 

Why will this disconnection cause issues?

Even when leaders have the best intentions, it’s impossible to solve an issue if we’re not aware of it. 

Due to the fast-paced environments we are accustomed to, it can be challenging for many people to address well-being issues. A culture of urgency, increasing workloads, and blurry boundaries can all contribute to our team not finding the space or not feeling comfortable to bring up their well-being.

This is why focusing on our team’s well-being is not only about policies, but, even more importantly, about reflecting on the culture and environment we’re creating for our teams. 

Why should leaders focus on well-being?

Well-being must be well maintained. It’s crucial for leaders to keep a healthy working environment where everyone can perform at their best for desired outcomes.

Failing to achieve this, can have huge implications for the team and the overall business. Our environments and workloads can directly link to stress and burnout. This, in turn, will influence your team’s performance, and can even make you lose great talent. 

However, leaders can be role models and demonstrate attributes of open and positive well-being for their employees. Starting with non-judgmental catch-ups, taking time and breaks for yourself, and reassuring employees about these healthy actions can all be successful ways to start. 

Through these good examples being set, employees will be encouraged to follow, allowing an increase in well-being advocacy and positivity.

How can we as leaders build a culture of well-being?

There are many ways of doing this, and for each leader and business, it would be different. However, we can start with some non-negotiables:

• Create a safe environment where people can openly talk about their well-being, their professional and personal lives, and how they might be impacting each other. Once people feel comfortable and safe to talk about an issue, we can start putting strategies and policies in place to help them get better. 
• Reflect on your culture. Cultures in the workplace are created by the behaviours we demonstrate day in and day out. Taking the time to reflect on what those behaviours are and what they are communicating to our teams is a great first step towards a healthier culture and workplace. 
• Allow flexibility and boundaries. These two can seem opposites, but they don’t have to be. Now more than ever, the lines between work and life are getting blurrier and blurrier. This is why it’s also more important now to create boundaries that help us achieve balance. This is an extremely hard task because it completely varies from person to person. Nonetheless, just having honest conversations about it can benefit everyone in our teams, including ourselves. 
• Lead by example. More important than what we say, it’s what we do. This is why as leaders, we need to lead by example. It’s not enough to tell your team to take time for themselves, if they don’t see you doing it, they will assume that it’s not okay. A great example of this is how we behave during holidays, are you still sending emails? If so, you might as well be telling your team that it’s not ok to truly disconnect while on holiday. (Read more about disconnecting while on holiday here). 

By creating balance and support, individuals can enter and stay in their optimal zone of functioning, which is a healthy and stable state of well-being.

Read “Why daily exercise should form part of your corporate strategy – By Ollie Phillips” here.

Optimist view:

At Optimist Performance, we believe that great individuals and teams start with well-being. This is why, in our leadership and coaching programmes, we not only focus on business issues but also consider how personal challenges could be impacting our professional lives. 

Learn more about our coaching programmes and book your free call to see if we are the right fit.

Are you ready to get the best out of each person on your team, including yourself? Then you need to start looking at the human behind the performance. Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you and your team become the best versions of yourselves.

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Team as a Collection of Strengths

In the corporate world, a team functions much like the England Rugby Team. It is a collection of individuals, each with distinct strengths and capabilities. When these strengths are recognised and effectively harnessed, they propel the team—and, by extension, the business—towards achieving remarkable goals.

Benefits of Playing to Your Strengths

Increase engagement and productivity and reduce turnover

According to a Gallup analysis people who use their strengths every day are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, six times more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive, and 15% less likely to quit their jobs.

Increase individual overall well-being

According to studies; by using our strengths, we can feel an increase in happiness, improve our relationships, build resilience, strengthen our ability to overcome problems (Hammond, 2010), and enhance our overall well-being (Linley et al., 2010)

“In an intervention promoting people’s top five character strengths at work, employees reported increased life satisfaction and psychological well-being.”

(Forest et al., 2012).

Enhance performance

Team members who not only feel better about themselves and the contribution they’re making but who also feel engaged will perform better, which undoubtedly will enhance their performance and therefore the performance of the team and business. 

How to tap into strengths??

Identifying individual strengths begins with a thorough assessment process. Tools like personality profiles, strength-finding surveys, one-on-one coaching sessions, and peer feedback can help uncover the unique capabilities of each team member. 

