Team Building Success - Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training Section
Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training Navigation
Corporate Training Videos Team Building Games Sale
Christian Team Building Activities For All Ages
Team Building Indoor Games
Games To Play For Team Building
Team Building Exercises + Icebreakersfive Things In Common
Atlanta Team Building
Student Council Team Building Activity
Corporate Team Building Outings
Team Building Exercises Communication
Corporate Team Building Devon
Free Online Team Building Excorsises
Team Building + Create A Country
Free Team Building Questionnaire
Business And Team Building
Team Building Puzzles
Team Building In Las Vegas
Team Building And Nursing
Games Ideas Team Building
Team Building For Work
Lego Activity And Team Building
Team Building Uk
Team Building Workshop
Make A Recipe Without Talking Team Building Activity
Free Team Building Activity Ideas
Convey Your Message 
Main Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training sponsors
Latest Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training link added
INSERT YOUR OWN BANNER HERE
Welcome to Team Building Success
For more information and special deals related to any of the issues on this page, place your cursor over the double-underlined links. All information supplied by Kontera.com
Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training Article
This is a selection among article about Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for further reading, click here.
How to Leverage Your Strengths for Peak PerformanceDr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler
Ask almost any business leader how to most effectively develop people and build teamwork and you’ll hear, “tap into employees’ strengths.” Yet when it comes to their own careers, many managers still focus the majority of their personal development efforts on shoring up areas of weakness.
Sometimes this is due to well meaning critiques by superiors. Other times managers moving up the career ladder try to emulate those who have gone before.
While all managers need to hone their communication and people skills, learning these skills and adding knowledge is simple. Recognizing, developing and deliberately leveraging ones own strengths is more difficult.
Many programs are available to help the ambitious manager improve performance, but a review of typical business practices points to a common fallacy. Whether in individual development plans, performance reviews or 360 evaluations, efforts to help people change for the better often focus more on weaknesses than on strengths.
From our earliest years we are programmed to believe that our greatest potential for growth is in our areas of greatest deficiency. Think about it. If your child received an A in English and a C in Math, where would you focus most of your attention?
This is not necessarily wrong. In fact, everyone can and must develop a basic competency in multiple important areas. The problem is that this philosophy can perpetuate the focus on weakness long after basic competency has been achieved.
Social psychologists have found that focusing on strengths leads to higher performance, greater productivity and increased satisfaction. In fact, honing your abilities to their greatest potential can essentially make your weaknesses irrelevant.
Today’s business environment offers many more opportunities for advancement than ever before. But to take advantage of these opportunities, you need to recognize your areas of greatest competency, work to develop those to their fullest potential, then match your strengths to the right challenge and the right role.
To maximize your effectiveness, follow the example of high performing organizations. The most successful companies identify their core competencies, then work to develop those in order to maximize their potential. Functions that the organization performs less well are outsourced, markets that don’t fit core competencies are abandoned and divisions that don’t add to the company’s strengths or advance its purpose are sold or spun off.
Attaining the next level of performance involves identifying and enhancing your core competencies -- your strengths -- rather than attempting to remedy every weakness. Delegate every possible activity that doesn’t fit your strengths, and only attend to areas of weakness that stand in the way of doing what you do best.
First Determine Your Strengths
While it seems that most of us should be aware of our strengths, we often confuse strengths – what we do well - with traits (our personality characteristics) or work habits (the conditions under which we perform). Many of us also take our strengths for granted. In doing what seems absolutely natural and logical to us, we fail to recognize that we are actually creating outcomes far superior to what others might have expected.
Harvard psychologist and pioneer of Multiple Intelligence theory, Dr. Howard Gardner, points out that people have many more areas of intelligence – or capacities to produce useful outcomes – than previously realized. Where traditional I.Q. testing measures linguistic and mathematical ability, we now know that other abilities such as interpersonal intelligence – the ability to understand and relate well to others – and spatial intelligence – the capacity to create or plan in multiple dimensions - can have a significant value.
So how do you determine your greatest strengths?
One way is to examine your own past and present performance and try to discern a pattern of successful behavior. What comes easily to you that might be more difficult for others – negotiating a tough contract, analyzing financial data, creating an advertising strategy, leading a team?
Or you could use feedback analysis as described by management guru Peter Drucker in his book management Challenges for the 21st Century. Whenever you undertake a key activity or make an important decision, write down your expectations. Then, a few months later, reexamine your expectations and the actual results you achieved.
Colleagues, family members and friends can also serve as resources for helping you determine your strengths. In the January 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, management professors Laura Roberts and Gretchen Spreitzer and their colleagues propose a Reflected Best Self Exercise, in which you actively solicit feedback from those who know you well. Critical to this exercise, however, is that the feedback focus on describing the specific areas where you have excelled – not on the areas where you could use more work.
Match Your Strengths to Your Tasks
Once you know your strengths, you need to figure out how best to use them. It used to be that organizations managed the careers of their people, but today that obligation belongs to each one of us. You have the responsibility to know yourself and determine where and how you would perform best.
Often the difference between success and failure is not learning additional skills but rather figuring out how, given your strengths, you can adjust yourself to the demands of your specific position.
This is particularly important when the nature of your job changes. Jack was a star sales manager for an educational products company. His ability to form strong connections with his team and develop his people resulted in lower turnover and significantly increased sales.
Jack also worked well with his colleagues, leading brainstorming sessions that resulted in a new integrated product and service offering – with significant profit margins for the company. Jack’s abilities both in the office and in the field caught the attention of company executives who saw him as a natural leader. When the opportunity came for significant career advancement, Jack jumped at it.
