Many of 2018's team building and training trends closely related to how many of us function today: with a need for convenience and an increasing use of technology.
But what does next year have in store for business professionals?
Keep reading to learn more about what you can expect from popular trends in 2019, or download your free copy of Team Building & Training Trends for 2019 for an all-in-one, printable PDF of the resources below.
Also, don't forget to listen to our podcast, Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast! On our latest episode, we speak with three experts — Jules Joyce, Lyndon Friesen, and Joe Britto — to find out their expert predictions in team building, training, coaching, and consulting.
Your core values are the heart and soul of your business. So, it makes sense that participating in an activity that reflects those things can help foster a stronger bond between employees. It can also strengthen your connection to your company as a whole.
For example, in Bradenton, Florida, the team at Pepsico participated in a School Supply Scramble where they assembled customized gift packages for the local Women’s Resource Center. Instead of creating school-themed challenges for the group, Outback made 10 custom women empowerment challenges.
This speaks directly to Pepsico’s company culture and their commitment to empowering women in the workplace and community.
Custom team building events put your group’s personal experience front and center. You can modify the activities to reflect the interests of your team and ensure that you’re doing something that is fun and engaging for all employees involved.
For example, KPMG, an auditing firm in Vancouver, Canada, wanted to do a Wild Goose Chase with a fire theme. Our team customized their challenges to include a relay using props like firefighter helmets and a fire hose.
In another instance, Montreal’s Wynford Group participated in the same team building activity and instead modified their challenges to include beer and macaron tastings.
With custom activities, you can plan exactly the right experience for your group.
That’s part of the reason why philanthropic team building activities are more popular than ever. They allow you to make a positive impact on your community and bond with your colleagues in a meaningful way.
Here are three of Outback’s top charitable activities:
A recent survey found that over 90% of respondents rated soft skills — things like emotional intelligence and communication — a "critical priority." Some recruiters are concerned that millennials entering the workforce will lack such skills, in favor of being more technologically savvy.
But as technology progresses, the way we communicate must too. So, especially in today's world where social media significantly affects how we interact, we need to work on our communication skills to align with the times. To bridge the gap, try learning and development programs that can help refine your soft skills:
Your company’s current leaders aren’t going to be there forever. Focusing on developing your future leaders ensures that your business stays healthy, agile, and forward thinking.
This can mean training current employees to improve soft skills like communication and practical skills like problem solving. For newer employees, it might mean connecting with mentors and professional networks.
The first step is hiring like-minded employees who want to grow and continuously improve. Then, you can try training sessions like these to keep the ball rolling:
A recent study found that the retention rate of auditory learning is two times higher than reading, and four times higher than attending a lecture. It also showed that, between 2014 and 2015, downloads of podcast-based lesson plans grew by a staggering 650%.
You can listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere. That makes this mobile method of learning accessible to everyone, from those who work remotely to those who just want to learn something new on their work commute. Plus, there are podcasts on just about every topic imaginable, so it’s easy to find something related to your line of work.
Outback’s own podcast, Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast, is an audio resource that is geared towards business professionals. Each episode features an interview with an expert in their field who offers advice and practical tips on bettering a wide variety of dynamics related to corporate teams. You can listen to our podcast on streaming platforms like iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and more.
Trend #1: Leadership Team Cohesion
Our world is constantly changing, from new technologies to the state of the economy. And as these things evolve, so do the industries that rely on them. In order for your business to remain successful, staying flexible is really important.
One of the most essential elements of being able to be flexible? Having a strong leadership team.
If your leaders are arguing different points and positions again each other, they're not working together for the common interest and benefit of the company. Team cohesion, especially when it comes to sharing the company's vision and goals, is integral to achieving success and staying flexible.
How do you build cohesion? By making sure your team is aligned. Programs like Leadership Team Coaching can help your group get on the same page with critical issues, work together as a unit, and build positive relationships.
Does your team have a strategy in place in order to achieve its goals? The way that the world moves so quickly now, you must be clear on the vision that your company has set to avoid misalignment.
If your team isn't aligned, then you're likely going to run into a whole bunch of problems including a chaotic work environment or even a complete business failure. So, how do you avoid this?
A team that's aligned to their goals will also result in leadership team cohesion — if you are looking ahead, then you need to have a stable team in order to be able to look far enough into the future.
If your management is going to change something about your company, they need to have buy-in — that is, support — from the people who are going to be most directly affected by that change. This is usually the employees.
If employees aren't backing that change, then it's not going to stick.
When you invite employees to be a part of a change, whether it's requesting their feedback on an idea or asking for them to generate their own ideas, it increases the likelihood that they'll want to participate in it. This also show employees that their input — and, in turn, they — are valued.
Especially during a time where things evolve at such a rapid rate, change is inevitable; and buy-in is essential. To help, try participating in a workshop like Change Team Coaching to discover how to shift employees’ mindsets and become an effective agent of change.
Learn More About What's New in 2019
Don’t forget to download your free copy of Team Building & Training Trends for 2019 for an all-in-one, printable PDF of the above resources. You can also reach out to an Employee Engagement Consultant for even more insight on team building and training solutions.
Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast
We speak to three experts to find out their predictions for 2019.
To learn even more about the emerging trends in team building, training, coaching, and consulting, we sat down with three special guests: Jules Joyce, Director of Events at Outback; Lyndon Friesen, Lead Facilitator at Ignitor Training; and Joe Britto, Lead Facilitator at Innate Leaders. Listen to the latest episode of Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast below to hear what Jules, Lyndon, and Joe had to say, or continue scrolling down to read a full transcription of the interviews.
Yasmine Shemesh: Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast. This podcast is produced by Outback Team Building & Training — a leading team building, training, and consulting provider for organizations across North America. I’m your host, Yasmine Shemesh, and on today’s show we’re going to be talking about trends for 2019. We’ve got three wonderful guests joining us to share their expert predictions on what’s new and exciting in team building, training, and coaching and consulting for the next year. We’ve got Jules Joyce, who is the director of events here at Outback; Lyndon Friesen, lead facilitator at Ignitor Training; and Joe Britto, founder and lead facilitator at Innate Leaders. So, let’s get right to it. First up is Jules. She’s the leader of our events team and she sat down with me here in our studio to chat about what’s becoming popular in team building right now and what kind of factors inform these activities and programs.