Once everyone in the team has identified their strengths, we need to bring these strengths together. First, we need to gain awareness about our own and others’ strengths and then work on how everyone can use those strengths to enhance collaboration and performance. 

Another way we can use our strengths is to understand possible conflicts and gaps. Knowing our own and others’ preferences and strengths can help us foresee possible conflicts but also be more empathetic in managing them. Additionally, we can identify gaps. Games like The Empty Chair help us reflect on the possible gaps we may have as a team and create better strategies. 

Read more about using this knowledge to increase team performance here. 

The Optimist View…

By embracing the concept of “Play to Your Potential,” companies can unlock the full potential of their teams, helping to drive performance, productivity, and employee satisfaction. 

Just as the England Rugby Team thrives on utilising the unique strengths of each player, your business can achieve remarkable success by recognising and harnessing the individual strengths within your team.

At Optimist Performance, we believe in playing to our potential, which is why we use diagnostic tools and expert coaches to work with individuals and teams to delve more deeply into strengths and preferences, avoiding a “sheep dip” approach. 

Are you ready to unleash your team’s potential? Get in touch with us and learn more about how we work with individuals and teams to do just that. 

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Welcome to this month’s Optimistic Insights, where we’ll delve into the intriguing topic of ego in leadership and the journey towards authentic interactions with others.

Introduction:

Have you ever found yourself in a leadership position, surrounded by success and accolades, only to realise that there’s a sense of dissonance? Perhaps you’ve noticed how easily people laugh at your jokes or agree with your decisions. The truth is, success can inflate our egos, leading us down a path of illusion rather than authentic leadership.

The Illusion of Success

The inflated ego that often accompanies success—the corner office, the higher salary, the easy laughs—can lead us to believe we’ve found the ultimate key to leadership. However, this perception can be deceiving. As we rise in the ranks, we acquire more power. And with that, people are more likely to want to please us by listening more attentively, agreeing more, and laughing at our jokes. All of this tickles the ego. And when the ego is tickled, it grows.

Deflating the Ego and Journeying to Authentic Leadership

In our fast-paced professional environments, the ego can often wield significant influence, shaping our interactions, decisions, and ultimately, our leadership style. However, left unchecked, our ego can hinder our ability to connect with others authentically and lead with integrity.

In a 2018 Harvard Business Review article (read the full article HERE) the dangers of an inflated ego were explored, shedding light on how it can narrow our perspective, distort our behavior, and erode trust within teams. But it’s not all bad, because recognising and managing our egos is the first step we take in cultivating authentic leadership.

Self-Assessment: How Does Your Ego Show Up?

To help you on this journey of self-discovery, we’ve included a brief self-assessment for you to reflect on how your ego manifests in your daily interactions. Take a moment to consider the following questions:

1. Do you find yourself seeking recognition or validation for your accomplishments?
2. How do you respond to feedback or criticism? Do you tend to become defensive or open-minded?
3. Are you able to acknowledge and learn from your mistakes, or do you feel the need to always be right?
4. Do you prioritise collaboration and team success, or are you primarily focused on individual achievements?
5. How do you handle situations where others outshine you or receive praise for their contributions?

Cultivating Authenticity: Practical Tips

As you reflect on your responses to the self-assessment, consider incorporating the following tips into your leadership approach:

• Practice active listening and empathy to foster genuine connections with your team members.
• Embrace vulnerability by admitting mistakes and seeking input from others.
• Prioritize the collective success of the team over individual recognition.
• Foster a culture of trust and collaboration by encouraging open communication and feedback.

Closing Thoughts

Authentic leadership is not about having all the answers or projecting a flawless image; it’s about showing up as your true self and inspiring others to do the same. As you embark on this journey of self-reflection and growth, remember that every step forward, no matter how small, brings you closer to becoming the leader you aspire to be.

Thank you for joining us on this exploration of ego and authenticity in leadership. We look forward to continuing this conversation with you. Drop us a line via explore@optimistperformance.com or start a discussion on social media; Twitter or LinkedIn. 

Let’s make sure you’re smashing it. 