Jack had the advantage of following in the footsteps of Ellen, an admired veteran. Unlike Jack, Ellen had risen through the ranks of finance. She spent three weeks helping Jack transition into the new position before leaving to head operations in Europe.
Yet a few months into his new job as regional manager, Jack found himself becoming more and more frustrated with his work. He productivity was down and his former sense of eagerness to get to work each morning had disappeared.
As we worked with Jack, we began to see that his strengths were largely interpersonal and creative. He shone as he worked with his team, made presentations and coached his direct reports. But most of his work now involved written reports, formal strategy sessions and routine management tasks that had little to do with Jack’s greatest competencies.
After pinpointing his strengths, Jack began the work of redesigning his job so that it fit better with his
abilities. He began to spend more time in the field, visiting customers and prospects to gain a first-hand understanding of their needs.
He used his natural team-building and creative abilities in meetings that brought together representatives of the sales and product design departments to brainstorm ways of better serving customer needs. He found an assistant who excelled at writing reports and organizing data and began delegating these tasks as much as possible.
With this new focus on his areas of greatest competency, Jack felt a renewed satisfaction in his work. His productivity and performance improved greatly. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and while there will be many who encourage you to work on your deficiencies, the key to high performance is to look for what you do uncommonly well and focus there.
Armed with this self-knowledge, you will better be able to determine how you can best contribute -- both now and in the next phase of your career. Your greatest successes will come from placing yourself in a position where your strengths can meet opportunities for their regular expression. And, as maximizing your strength becomes a habit, you’ll be in a better position to help those around you maximize their abilities, leading to greater productivity and satisfaction for you, your team and your organization.
© 2005 Dr. Robert Karlsberg & Dr. Jane Adler
About the Author
Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler are senior leadership consultants and founders of Strategic Leadership LLC. They work with senior executives to maximize performance, facilitate transitions and accelerate major change initiatives. Contact them at 301-530-5611 or visit http://www.PsychologyofPerformance.com
Other Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training related resources
INSERT YOUR OWN BANNER HERE!
Los Angeles Corporate Team Building Training News
Portland Timbers begin training in Los Angeles - OregonLive.com
 OregonLive.com | Portland Timbers begin training in Los Angeles OregonLive.com They will open preseason play with a game against the Los Angeles Galaxy Feb 7. Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian The Portland Timbers will compete against a team other than themselves for the first time on Tuesday after two weeks of training in Portland. |
Lakers' Bryant always draws a crowd - Philadelphia Inquirer
 SB Nation Los Angeles | Lakers' Bryant always draws a crowd Philadelphia Inquirer By Marc Narducci Kobe Bryant will make his only local appearance of the year on Monday when the Los Angeles Lakers visit the Wells Fargo Center, making this a big event on the 76ers' calendar even though Bryant's team has been far from dominant this ... Lakers Vs. Jazz: L.A. Continues Road Trip In Utah Utah Jazz's Earl Watson says 'emotion' took over against Lakers Lakers Struggle Down the Stretch, Fall to Jazz in Utah |
Goodell: NFL might expand to 34 teams to include Los Angeles - USA TODAY
 USA TODAY | Goodell: NFL might expand to 34 teams to include Los Angeles USA TODAY The Chargers, Rams and Vikings are all feverishly looking for new or improved buildings in their respective cities. But perhaps there won't be a need for any of them to move to NFL-starved Los Angeles after all (though some say the league is more ... NFL Commissioner Talks Before 2012 Super Bowl XLVI Could Los Angeles Get Two NFL Teams?: A Fan's Take NFL commissioner says match-up for London game unclear |
NHL relocation to Seattle: Will new arena, Coyotes' plight bring pucks to ... - Yahoo! Sports (blog)
 Yahoo! Sports (blog) | NHL relocation to Seattle: Will new arena, Coyotes' plight bring pucks to ... Yahoo! Sports (blog) According to the Times, 44-year-old Seattle native Christopher Hansen "approached the city about his desire to buy an NBA team and build an arena south of Safeco Field." He's a hedge-fund manager in San Francisco, and this is more than a notion: The ... Sports arena |
Clippers-Wizards Preview - ESPN
 FOXSports.com | Clippers-Wizards Preview ESPN The Los Angeles Clippers have put together a talented roster that's currently sitting atop the Pacific Division. That roster is about to get a little deeper. One day after acquiring veteran forward Kenyon Martin, the Clippers open a six-game road ... Hochman: Blake Griffin's dandy dunk sets high standard in NBA Wizards should follow Clippers' path from NBA's abyss PRE-GAME REPORT |
End of Armstrong case raises questions - ESPN
End of Armstrong case raises questions ESPN By Bonnie D. Ford A 20-month-long federal criminal investigation of Lance Armstrong and his former professional cycling teams ended Friday with the unusual announcement by the Los Angeles-based United States Attorney's Office that the government was ... |
Hip to be a Clip: Clippers flying high atop Pacific Division behind All-Stars ... - Washington Post
 USA TODAY | Hip to be a Clip: Clippers flying high atop Pacific Division behind All-Stars ... Washington Post LOS ANGELES — The bad old days are becoming a distant memory for the high-flying Los Angeles Clippers. They lead the Pacific Division, have landed Chris Paul and Blake Griffin as starters on the All-Star team and in the process have stolen, ... Lob City (Clips) back in Swat Lake City (Jazz) Clippers Vs. Jazz: Chris Paul Leads L.A. To First Win In Utah Since 2003 Utah Jazz shootaround — Al Jefferson says he'll play vs. Los Angeles Clippers |