YS: If you guys could see us, we’re wrapped up in fleecy blankets, because It’s just a little chilly in here!
Jules Joyce: Winter is upon us!
YS: Yes, but we’re doing good! Jules is actually based in Calgary, so it’s probably a little colder over there.
JJ: I am and yes it is, it is!
YS: Do you guys have snow already?
JJ: We do, we do, and now I think we’re at a stage where the snow will stay for a while on the ground, but, we have some sunny skies, just some crisp temperatures.
YS: That’s good. At least there’s that. We’re getting there here too. So, we are talking about what’s new in team building for 2019. But before we really get into it, let’s start out with our quick tip of the month. So, every month we ask our guests to give us a quick tip, which is basically just some short and sweet advice on the topic that we’re discussing at hand.
So: say you’re planning a team building activity for your company and you have a few colleagues who are a little bit hesitant in participating in something like that, so what sort of things could you say to them to reassure them that it’s not going to be all cheesy trust falls?
JJ: The cheesy trust falls! Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question. I think, ultimately, try to focus on the goal of why they’re there. So, what experience they’re getting out of being there and, despite with the actual activity may be, it’s about connecting with your colleagues and really getting to know them and looking at them from, perhaps, a different lens and a different view. Participation is huge, just letting people know that you’re here, let’s get into it and make the best of what we’ve got, and not to focus on that side but just, again, looking at the big overreaching goal of being there and that’s just connecting. Engaging. You know, having fun. Getting to do something that’s a little bit different than what they normally do. Luckily, our programs are geared in the sense that they’re engaging, they really just make people step outside their comfort and get to know their colleagues.
YS: Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all about people, right? Despite whether you’re in a working environment or you’re with your friends or your family, building those relationships and having good relationships with the people that you’re surrounded with and that you’re spending time with, is important whether they’re your colleagues or your close friends.
JJ: Definitely. And it’s funny so many people still have that old stigma of the trust falls and we’ve evolved as an industry in that manner. It’s breaking down that barrier as well, making them understand that not about that anymore. It does have a lot of validity in the work place to engage in these kinds of activities.
YS: Yeah, just enjoying being with the people that you spend all this time with.
JJ: Exactly! Yeah, exactly! You spend so much time with people at work so why not just try to step outside of what your day to day is? You know, talking about work and just doing something different and having fun at it.
YS: Yeah, absolutely. So, what kind of things have you seen are shaping the direction of trends in team building? Is it based off of what’s happening in human psychology, pop culture, technology, things like that? Or is it informed by something simpler?
JJ: It’s everything. All of the above. I mean, pop culture, what’s happening in the world, is always going to be a hot topic. We see it all the time that what’s trending is what people are talking about at work and that inevitably gets transferred over into what they want to include in their activities. Simple things can also play into that so it’s whoever we are dealing with and what they have on their plate. So a lot of the times, we are faced with having to accommodate. So, if the customer has a shorter time frame or a longer time frame or they want to go to a specific location, it’s really just about being flexible and fitting in in what they are currently in need of. But pop culture is always going to play a huge part in what we do. It’s what people see outside of their work life and that’s what they talk about. You know, water cooler talk, and that’s a natural transfer into any of our activities.
YS: Yeah, and a couple of our most popular ones are based off of reality TV shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race.
JJ: Reality TV shows are popular for a reason. They are, you know, for the most part, reality. We like to capitalize on that and it helps people understand it and they identify with it. We want people to have a good time at what they are doing and we want to make sure that people can identify with that and, again, have fun while they’re doing that.
YS: Yeah, for sure. And it’s cool to watch something like the Amazing Race on TV and think “Oh, I want to do something like that,” and then you sort of can.
JJ: Yeah, exactly.
YS: That’s awesome. So, from research, I’ve seen that integrating company culture, things that bring the team together already, has also become really popular in team building activities. Why do you think that is gaining momentum right now?
JJ: I mean, culture has always been a focus, but I think that now it really is more of a focus. People want to know that it’s not just about their role, and their job, and what they’re doing. They want to be surrounded by good people and that comes from the company. So, culture is a focus.
I think, for people who are getting on boarded, they ask those questions during the interview period: “What do you guys do? How do you promote a good culture?” And a lot of that is doing activities that aren’t necessarily work related and, while we fit in to that category of being a work activity, it’s a fun one, and so these are things that are important to people as they come on. They want to feel like where they’re going to spend a lot of their time everyday is a good place to be. So, we like to incorporate that as much as we can. And each organization will have different things that they focus on as far as what their corporate culture stands for and we try to incorporate that and encapsulate that in what we are doing with them.
YS: Yeah, it makes sense. And at Outback here, there’s a lot of craft beer lovers, so in that sense, I feel like something like a scavenger hunt or something that would include a beer tasting, would be really popular with our team members here!
JJ: Anything that’s popular. We do a lot of that with our customers and culinary is always a huge hit. Food and drink, who doesn’t like sitting down at the dinner table? We do this as a family or with friends. We’re always gathering in the kitchen when it’s social party time and, as a family, you sit down and that’s the time, at dinner, is to find out how your day went. And that, of course, is a natural transfer over to the workplace, as well. It’s always great to get outside and talk a little bit about the people that you’re working with and really getting to know them. Having a meal with somebody and having a drink with somebody, it can go a long way. So that’s always been a focus for us. Obviously, here at Outback, we like to do that and we do get that request quite a bit, as well.
YS: Yeah, it’s true, food and drink and just sitting down across the table with somebody is the most simple way to connect.
JJ: Simple act and definitely a way to connect. And “Hey, how are you doing?” outside of that day to day.
YS: Yeah, definitely. To that point, as well, custom activities also seem to becoming more and more popular. Why do you think that is? Is it sort of along the same lines?
JJ: Yeah, I mean, more and more, customers want a unique experience for their group. So, that can be anything from what’s going internally in that organization and their initiatives, they want to incorporate that. A lot of times it’s where they’re going as a group. So, if it’s a retreat somewhere and they’re in a unique location, they want their group to be able to come away from that experience saying “Wow! That was great! Not only did we have these great takeaways, but we got to experience where we were visiting.” And it’s a huge impact. More and more, we see customers looking for that incredibly unique experience for their group. Something others haven’t done or they haven’t done before.