To thrive together, The Optimist Team 💪

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In this article, we delve into this distinctive feature, unravelling the synergies between high-performance sports and business. With insights from the recent Forrester Tech & Innovation Forum 2021, we’ll uncover the valuable lessons applicable to high-performance team development.

Parallels Between Business and Elite Sports Leadership: A Unifying Thread

Leaders in both business and elite sports share commonalities in creating vision, strategy, and assembling successful teams. The defining link is understanding people—an element crucial for inspiring and empowering individuals to achieve outstanding results. Great leaders, in sports and business, act as connective tissue, pulling together diverse talents into a team that produces extraordinary results. Authentic leadership, fostering an environment of trust, loyalty, and empowerment, is paramount.

The Public Eye: A Notable Distinction

Unlike executives who operate behind closed doors, athletes, team captains, and coaches face constant public scrutiny. They navigate media attention and criticism, a unique challenge absent in the corporate realm. This distinction highlights the need for resilience and confidence, qualities crucial in dealing with external pressures.

Leadership Parallels: Navigating Two Worlds

In both business and elite sports leadership, a shared goal emerges: understanding people and inspiring collective success. Join us as we navigate these parallels connecting seemingly distinct worlds.

The Leadership Factor: Drew Povey’s Blueprint

Drew Povey introduces the “leadership factor”—a blend of curiosity, changeability, charisma, connection, confidence, collaboration, and courage. In the upcoming sections, we’ll delve into each characteristic, uncovering its role in fostering exceptional leadership.

Curiosity: The Cornerstone of Effective Leadership

Leaders in sports and business continually seek new ideas, making curiosity a cornerstone of effective leadership.

Changeability: Navigating Organisational Fitness

Effective leaders navigate change, ensuring organisational fitness by fostering resilience and adaptability.

Charisma: Beyond Inherent Quality

Charisma involves practices aligned with one’s personality—focusing on a positive demeanour, caring about others’ opinions, and being influential.

Connection: Paramount Purpose Alignment

Building a connection with the team’s purpose is paramount. Business leaders can draw inspiration from sports, focusing on values, heritage, and the team’s role in a wider context.

Confidence: Instilling Belief in Strengths

Leaders build team confidence by removing internal barriers and instilling belief in strengths with a motivational style that inspires confidence in others.

Collaboration: Building a Culture of Trust

Success in sports and business demands collaboration. Empowering team members to make decisions builds a culture of trust and collaboration.

Courage: Mark of Authentic Leadership

Courageous leaders stand by principles in high-pressure situations, embodying authenticity, resilience, emotional intelligence, and commitment to purpose.

A Conceptual Playbook for Effective Leadership

To achieve high performance, leaders must be intentional, consistent, and continuous in their efforts. Success lies in inspiring, motivating, and encouraging teams.

While this article provides a conceptual playbook, Optimist’s coaching methodology goes further, creating highly individualized playbooks tailored to each team’s unique needs, challenges, and goals.

Ready to Elevate Your Performance? Explore Your Leadership Playbook with Us.

Are you ready to transition from great to world-class performance? Reach out to us, and let’s embark on a journey to explore your leadership playbook and kickstart your high-performance ascent together.

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We are all different, which means we all have different styles of communication, and while this may seem obvious, more often than not, it is the root cause of many team challenges. The reality is that knowing something and applying it in our day-to-day lives are two very different things. 

From individual knowledge to group understanding 

Knowledge is power, as they say, but shared knowledge and understanding is where the magic really happens. We have seen this both within our team at Optimist Performance and with our clients. 

Diagnostic profiles are quite popular, and you can find opinions both pro and against them, but as always, the most important aspect is how you use them. If you want to put people in boxes, then you are going about it the wrong way. As we said before, every person is different and many nuances play a part. 

However, there is a lot you can learn from these profiles and even more from sharing and discussing your findings with the rest of your team. We have shared ours within the team and it has not only been eye-opening, but it has also changed the way we work together and how we communicate with each other. 

Different styles of communication in the workplace 

Can you identify yourself and your colleagues?

You can also read more about the different styles of communication in the workplace here.

These bullet points will give you an idea of the different styles of communication in the workplace. Again, this is not about putting people in boxes, but rather about understanding our own and others’ preferences. 

Why is it important and how can you use it in the workplace?

