Tuesday had been a mentally challenging day for me, in a positive way.  Still, as I left work and headed for home, long after the time I intended to, my mind needed to decompress.  I was flipping through various radio stations when I came across Oprah’s voice.  Something about her tone made me stop and listen.  She was teaching herLifeclass and the guest was Bishop TD Jakes.  I didn’t know who he was, but his booming voice captivated me.  It turns out that Bishop Jakes is the senior pastor at The Potter’s House, a 30,000 strong non-denominational church in Dallas.

He was speaking about mothers who have not had a good role model for a variety of reasons when I heard him say, “You have to surround yourself by greatness in order to be great.”  His point was that just because someone did not have a good role model as a mother, as long as they surround themselves with great mothers now, they will learn to be great mothers.

You have to surround yourself by greatness in order to be great.

The power of those simple words spoke volumes to me because I believe them.  They apply in so many ways:

• You want to be a great leader? Surround yourself with great leaders who you can emulate and learn from.
• You want to be better at your job?  Surround yourself with others in your field who push themselves to success so that you can learn how they internally motivate themselves, how they train, how they reach the heights they reach.
• You want to be a better parent?  Associate with parents who make time for their kids, who participate in their interests and who show their love and support openly.

• feel valued
• be able to provide creative, innovative results
• grow their skills so they can progress to the next level in the organization

In fact, companies who do not offer training opportunities often find that they have significant retention issues.

If you are a leader and have little to no training budget, there are ways to offer development to your team members by taking advantage of free,  online resources.  Here are some ideas of how to offer development with zero budget:

• Leader as a trainer-  As the leader of the team, your plate is likely quite full.  However, if you can commit to routinely carve out time so that you personally train your team, they will respond positively to your commitment.  For me, this may mean training my team on coaching skills, communication, writing, presentation skills or even “how to” sessions on human resources and social media platforms.
• Conference session replays-  Most industries have numerous conferences and today, these conferences are beginning to offer  either live session streaming (for free) or recorded replays of conference sessions.  One tactic I use is to ask each team member to watch a different session then report back to the rest of the team at an upcoming meeting with information on the session and the key learning points.  If it seems valuable to the larger group, it can than easily be added to each person’s development plan.
• Podcasts-  With sites like BlogtalkRadio.com and other online podcast resources it is easy to find industry-related podcasts that take thirty minutes to an hour.  Since many employees listen to music at work, why not encourage them to listen to a podcast then come together as a team for a brief discussion on the topic?  It’s a great way for them to share ideas and opinions and learn from each other and you.
• Articles-  Information abounds on the internet, so take advantage.   Find several articles and assign one to each employee.  Give them a week to read the article and come up with some talking points for the team to discuss.  Again, it opens up discussion and sharing of ideas.
• Book Reviews-  Possibly the most “old school” approach to personal training, but still entirely effective if used properly.  Most leaders have a bookshelf full of leadership and business books.  Why not ask each team member to take one and summarize the key learning points of the book?  That team member can then become a discussion leader on that book topic at an upcoming team meeting.

Team learning is about opening people up to talking about issues and how to find new approaches.  By giving the nudge on different ways to find current information, you will encourage individual and team development and even with little or no budget,  you and the organization will reap the benefits of better retention and more energized, educated staff.

What tactics do you use with your team?

According to the article, “Sound waves travel through the air into the ears and buzz the eardrums and bones in the middle ears. To decode the vibration, your brain transforms that mechanical energy into electrical energy, sending the signal to its cerebral cortex — a hub for thought, perception and memory. Within that control tower, the auditory cortex forwards the message on to brain centers that direct emotion, arousal, anxiety, pleasure and creativity. And there’s another stop upstairs: that electrical cue hits the hypothalamus which controls heart rate and respiration, plus your stomach and skin nerves, explaining why a melody may give you butterflies or goose bumps. Of course, all this communication happens far faster than a single drum beat.”