YS: Yeah.
JJ: So, year after year, it’s continuing that trend with people that we work with over the course of several activities over the years, they want something new every time.
YS: Yeah. I feel like also, just the planning and the thought that would go into the creating something that’s really personalized for the people that you work with, I feel like in a lot of ways that shows how much they’re valued. Right?
JJ: Yeah, definitely, and when we’re talking to our customers, they know their group. “This is what our group is going to like.” Similar to how we know what we would like here at Outback, they also know exactly what their group is going to want, and they can help us and guide us to create that content for them and provide that experience for them.
YS: One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is corporate social responsibility. And I feel like this is something that, you know, it’s been part of businesses for a long time but especially in the last few years, it’s something that’s been gaining more momentum, and more companies are placing more importance on CSR every single year — which is really wonderful, because giving back to the community or a charity or anything that you can is so important, especially if you have a capacity to do it. And here at Outback, we do offer quite a few philanthropic charity themed activities, which is really great. So, how does team building fit in with corporate social responsibility and why do you think that more companies are starting to blend the two together, especially now?
JJ: If I were to think old school what that used to mean, it was most likely an actual monetary donation that organizations would make to a local charity in their community. And now I think it just makes sense to combine it because that doesn’t really involve your whole entire organization as much as it can if you’re actually doing an activity that gets that interaction and that engagement from your group, from your team, from your employees — the ones who are making your company what it is — and incorporating that give back through that activity. I mean, as individuals, who doesn’t like to give back? I mean, it feels good. We all like to do it in some way, shape, or form. So, it’s natural that these organizations now can incorporate that while engaging their group and helping them feel like they’re part of the process.
And we’re so much more aware now. With social media, everything is out there and I think the world is becoming a little bit more aware and conscious of the decisions that everybody is making. And companies more and more want to be a part of the good, doing things for the better of their community. It kind of goes old school when you think globally but act locally and that’s, I think, a big part of what people want to do. They want to give back to where they are. A lot of these big organizations are in, it could be in smaller towns or bigger towns, and they just want to know that they are making a difference. And I think for employees, that’s important too. They want to feel that the company and the organization they are working for is making an impact, a positive impact, and as an individual, it’s an opportunity for them being part of that organization to also contribute to that.
YS: Yeah, you feel like you’re part of something bigger and that’s actually making a difference.
JJ: Exactly. You don’t want to just go in and punch the clock and do your job. You want to engage and you want to know that at the end of the day where you’re working and what they stand for is standing for something really solid and really positive.
YS: Absolutely, that is so important. Wonderful, well, thank you so much Jules!
JJ: You’re welcome!
YS: it was so lovely chatting with you. And thanks again for sitting and taking the time.
JJ: You’re welcome, always a pleasure.
YS: Lyndon Friesen is a skill development coach and a lead facilitator at the leadership skill development company, Ignitor. They provide customized training solutions for different organizations. Lyndon sat down with me to talk about what we can expect from training in 2019, as well as the current state of communication today.
YS: How’s it going Lyndon?
Lyndon Friesen: Fantastic.
YS: How was your weekend?
LF: Weekend was full of… probably a to-do list. Right? I’ve been traveling a lot lately and I think there’s a few things that have just built up around the home that needed to get taken care of, so, not necessarily R&R, but good to pile into a few things that have been sitting there.
YS: Yeah. That’s good. Are you getting ready for the holidays?
LF: I am not. I am probably not the right person the ask that question. I like the perspective of holidays, but in terms of gearing up for the holidays —and I find that there’s a heavy commercialism around every holiday that I probably resist. So, I’m really looking forward to some time off, but not necessarily “lights, Christmas tree,” you know, some of the more traditional things around it. But I’m really looking forward to some time off.
YS: Yeah, I think that’s the most magical part, really, of the holidays. Whether you subscribe to going all out and decorating, or not, it’s just to relax and enjoy that time off and enjoy spending it with your family and yourself, and all of that. That’s awesome. So, thank you for taking the time to sit and chat with me. I really appreciate it. We’re talking about training trends for 2019. What’s new, and what’s emerging, why these things are becoming popular. But before we really get into it, we always like to begin our episodes with a quick tip of the month. So, if you are ready, let’s do our quick tip.
LF: I think that leaders do really good job of setting expectations with people and the people that they work with. And spend a lot of energy on making sure that the people understand “This is what I expect,” but rarely do they ask, “How do I help equip you with the tools to be able to do that?” And so, an employee is often left feeling with the weight of the expectation without the support of how they’re going to be equipped to fulfill that expectation. So, I think the tip would be: continue to do a great job on setting expectations, but don’t forget the piece on “How do I help equip you to fulfill those expectations.” And that way, they’re excited about the development to actually achieve the expectations that you have for them, versus feeling stressed out that “I’ve been given expectations, but I don’t really have the tools to be able to meet those expectations.” And so, I would go spend as much time on “How do I equip a person,” as you do on setting the expectations for them.
YS: That’s a great point because you can have goals set, but if you don’t have a way to reach those goals or to create a path towards reaching those goals then, it’s sort of hard to get there.
LF: I think the creating the path, this is the right analogy to see. Because if a person can see how they can get from A to B, because you’re supporting them or you’re equipping them with skills, it becomes an exciting path versus a stressful path.
YS: Awesome. Thank you. Alright, so, on that note we’re, again, talking about trends and I’ve done a bit of research before our chat here and one thing that I’ve seen become, sort of, increasingly popular is the development of soft skills, like emotional intelligence. So first of all, can you define emotional intelligence for us?
LF: Yeah, I think in it’s simplest form, emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand how your words, actions, and behaviors impact the people around you. And it’s comprised of five different areas. One is self awareness. Two, self regulation. Three, motivation. Four, empathy, and five, social skills. But all of that is really coming down to: are you aware of how you impact the people around you with your non-verbal behavior, with your verbal behavior? Are you aware of how it lands on the people around you and can you adjust accordingly? So, in terms of it being a popular topic or trend: I think with the increase of technology, these introspective topics like emotional intelligence or assessment programs like DISC, those programs become far, far more exciting for companies to invest in to because we’re not finding the time to communicate face to face like we would have once done.