Awareness is always the first step towards improvement. Really understanding our own and others’ styles of communication can have a big impact on our relationships. This understanding can change the lens through which we look at others, making us more empathetic. 

Adapt and gain. If you know how the person in front of you prefers to communicate, you can adapt your communication style to build rapport and get their buy-in.

Make meetings more effective. Knowing the different styles of communication can help to redefine your meetings. Something we do at Optimist Performance is to schedule the type of meeting we are having. Is this a yellow (creative) meeting? Or do we need a blue (detailed-oriented) meeting? Knowing in advance what to expect can enhance the focus and effectiveness of meetings. It can be really useful to frame the overall style and focus of the meeting.

Enhance feedback. You can apply what you know about the other person’s style of communication to improve the quality of your feedback. For example, if you are giving feedback to a person with an analytical preference, you know you will need to be more specific and know all your facts for your feedback to be effective. When dealing with a direct type, better not to beat around the bush and be straightforward and concise. 

Avoid misunderstandings. Surely we can all relate to having had a communication misunderstanding with a colleague. This increases when we communicate through video calls and messages, things can get lost in translation, as the saying goes. However, if we understand the other person’s communication style better, it would be easier to see their message from their point of view. 

Who you are gonna call? Even though this is not strictly about the communication style, we think it’s important to mention that the diagnostic can be a great starting point for harnessing strengths and acknowledging weaknesses within our teams. This is something we find incredibly useful within the Optimist team. Because we know each person’s strengths, for example, we can maximise them in our day-to-day interactions and work roles and responsibilities. 

The Optimist view…

It’s when we share our preferences for ways of working and talk about them with others that we really start to understand each other and therefore, start to adapt our thought processes and behaviours. Once you take the time to understand the person you are communicating with instead of making assumptions, you will see that communication becomes easier and more effective. 

If you want to know more about how your team diagnostic can help you and your team, get in touch with us. 

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The end of the year is definitely a marking point, both professionally and personally. With project deadlines, Christmas social events, Christmas shopping, goal setting and all the other things that the holiday brings with it, it’s no wonder it feels more stressful than magical. 

This is why we wanted to dedicate some time to thinking about how we can reduce the stress from the holiday season and make this time of the year as enjoyable as possible both at work and at home. 

5 tips to avoid holiday burnout:

Set realistic expectations

It’s the end of the year, not the end of the world. It’s totally normal to want to push ourselves a bit harder ahead of taking a break. However, we need to know how much we can healthily push ourselves. While a bit of pressure and stress can be beneficial, it’s essential to set realistic expectations about how much we can get over the line in just a few weeks. 

Take some time to plan and prioritise and also keep in mind that just as you are busier than usual, so is everyone else. 

Check our article about the Eustress or positive stress here. 

Looking ahead is great, but don’t forget to look back too

The end of the year is the time when we all start thinking about the new year and our new year’s resolutions, and that’s absolutely amazing, but sometimes it’s easier to forget about looking back at all we have accomplished and how far we have come. Take time to review and reflect and most importantly, take time to be grateful for all you have. 

Check out these questions to do some reflection on the past year and prepare for the future. 

Also, you can read this article to learn more about being grateful can reshape our brains. 

Use the holiday to build or strengthen your connections

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the holiday season is a great opportunity to build or strengthen our connections with colleagues, friends and family. While it may be cold and rainy, there are lots of ways to connect during the holiday season  – wrap up and get out, do something different, ice skating, Christmas markets, or a show. Make sure you take some time to be with your colleagues, friends and family, and more importantly, make sure you are present. 

Choose wisely

Even though it’s the perfect time to connect with people, it’s important to be conscious of how much we can deal with. As mentioned above, you need to be really present, so don’t feel pressure to attend every single social activity. Christmas can be a beautiful time to enjoy friends, colleagues and family, but it can also be an exhausting holiday if we don’t manage our time wisely. 

This is also an important thing to consider when organising Christmas parties at work. Make sure the events are optional and easily accessible in case people want to go just for a while. You should also think about being inclusive when organising Christmas parties, not everyone will celebrate Christmas, and definitely, not everyone will celebrate in the same way.

Don’t forget to take care of yourself

With so much going on, it’s easy to use our personal time for other commitments. However, as they say on planes, “make sure you put on your own mask before you help someone else”. 