YS: This relates to not just the workplace, but just how we communicate in general, in life. I feel like technology has changed and shifted the way that we do that so significantly.
LF: Yes, I would agree.
YS: Yeah. I read an article actually recently that touched on this exact topic about how a lot of recruiters are becoming increasingly concerned that the next generation entering the workforce may be really technologically savvy, however they may be lacking those soft skills like emotional intelligence, especially when dealing with people person-to-person. Yeah, so can you just expand a bit on your thoughts on that?
LF: I don’t agree with it. And I don’t agree with it because I think it’s easy to look at one generation to another and point out the difference and put the cause of the difference on the other generation, especially whoever is the younger generation than you are. And I think there’s as much work for Boomers and Gen X’ers to do in understanding millennials, as there is from millennials to try to understand Gen X’ers and Boomers. And so, I would put the emphasis is on all — whether it’s young, middle aged, older people — the responsibility is in all of us is to understand each other and not to try to impress upon the fact that it’s different, therefore it’s not as good.
And so I think there’s a lot of caution and concern that the companies have around, you know: “Do millennials know how to communicate? Or do they only communicate with technology?” And I would just go, “It’s different.” But different doesn’t mean better or worse. Let’s be very, very careful in saying because it’s different, they communicate differently, that therefore it’s not as good as how we may have done it in the past. And you could go back even a hundred years without the telephone being around and everything would have been face-to-face. Yet ask somebody who is a Gen X’er, “Do you have a problem with telephone communication?” They’d say there’s nothing wrong with it. While somebody who didn’t have a telephone probably had the same kind of feeling when telephones came in to say “Why aren’t we doing face-to-face anymore?” So, it’s different. Let’s accept that it’s different, but I think there’s as much responsibility on every age category to try to understand each other than there is on somehow millennials don’t know how to communicate.
YS: Absolutely. That’s super interesting to me because I grew up in the early ‘90s — I was born in 86 — grew up, you know, in that interesting in-between stage where I remember not having all of this technology and then experiencing having a little bit of it, and then the huge boom and growth of it. And now, where I’m in my early 30s and our whole way of communicating is so much focused on social media and everything’s on our phones and all of that stuff. And so I think, for me personally, I feel almost old school in the way where I’m almost nostalgic for the way that things used to be. But it’s an interesting point because, I mean, you could say the same for any generation before where they said, “No, the way that I communicated in my generation was the best and the next generation they’re just, you know, they don’t get it.” But yeah, I think you could apply that to everybody.
LF: I think it’s just too easy to blame, you know, the latest generations having not got it right. They’re a product of a generation, it’s not their fault that technology is here. And so we’re all being asked to use technology, it’s not going to go away. So the question is, “How do we still connect with people and realize that a lot of communication is non-verbal?” So, we should be aware of that, but there’s lots of tools to help us with that, video conferencing and so on. And so, how do we intentionally carve out those times between employees to foster good communication? I think we have to be more intentional than we have to be 20 years ago, or 50 years ago, because I think it would naturally happen, you just didn’t have technology as a barrier to face-to-face communication. Today, we have that as a tool that’s used all the time and it’s an acceptable tool. So, how do we now carve out intentional time to still be able to look people in the eye, understand the non-verbal queues that they are giving off when you’re communicating? So, a little different, but it’s certainly isn’t a generational problem, it’s everybody’s opportunity to try to still carve out intentional time to get to know people and understand them.
YS: Absolutely. Speaking of communication, we had a Summit, Outback’s annual company retreat, a couple of weeks ago, and you led us through this really wonderful session about communication and, yeah, totally just branches off of what we’re just talking about. So, you were just saying looking at a person-to-person level we can make little efforts to try to improve that. So what kind of things could we do especially if we’re, say for example, workers who work remotely and who aren’t given the opportunity to be face to face in a lot of the times? What sort of things could we do to jump over those “barriers” or “hurdles?”
LF: Yeah, I think it’s still some rules of thumb or principles that need to be followed and here are a few examples: one is on conference calls. Whenever you can conference people in through via video and see each other’s face, it helps. Two is multitasking in meetings has to be cut down or eliminated. If you want to actually be productive in a meeting and you’re deemed to be valuable in that meeting, I do believe that there’s a lot of discussion that happens and maybe not as many decisions can happen if people are focused and attentive to what’s actually is going on in the meeting. So, the idea that you could bring your laptop in, your cell phone in, and respond to emails and text messages throughout a meeting, I think, has to be dramatically reduced or eliminated. Forcing people to hear each other’s voice, and listen to the tone that they’re using and the words that they’re saying.
And then maybe a third one is conflict. Fight hard to do it face-to-face. And sometimes time does not permit it, or geography doesn’t permit it, but conflict is a big one when it comes to understanding non-verbal communication and hearing people out. And you’ll often progress through conflict much faster if you’re able to do it face-to-face. So there are some rules of thumb that still apply from 10 years ago or 50 years ago. Distracted meetings, try to eliminate it. Conflict face-to-face if at all possible, never in an email, never in a text message, at a minimum over the phone, but if at all possible face-to-face. So, there’s principles to still follow that I think are worth fighting for.
YS: Absolutely. Another thing that really stood out to me during our sessions at Summit was the concept of building future leaders. And it was mostly providing the tools to potential future leaders so that they can develop and grow — and even going as far as using that concept as a hiring tactic, where your whole team is filled with these A-players, who could potentially reach that level. So, why is it important to continuously look ahead when it comes to your leadership team? Why would you not simply focus on just developing who you have already in place in those positions?
LF: So, the development of people, there’s many different factors to consider. One is, does the person want to be developed? Are they really happy where they are at and would be happy there for the next 10 years, and they want to fine tune skills but they may not want to have, you know, an evolutionary type change both in the organization or even outside the organization. So, they may be really happy where they’re at. So, one of the things to think about is just, which people on the team are pretty passionate about growth, not just because they want more money or more responsibility — although those are two good motivators — but just, who’s pretty passionate about growth? And so that’s worth considering whether you’re an A-player or not an A-player.
Another one is just, the expectations that you have in the organization to meet certain key performance indicators, are we achieving them or aren’t we achieving them? And if we’re not achieving them, you have two levers to pull. One is your work ethic, and the other lever to pull is your ability. And so, the investment of all people, whether they become A-players or not, is necessary if you want to achieve your key performance indicators.