It’s when we are busier than we need relaxing time the most. Taking breaks during the day, keeping your exercise routine and don’t overindulge during the holidays seem like small things, but they can go a long way to ensure that your body, mind and energy are ready for the holiday season and beyond. 

The Optimist View….

We can definitely relate to the feeling of wanting to do everything, all the time, for everyone. But no matter how optimistic we are, we know that we are only human and we can’t do it all. 

This is why it’s so crucial for us to take time to reflect, plan and realistically manage what we want to achieve and how and with whom we are investing our time during the festive season. 

It might seem like stating the obvious, but setting out simple intentions for the holiday season and seeing these through means you’re more likely to enjoy the benefits of some downtime and feel recharged and rejuvenated for the return to work.

We hope you all have a fantastic holiday!!

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As a business owner or manager, much of your working day will be spent on the day-to-day tasks which keep the business going. We’ve already discussed how it can be lonely at the top for business leaders. But investing time to step back and look at the bigger picture and most crucially, the strategies and steps needed to get you there can pay dividends.

Executive coaching is a form of personal development, it can offer you different perspectives on reaching your goals and uncover any blind spots or limiting beliefs that may be stopping you from getting there. Talking through your progress with an external advisor can also act as a form of accountability.

It can boost your business too. According to an article in Forbes, The Institute of Coaching has cited that more than 70 per cent of individuals who receive coaching “benefited from improved work performance, relationships and more effective communication skills.”

The article reports an impressive return on investment: “… a huge 86 per cent of companies feel that they recouped the investment they made into coaching plus more on top. Studies show that coaching is effective at reducing procrastination and facilitating goal attainment and there is a growing body of empirical research that supports the findings that business coaching really does facilitate goal achievement.” 

How does executive coaching works?

You could use the analogy of hiring a personal trainer (PT). Most people go to a PT because they are prepared to invest time in a structured action plan and need added motivation towards the end goal of getting fitter. To reach that outcome, your PT will devise a structured plan and offer support and guidance towards your goal. The PT offers encouragement, and a realistic, individually designed plan is in place to get you there. The rest is entirely up to you…

In the same way, your executive coach can help you work through priorities and timeframes to create structures and processes to create attainable goals. Just like hiring a personal trainer, an executive coach will be there for the duration, providing accountability to ensure you are on track to achieve your goals. 

Executive coaching does require a different approach for every person. With measures for success individually defined depending on your personality, what works for one person may not necessarily be appropriate for another. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

The first role of an executive coach, like the PT, is to listen to your goals and the outcomes that you’d like to achieve. The process of reaching these will also depend on your preferred style of working. While one person may want very clear, tangible, achievable goals every month or week, somebody else might want a little less structure, but use regular conversations with their coach as a form of accountability.

The Optimist View…

Coaching time gives business leaders the time and space to focus on their goals. They may not necessarily have anyone within their working environment that they can share these with. For those seeking coaching who work for a company, they might also choose to share goals that are personal to their definition of success with someone outside of their organisation.

Having a coach as a trusted sounding board can provide you with clarity and help you move forward with timeframes and priorities which are attainable. For a deeper dive into what makes a great coach, read our blog here. Above all, these relationships are built on trust.

As rugby coach Russell Earnshaw explained: “Coaching is about understanding where people are at and supporting them to move forward and grow.” 

Click here to learn more about our Executive Coaching, or get in touch with us to book a free touchpoint first call with one of our coaches. 

Sign up for our newsletter below to get access to our new video content. The first video is “How to grow your business successfully”. 

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But while companies use team building to bring people together and help build productive relationships, there seems to be one huge catch… A YouGov poll released earlier this year found that businesses’ ambitions to build more cohesive teams don’t always resonate with their staff. 

In the survey, they found that people find the activities embarrassing or cringeworthy, with many finding the prospect of it dreading, and only 44 per cent of people feeling that they and their team could work together more effectively as a result of the exercise.

This brings us to the question of why companies are still doing team-building exercises. Whilst it’s fair to question and important to scrutinise all business activity, it’s definitely not the time to push team-building to the side. 

Studies show that relationships are hugely beneficial for mental health; 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration as “very important”. In addition, teams and groups tend to innovate faster and find better solutions to problems and working in a team positively affects job satisfaction. 