The other one is, you don’t know when opportunities arise, and you don’t know who’s going to fit that opportunity when the opportunity arises. And so, you’re certainly expanding in terms of who may be available to even apply for that role when it comes up, and I think choice is always worth trying to create in your organization in terms of people. And if you think of employee engagement, it’s not uncommon for the number one driver of engagement is growth. And if people feel like growing, whether that means change in pay or not, change in responsibility or not, but they feel they’re growing, that‘s a very, very meaningful driver of employee engagement. And so, that’s not just for the A-player, that’s for all players. You ask an employee “Do you enjoy growth?” and almost every employee talk to you say, “I enjoy the opportunity to grow.” And so, that investment should never be focused just on, you know, your A-players. It should be focused on everybody.
YS: Absolutely.
LF: So, assuming you’ve done a great job hiring people, you got a bunch of people who want to grow, and who enjoy challenge, who enjoy, you know, learning from each other, learning from people who are there a little longer, learning from whoever they report to that they are actually excited about it, not threatened by it.
YS: Yeah, it’s that alignment.
LF: Right.
YS: Everybody being aligned.
LF: Right.
YS: Is there anything else that you’ve seen as 2019 approaches us, anything that you feel is going be really prevalent in training over the next year?
LF: Well, I’ve seen some organizations get it that training is not an individual event. We’re known as an event driven company. We do events for organizations. But the event is, if anything, is the starting point, but it’s not the end. And so there are some organizations that have a plan to implement whatever it is their team has learned, and there’s other organizations that cross their fingers and hope something gets implemented after we leave. And I think it’s very important for organizations to have some form of a champion or a plan in place to bring to life the learning that people will have been aligned on or agreed to during the event and they’re excited to actually implement it. Because when the implement, that’s where the real change happens, that everybody desires. And so, you know, that’s a trend I’ve seen more and more is: companies are taking on that responsibility of going, “How do we keep this alive when the facilitator’s gone? How are we going to hold ourselves accountable when the facilitator is gone?” So, we do an exercise at the end of each session which gives people the opportunity to commit to the learning that they’ve just experienced and it’s an invitation to their peers to help hold them accountable to that learning. However, there is still a need that when the training is over that somebody is still driving home that learning and creating the new habits. So, that’s the part that, to me, I see more and more companies doing is they’re realizing the importance of making sure that if it’s not intentional after the facilitator leaves, it likely won’t take hold the way they were hoping it was going to take hold.
YS: Right, yeah, because you could have an amazing session and everybody is super excited about it and then, if you don’t have that sort of strategy to maintain it, then it all goes out the window and you tend to revert back to the way that you were doing things before.
LF: Absolutely.
YS: Yeah, sort of, like, what you were mentioning in the very beginning of our chat, creating that path towards reaching your goals.
LF: Yeah. How do you help people hold it in a position of consciousness? Because I think you’re right, you go back to what you were doing and we go back to our unconscious habits and that will take over again for us. And so, how do you keep it at a conscious level to at least allow these newly desired habits to take form? And that’s a challenge, for sure.
YS: Well, thank you so much again for sitting and chatting with me Lyndon. It was awesome!
LF: Thank very much!
YS: Thank you so much again.
LF: Thank you.
YS: And last, but certainly not least, Joe Britto joins us. As well as being the founder of Innate Leaders, Joe is a psychological coach who is passionate about helping others develop leadership mindset and behaviors. In our interview, Joe discusses some of the themes that are expected to be most prevalent in coaching and consulting in 2019, along with the importance of our mindset and the great power that it holds.
YS: Thank you so much for joining me today, Joe.
Joe Britto: Thank you, thanks for having me.
YS: Alright, so we are here today to talk about coaching and consulting trends for 2019. But before we get started, let's begin how we always do, which is with our quick tip of the month. So, Joe, what is one thing to keep in mind if you are considering bringing in a coach or consultant to your workplace in 2019?
JB: Oh, that's a good question. I think that probably the most important thing I would say to a potential client — and not necessarily a client of mine but just any client who's kind of thinking that — is be really clear about what you're trying to get from the experience. So, if you're trying to, let’s say, do a process map because you’re trying to figure out is there places in your business to create more efficiencies, well I would be really clear that that's what you're trying to get. Because different consultants, different coaches have different specialties. So if you know what you want then you'd know what kind of consultant to go for.
YS: Right, so just ensure that you have a clear, specific vision.
JB: Yeah, I think it’s important to have: this is what I want to achieve, this is how I’m going measure it, and this is how I’m going to know that I’ve succeeded. And if you start from there, not only does it make it easier for the consultant or the coach that you’re speaking to because, you know, now they know how they can best help you, it also makes it more efficient for you because you know what you are trying to achieve.
YS: Right, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that.
JB: No worries.
YS: So, when it comes to coaching and consulting, we’ve noticed in research that there are three areas that more teams seem to be focusing on: leadership team cohesion, misalignment to goals, and change management buy-in. And we’ll go over these in a little bit in more detail as we chat, but, just to start, why do you think these specific things are becoming more important to focus on lately?
JB: I think because, in the economy that we live in now, in the world dynamic that we have now, flexibility is really important, and all of these things are really talking about that. The whole idea of team cohesion is that if your team needs to be flexible and adaptable and change to market forces, you need to have a strong team to be able to do that. If your team is kind of breaking into silos, or if your team is kind of arguing for their department or they’re arguing for their PNL, and not really working in the best interest of the enterprise, which means that, really we’re not, as a business, we’re not really going be able to pivot quickly and effectively, so team cohesion is super important.
Misalignment to goals is really all about: are we positioning ourselves in the market or are we even aiming for the things that we should be aiming for? So you can see that it’s kind of related to team cohesion, because if we have a strong team, we’re thinking about ourselves three, four, five years out, and we have the stability within the team to plan that far out. So, misalignment to goals is, it’s very possible that we can be doing the things that we think are kind of good for us and helpful for us, but do we have the strategy to develop what we need to, to make that thing happen?
So that’s kind of where that’s at, and I think because of the way that the world is now, the way that market forces are, the way that things move so fast now, we have to be really clear about the goal that we set for ourselves and that will fit for purpose to achieve it.