Additionally, stats data also tell us that team building improves communication and productivity and it helps to create a feeling of belonging between team members.

We have learned from experience how beneficial it is to get the team together outside of their regular activities. However, the activity itself is not the focus of team-building exercises. The exercise should be used as a tool to examine both team and individual behaviours.

How to create a successful team-building activity?

Nobody wants to invest time and money in something that won’t help their team and can possibly make them feel uncomfortable. So, how can we ensure that our resources are well used, that the team has a great time, and most importantly, that it will benefit the team in the long run?

To help you build the experience you want for your team, we’ve gathered some tips that we use with every one of our clients:

1. It’s not the exercise; it’s the purpose behind it that matters

A team-building activity is not really about the exercise itself; the relevant part is what you are trying to accomplish with it. 

Before you start planning any activity, take some time to reflect on what it is that you want to achieve. These are some of the questions we always ask ourselves and our clients:

• What are the main challenges you and your team are facing? 
• What would great look like? 
• What do you need/want to take out from the experience?

Asking the right questions will give you the foundation to create a well-thought-out programme for your team-building activities. Without this programme or plan, it will be challenging to take out anything from the activity more than a fun time which for some people won’t even feel fun at all. 

2. Focus! You can’t tackle everything at once

Trying to get the most out of a team-building day, activity, or programme makes sense. Unfortunately, many companies make the mistake of biting off more than they can chew. 

To really maximise the benefits of any activity or programme, you need to start with the foundation. Then you can move on to other challenges along the way. 

Furthermore, long-lasting change takes time. If you really want to make a real impact on your team and business, you need to dig deep and give people enough space and time to reflect, react, test and adapt. 

3. You need to know your audience

Not every exercise works for everyone; before you ask people to jump off a cliff, hold their hands together or build anything, you need to think about who you are working with. 

One of the main questions we ask every client is what their employees are like. The more you know about the group, the easier it will be to create an activity that works for them. 

In addition, you need to make it relevant to them. Every team and company is different, so you need to make sure that whatever you do is truly aligned with them and their challenges. This will also keep people engaged in the activity. 

4. The relevant part is found after the exercise

Even if you create the most amazing activity, you won’t create change unless you reflect on it. This is why for us, the most important part of any team-building activity is the reflection time before and after the exercise. 

Before you ask people to do something they may not want to do, you need to clarify why they are doing it. 

In the same way, after the exercise, you need time to reflect on how people acted during the exercise, how these behaviours impact the individual and the team, and what you can do better in the future. 

As an illustration, we’d like to share some comments we received from one of our away days:

Fantastic stuff! The exercises are pretty simple in nature and even though we solved all of them without a hitch, we still failed over and over again. It’s all about perspective, and this session really highlighted this beautifully.

5. React & Adapt! You need to be able to adapt and change quickly

Sometimes, you can prepare a great programme just to find out after the first session that it didn’t resonate with your audience. But don’t worry, that’s fine, as long as you can reflect on what happened and change the route. 

This is why it is crucial to ask for people’s reflections on the day. Whether you are organising the activity for your team or outsourcing the task, no one can read minds or be right all the time. We all make mistakes, but most people are willing to give a second chance if they feel like they have been heard and taken into consideration. 

6. Create a safe space

Taking people out of their comfort zones is never easy, and working with a team where everyone is different makes it even harder. This is why to create a successful team-building activity; you first need to create a safe space for the team. 

Communicate to people why they are there, what they can and can’t do, and most of all, instil confidence in everyone that this is for their own benefit. 

We know how difficult it is to make a group of people feel comfortable; this is why we love working with teams in the long term. This enables us to build trust among the group and allows them to open up and be vulnerable, which is crucial to real change.

Another part of making people feel safe and comfortable during a team-building activity is to ensure they have the time for it. We all are extremely busy, so taking a half or full day to do anything that is not making your to-do list smaller may seem like a waste of time.  Therefore, be mindful of how much time people have and avoid giving them more than they can handle. Otherwise, they’ll wish they could spend the entire time at their desks working on deadlines.

7. Measure your impact & ask for accountability

We mentioned above that you need information to adapt, but you also need the information to measure your impact. What’s the point of doing anything if you don’t know if it is working? 

Additionally, you need to prepare for accountability. What are the takeaways, and what are people committing to? Two or three hours a month won’t change anyone’s life; the real impact comes from having actionable tools to put in place in their everyday lives. Also, because we all know how much of a challenge is to create or break a habit, you need to have a plan for keeping people accountable. 

The Optimist view…

The above may seem a bit daunting. However, it’s the only way you can benefit from team-building activities instead of being one more of the people who end up dreading a day out with their team. 

At Optimist Performance, we specialise in creating behavioural change programmes for teams and companies. So, if you are wondering what to do for your next team-building event, get in touch and learn more about how we can help make your team-building day a success. 

The post How to make your team-building event a success – By Optimist Performance appeared first on Optimist Performance.

The CIPD’s findings are a stark reminder of the negative impact people managers can have on employee mental well-being if they are not trained and supported to go about their management role in the right way.  As well as being damaging to employees and their families, a stressed workforce can result in poor performance, more sick days and higher staff turnover.

Healthy leadership starts at the top

Many businesses go through tense periods, but good people managers can help mitigate or even prevent negative effects on their employees. While a certain amount of stress, such as a realistic deadline, can have positive effects, too much can contribute to common mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. 

One in four people will experience issues with their mental health at some point in their lifetime, and with the CIPD listing it as the main cause of long-term absence, it should be a topic that can be openly discussed without judgement or stigma. But the survey highlights – and indeed warns – about the “defining influence” top table attitudes and behaviours can have on the mental wellbeing of employees. 

Sadly, the CIPD has found what it calls a “small but disappointing slip” in attention to employees’ mental and physical wellbeing within this year’s survey statistics in comparison with the first year of the pandemic. Seventy per cent of HR respondents agreed that employee wellbeing was on senior leaders’ agendas (down from 75 per cent last year) and 60 per cent said they believed that line managers have bought into the importance of well-being (67 per cent last year).

While the CIPD found that more organisations were taking steps to tackle unhealthy practices such as ‘presenteeism’ and ensuring people who are ill are discouraged from working, it also highlighted the need for these messages to come straight from the top.

The survey concluded: “Now, more than ever, we need leaders who are not afraid to show compassion, who consciously role-model healthy working practices and foster an environment where people feel safe to speak about health issues and seek help.”

Culture is crucial for health

Companies need to use both their eyes and their ears – being observant of stressful situations and taking time to listen to their staff can help diffuse the negative impact of situations as they arise. Creating a culture that resonates with employees, where people can be open about the mental and physical health issues that affect them, is crucial.

Health is a fact of life and employees are unable to perform their roles well without it. According to the CIPD’s research, the attitudes of senior leadership are “pivotal” to making sure the well-being of their employees is taken seriously and “embedded in day-to-day people management practices.”

The survey reports that the greater focus on employee health and well-being during the Covid pandemic has slipped down the priority list, but we’re only just beginning to see the side effects of two years of lockdowns and restrictions. The consequences of delayed routine health checks and the knock-on effects on treatment programmes are likely to result in poorer health outcomes in the years to come.

Many of us will struggle with our mental health at some point in our lives – but the good news is that there’s a lot we can do to improve it. Men’s Health Week 2022, took place last month organised by the Men’s Health Forum, which provides an independent voice for health and wellbeing for men and boys. 

“Time for your MOT”

One in five men will die before the age of 65, and the causes of this can be both physical and mental. In a year where we’re all trying to get back to normal, this year’s campaign is urging men to take “Time for your MOT.” 

It encourages men to make both their mental and physical health a priority by attending any routine health checks they might be invited to or by reaching out and seeking help for any symptoms they may be experiencing. Checklists are available on the site identifying when you might need to speak to your GP for additional help with both mental and physical health issues.

The Forum also reports that the number of early-stage cancer diagnoses has dropped during the lockdowns. It’s not because these conditions are getting rarer – it’s just that men aren’t visiting GPs as much as women for these conditions to be diagnosed.

Just as companies need to raise their game when it comes to employee well-being, it’s important not to drop the ball when it comes to your own health.

The post Poor managers are bad for your health – By Ollie Phillips appeared first on Optimist Performance.