And then lastly, change management, it’s always important. You know, change management has always been around for awful long time and the reason it’s there is because it’s always true, right? If I’m going to change something, I need to have buy-in from the people who will be most directly affected from it, otherwise it’s going to be really hard to make that change stick.
YS: Absolutely, yeah. It’s very true, especially in the nature of our world today and how everything works, you have to be so flexible and have to be so quick to adapt to the way things are just shifting so quickly.
JB: You know, the way that we kind of operate in business now is so fast and the pace is so frenetic —lots of times I go into businesses and they say, you know, “The strategy thing and the mindset thing, it’s all really important, but I just have to get this thing done now.” It’s kind of a funny way to think about it because the mindset work, the strategy work is the thing that allows everything else to happen, right? So, if we don’t have time to do mindset work, if we don’t have time to do strategy work, we’re kind of setting ourselves up to fail in some ways.
YS: Yeah, you have to have that as the foundation before you can really grow.
JB: I think so. I mean, obviously I’m totally biased, but I think it’s true that, you know, if you don’t build from a strong foundation, how can you do anything else? That’s how some things like misalignment to goals happen, because we don’t have the foundation necessarily. We’re kind of off doing things that we think are good ideas, but we haven’t necessarily thought them through, we haven’t necessarily designed a strategy for it, we haven’t necessarily thought about, “Are we fit for purpose in order to achieve that thing?” You know, that’s all the problems that kinda happen.
YS: Yeah, absolutely. On that note, one of the things that I really was looking forward to talking with you about today is about mindset.
JB: That’s my favorite topic.
YS: Yes! And I know that a lot of your work is informed by mindset and the importance of mindset and how I can profoundly affect the way our behaviors work, in a work environment. Yeah, so can you just elaborate a little bit on that concept and how it relates to our work practices?
JB: Yes, so I’ve sort of gotten this track for some reason about flexibility. So, what mindset is, it’s a way of looking at the world born out of our experiences that leads to certain set of behaviors. And we haven’t all had those experiences. So the work we do here with Outback, is we sort of start to think about, “How can we help people to cultivate those experiences, which obviously leads to shifted thinking, which then apply that thinking to the way that their business operates.”
So it’s basically: if I shift away that I think, then that means that I can look at the challenges in my business differently, which means I’ll come up with different answers. That’s kind of basically it, but you know, the attributes of the leadership mindset, there’s six of them. There are things like genuine curiosity, which is kind of all about a learning mindset, so it’s all about genuinely curious about, “How can I do this thing differently? What do I not know?” You know, all of those kinds of things so that I’m continuously learning and I’m continuously pushing the envelope or what is possible or what I think I can do because I am intrigued to ask the curious questions that allow me to see things differently.
But that works in conjunction with something I call flexibility of mind, which is about: let’s say you’re curious and you’ve asked yourself all sorts of different questions, so you’ve come up with a whole bunch of data. Well, flexibility of mind is about: how do you put that data together in an interesting way that allows you to move into a different perspective? So things like that are kind of important because what we’re really saying with a leadership mindset — I suppose, the opposite of the leadership mindset is perhaps the best way to think about it that — the opposite of that would be: I’m kind of rigid in the way that I do things, which means that I’m kind of doing the same things over and over again; that I’m not aware of challenges or market forces that are happening around me because I’m not curious, really; and I haven’t found any way to identify what the market forces might be outside the business or even inside my business, and as the result of that, I’m not seeing those data points, which means that I can’t be flexible in my thinking to come up with something different. Does that makes sense? It sounds like I kind of chatted a lot!
YS: It’s about opening your mind to allow different perspectives to come out.
JB: Yeah! I think it is. I think it’s fundamentally about not being attached to a certain way of doing things, being willing to entertain the fact that you could be wrong, and by doing that, giving yourself the opportunity to explore challenges in your business in new and different ways.
You know, one of the things I hear fairly often sometimes when I go into certain businesses where I’m just speaking to business owners is that they feel, you know, “One of our challenges is we don’t know what we don’t know, and as a result, when we tackle a problem, or when a problem comes our way, we tackle it in a way that we always have.” Which is fine — like in 98% of the time that will work just fine, but 2% of the time it won’t, and 2% of the time we don’t need to do things the way we’ve always done it. What we need is to find the completely different way of doing it. And the funny thing about that 2% is if we’re able to make that shift, and in my world that would be a shift in the way that we think, that doesn’t represent the 2% improvement in your business: it represents and exponential shift in your business. Because if you can think differently, then it means I’ll think differently about the problem that I’ve got right now, but I’ll think differently about problems that are coming down the road that I have never even heard of yet. Because once you shift your mindset, that shift your mind sets stays. You don’t unshift mindset, it stays with you.
And that is kind of the benefit, I think, of the work, the leadership mindset work that we are doing with Outback because it really is about, once I get that shift in perspective, it stays. And that means I don’t need consultants again, including us —and that’s kind of our goal, right? Our goal as consultants isn’t that we sort of come in and we work with your business for, like, five years or something like this. If we’re there for more than a year, really, doing the same work, then we kind of failed because, really, what we should be doing and what we strive to do is help your people to think differently and embed that through the implementation of a change process in your business that allows people to start to work with these ideas on a real everyday basis. We find that once we do that — and that could take anywhere from six months to a year, something like that — once we do that, the initial shift in thinking becomes part of the way that they think because they’ve started to apply it to real world business challenges. So at the end of our time, really, they just don’t need like us. They go, “Yes, thanks for that. We have kind of a different way of thinking, we have an understanding of how we apply this to our business world, you can go and we can do that next time a problem comes.”
YS: Right, yeah, it’s really learning a new skill and allowing yourself to utilize it and to grow.
JB: I’m kind of pedantic about this sometimes, because I don’t really think about it as a skill. I think about it as a way of looking at the world. So if I learn a skill, the problem with that, and the reason why I don’t really like that word “skill,” is mostly because if I have a skill then what I tend to do is apply the same skill in different circumstances, which may or may not work.
I’m sure you’ve heard that thing that goes, “If I give somebody a hammer, if then everything that they come across is a nail.” If the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem that you come across is a nail, and the problem with that is, well, actually there’s so many problems that aren’t nails, but if you have a shift in thinking, then you’re flexible enough in your own thinking to be able to adapt what you’re doing to suit the problem that is in front of you.
YS: Right, you can figure out what solution you need to find.
JB: Yeah, exactly! And then like you can make your own tools, right? Because very often we go into businesses, we do the mindset work, we start to apply that mindset to the business challenges, and what you find is leaders, managers, they start to develop tools that were different from the tools that they made before because they are looking at their world differently. So they come up with systems and processes that are different obviously from the systems and processes that worked before, but will work in this circumstance and this situation. And if it comes to a point when these systems and processes don’t work, they have the flexibility of mind to be able to shift them.
YS: “What can we do now?”
JB: Yeah, totally.
YS: So now, looping back to being misaligned with goals, what are some signs that a leadership team might be misaligned, especially when you have, you know, a team that has maybe different strengths or are vocal about different things, or different perspectives?
JB: Sure. So, misalignment to goals is really about, as a business, are we doing what we want to be doing and are we heading in the direction that we want to? So, the kind of things that you notice when your business perhaps isn’t aligned the way that it needs to, is you have a vision or you have an objective, and you’re kind of forcing your business or kind of shoehorning your business into achieving these goals when they’re not necessarily set up for it.
So a really practical example: what about if I’m trying to create a perception of my business as being strategic, let’s say, and I don’t have enough strategic thinkers in my staff. Well, that’s going to be really, really hard to do. So, what I have and what I’m trying to do aren’t joining up. So what I need to do in that case is start to develop a strategy for what do I need to do in order to achieve the goal that I’m trying to achieve. But the whole idea really is, is the thing that I’m trying to achieve, is my business set up in order for me to achieve it?
YS: And then again, it’s about, if it’s not, finding that perspective to help you figure out how to get it on track.
JB: One of the things about flexibility of mind that is kind of an important thing for me is this idea of a cherished idea. So a cherished idea is an idea that I’m kind of attached to, and I keep on doing, even kind of pigheadedly move toward it because I think this is the right thing to do. And I’ve come across lots of businesses, lots of individuals who have been working toward their cherished idea without recognizing it to be a cherished idea. Because if I’m very attached to something, we have to start to question why am I very attached to it. So, is it because it’s really a good idea? In which case, great. But how do I know it’s really a good idea? Have I tested it, have I checked it, have I exhibited genuine curiosity to learn if I could be wrong?
So the point there is that if I am trying to get something done, it’s necessary, I think in my world view, to be kind of flexible and entertain the idea that I could be wrong about something. And that’s part of flexibility of mind. That’s part of the leadership mindset. It’s not just about getting idea and kind of running with it. It’s about having an idea, testing the idea, making sure that the idea works. But it’s worth thinking about our motivations. It’s worth thinking about why we want to do things and if that’s the case, okay, is this the best way to be doing it?
YS: Going back again to cohesion within a leadership team — how do you cultivate something like that?
JB: Yeah, that’s a really big question. Like, seriously a big question!
YS: A loaded question!
JB: Well, I’m not sure if I have a really short kind of answer for you, but I have some thoughts, how about that? Because I think that, the first thing is that, if we are clear about what we are trying to achieve as a business, that’s our first step. And I guess that’s where the overlap is with the misalignment to goals that we were just talking about, right?
YS: Right.
JB: Our first step really is, are we clear about what we are actually trying to achieve – number one. Number two then is this idea that, do we have a team who is willing to be flexible together, who is willing to be curious together? And I think like those things are important. There’s another aspect of leadership mindset that comes to mind too, which is enterprised thinking, so it’s about kind of looking at the interest of the business versus the interest of my business area.
YS: The big picture.
JB: And those are the things that are really important to have cohesion within the leadership team, so we’re all looking in the same direction, we’re pulling on the same ropes, so that’s important. And the way that we do that is we make sure that, you know, if I have somebody on my team who is flexible and they’re, you know, they’re really thinking outside the box, and then I have somebody else who is very process and very, “yes it has to be done this way,” there is a potential for the team to start to struggle.
So that’s why, what we normally do is we work with teams as a whole to kind of start to kind of cultivate this idea of a leadership mindset because it puts them in the same mindset to work together. So they’re willing to be flexible, they’re willing to be challenged by each other, they’re willing to be reminded that they might have a cherished idea which is making it difficult now to have a conversation about whatever is that we’re talking about because you keep coming back to the same point over and over and you seem to want it to be done a certain way, but maybe there’s a different way of doing it.
And those kind of, you know, sometimes subtle, but sometimes really meaningful challenges cause some significant problems in teams. So you can imagine then, I’m sure, but if you have someone who has a certain way that they want to get things done — and that could be for all sorts of reasons. It could be that they’ve been in the business for like 20, 30 years and they’ve seen everything and they kind of know how things should be done, or at least they think they do. The other reason could be that they are really protective of their teams and they don’t want things to change too much for their team, so even though everybody else is talking about how do we do this or how do we restructure, these people are thinking, “Actually I need to protect my team, so I need to push back in case anything affects my team.”
Especially at the leadership level, it’s really important that that team functions as one team. Your leadership team sets the tone for the business, whatever they do and however they interact will bleed through the entire business and will set the model for how we expect people to operate.
YS: Right. Yes, again, being all on the same page and understanding that you can be flexible and find different solutions for things.
JB: That’s the kind of thing you know, like, I think when you have cohesion in the leadership team, personally for me, it is something inspirational to behold. You get this kind of virtuous reinforcing cycle where people are looking out for what’s best for the business and receptive to changing whatever they need to change in order to achieve the goals of the business.
YS: Right, and especially in a world like today were, as we were talking about before, where everything is changing so quickly and technologies are changing and marketing is changing, strategies are changing, just everything is just frenetic and moving, important to be flexible.
JB: I think so, and that’s the point that I was trying to make before about, you know, if we have a hammer then every problem we come across is a nail. And that’s the thing that happens that if I’ve been in a business for a long time or even not, even if I’ve been in leadership for a long time, I might get into this place where I start to think, “I’ve seen it all, I’ve done it all, I know how we should respond.” But for all of those reasons that you just said, that’s not true.
So, I’m not saying that your experience doesn’t count for anything, but now your experience counts for something different because you know what we need to achieve and with genuine curiosity for example, we’re going, “What else is out there that is going to help me achieve it?” And in flexibility of mind, “How do I put all of those things together to come up with a strategy?” And then back to enterprised thinking, which is for the benefit of the business, not just my team. Do you see how they all lock? It’s hard for me sometimes and I’m eternally frustrated that it looks like we’re talking about all these different things when really, we’re talking about one thing.
YS: Right, and just it’s different facets of the same thing.
JB: Yes, like a diamond. I think it’s like a diamond. Is it a diamond that if you cut it in all these different ways and —
YS: And it looks the same!
JB: It’s different…
YS: But it is the same on the inside.
JB: Yeah, that’s the nice way to say it. That’s a really nice way to say it, that, like, the core of it is the leadership mindset but if you look at it in all these different facets, it starts to look like that it’s something different, but it’s not, right?
YS: Yeah, it reflects maybe something different but really…
JB: Look at us go!
YS: It’s all about one light! So, speaking of change, let’s talk about change management.
JB: So, fundamentally, change management is there is change in my business, whatever it may be. It could be a system, it could be a process, it could be a culture, it could be whatever you like, and what the thing we are managing is: how do we bring people along with these change? How do we make sure that, A, our business doesn’t fall apart as we are doing this change. How do we make sure that whatever new systems, processes or whatever it may be that we’re introducing or enhancing our business that are getting buy-in for it, and how do we make sure that we are in a position that we’re communicating this change out in a way, both internally and externally, that will be useful and helpful and beneficial to us.
So the buy-in part of it is, if you don’t have — your leadership team for sure, but — the rest of your team accepting and seeing the wisdom of these ideas, the probability of them implementing it in any way that is likely to succeed is very, very slim indeed. So, the buy-in part is really important and lots of businesses spend a lot of time on, “What is the change and how are we going to roll this change out,” without giving an awful lot of attention to, “And how are we going to make sure that the people who are affected most by this change are taking part in it because they want to and they see the wisdom of it as opposed to because they have to because I’m paying them.”
YS: Right.
JB: The important part about change — or the opportunity, I should say, for change — is that we have the opportunity to create leaders of other people to lead this change. What we often do with Innate Leaders at Outback is we start to go into businesses, we help them form these plans, and then we do what we call a Revolutionary Implementation Strategy. Big word, big phrase, but what I mean by that is, is it possible to roll out this change in such a way that it sends a message to your people that we are operating differently?
So one of the things that you can do there is you can get their feedback and their input from the wider business or by the people who are affected — but not as a consultation in terms of “What do you think about this? “We think it’s great!” “Brilliant!” Or, “What do you think about this?” “We think it’s not that great, we think you should change this, this and this,” and then as a leadership team, you go away and decide, “Well, actually, some of their ideas are not that great. Some of their ideas are good.”
But what about, instead, if you kind of socialize this idea with the wider business or the wider team and you allow them the opportunity to affect naming for change in that change? So, rather than just kind of go “Here is our finished idea, what do you think of it?” Which is basically saying this is our finished idea, you’re going to do it. Rather than that, we go “Here’s kind of our idea as we got it so far, what do you guys think? What holes do you see?”
YS: And then that also, I feel, lets the employee know that their input is valued and that they’re valued.
JB: Yeah, and that’s absolutely, a 100% true, right? So they see that you said to them, “Here’s my idea, it’s not a 100% finished, what do you think?” And then they say, “Well I think you haven’t really thought of this, you haven’t done this, so I think we should be doing this,” and then they see your plan manifestly change because of their input. So if you go back to them with an idea that is effectively, you know, 99% the same as the idea that you gave them in the first place, with a few small tweaks, you haven’t got their buy-in. But if you instead go back to them with an idea that is, you know, 70% your original idea maybe, but 30% change… it has really got to do with your idea changes and flexes, because of their input and they can see the thread of their input in your idea. That’s kind of the first major point of it. If you do that, the teams who are affected by this change go, “Oh wow! Actually, I’m not the victim of this change, I’m actually part of the agent who is making this change happen.”
Another thing that you can do to create buy-in is then, after you got this plan that is influenced by people who likely to be affected by it, you can say to them “So how do you guys think that you want to roll this out?” And you give them the opportunity to start to embrace the idea that, “Actually I can have a role in the implementation of this idea.”
YS: They have a voice.
JB: They have a voice! But they have an action too, right? Because they’re actively engaged in making this idea happen. The subtle thing that starts to happen is if you do that, is people start to feel, “Actually, this isn’t a change that is being imposed on me, this is a change that, first of all, I had input to and that I have responsibility for implementing.” And if you can get people to implement on the points especially they kind of raised, you know now it feels like it’s their change too, and that is kind of the definition of buy-in, right? So now they’re bought into it because it feels like this is part of their change.
YS: And then I feel like they would probably be more likely then to want to do those things.
JB: Yeah!
YS: And to want to be a part of that change because it’s partly their idea.
JB: Absolutely! And I think, you know, that that’s it! You know, what you just said is the key. It feels like their idea and because it feels like their idea, they want the idea to succeed. You know? And, that means that now you have, not just the leadership team championing this idea, but you have your business championing these ideas, and, crucially, the people who are most affected by it.
YS: And then everybody is on sort of the same page.
JB: Yeah, and it feels like we’re on a journey together versus this is what management has done to us.
YS: Right. Well, thank you so much again, Joe, for sitting down with me and taking the time to chat!
JB: No problem. Thank you for the offer! I appreciate it!
YS: Oh, my pleasure! And thank you for sharing your wonderful insight.
YS: And that’s it for this episode of Outback Talks! Thank you again to our three special guests — Jules, Lyndon and Joe — for taking the time to sit with me and, of course, thank you for listening.
Outback Team Building & Training helps organizations across North America build relationships through memorable team building, training and consulting experiences, and our team has been recommended by over 14,000 corporate groups in the United States and Canada.
For more expert advice on team building and training trends, visit the downloadable resources section of our website at outbackteambuilding.com to download your free copy of Team Building and Training Trends for 2019, and don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever else you may listen to your podcast. Until next time! I’m Yasmine and this is Outback Talks: The Employee Engagement Podcast.