I’m wondering how this applies to our lives at work.  There are work environments that incorporate music and some that don’t.  Some have harsh, loud music (often found in retail stores like Hollister and Abercrombie) and others play soft Muzak (doctor’s offices, dentists, etc.)  Office work environments may allow employees to play music softly at their desk or in their office.

Effects On Daily Performance

The fact that certain types of music can stimulate areas of our brain that affect perception and memory is fascinating.  There are so many companies that struggle with ways to improve employee performance, yet not once in my career have I ever thought about how incorporating music into the work environment may positively impact employee performance.

Think of the possibilities.  If you have a design company where creativity is valued, playing music to stimulate that attribute could be very beneficial.  Perhaps in a professional services firm you would want to play music to relieve anxiety and send positive messages that improve memory and attention to detail.  The opportunity seems endless.

How many of you play music at work?  What kind and how do you think it affects your performance?

*reworked from the dusty archive…

http://worknotes.com/NY/Scotia/SPACE/ap4.aspx

There are two ways that our brains attempt to organize information:  visual-spatial and auditory- sequential.  Let’s take a moment and think about what it means to have visual spatial preference.  This is a holistic view or approach.  People who lean to this type of thinking tend to see the big picture.  They are able to pick out the finer details from that picture too in order to understand the whole.  It is a non-linear way to think in which time may not restrict the idea or solution.  These are the people who can come up with creative solutions to problems.

People who favor auditory- sequential learning will be the ones who need to know a timeline and then follow steps, in order, to get to the solution.  They will use deductive reasoning to analyze the information they are given or that they collect.  It is a highly structured way of looking at solutions. Most of us use a combination of these in order to solve problems each day.  But, in order to get the truly innovative and revolutionary ideas, you will need to find someone who can lean to the visual-spacial side more.

Let me give you a personal example.  When I was in the 4th grade, my class was put through testing to find out who could be part of the STRETCH class.  This class was made up of 4th- 6th graders who would spend time each day exploring creative solutions to world problems.  One of the test questions was to take a circle and add lines to make something.  Most of my peers added lines to make the circle look like a clock.  I added curvy lines on each side to make mine look like a lemon.  I’m not sure if that was a “right” answer, but it helped get me into the STRETCH class.  I’d like to think it was because I was able to see something that many of the other kids didn’t.  They went with what was a more logical answer.  I went with something more creative.

In the workplace, we’re given problems to solve and projects to lead.  Can you imagine that the type of thinking the leader has will have a direct impact on your solution?  It certainly will.  And, the team that the leader puts together will also have a strong impact on the method used to find that solution in addition to contributing to the creativity (or lack of) of the solution.  Think that through the next time you have a task or project to assign.  Here are some questions to ask:

• What type of leader will you need on the project?  Do they need to be more creative, or find a more traditional solution?
• What are the time constraints?  If that is critical, you may need to choose someone who has a stronger auditory- sequential focus.
• Are you trying to “best” your competition?  Choose a visual-spatial leader here because he/ she will think big picture and foster more creativity.

What type of learner are you?  Are you a blend, or do you tend to lean one way or the other?  Share in the comments because I’d like to see if you think that has an impact on the type of leader you are.

Oh, and if you want to try some fun games to test your ability on being a visual-spatial learner, check out Happy Neuron.

**Sharing this post from last year**

• You have to give a critical look at how you interact with this employee.
• You have to take ownership for what is working as well as what is not.
• You have to figure out when and how to modify your behavior to elicit different responses from your staff or colleagues.

You cannot change others, so don’t focus your time there.  If you rethink your approach to the person and try another way, it will elicit a different reaction.  It still may be a negative one, however, a majority of the time it throws that person off enough that they are more likely to actually show more respect or at least listen to advice on how to perform better at their job.  They ultimately have to take personal ownership for their behavior.  Managing others is not about how we get someone else to change.  It’s about how we change and adapt our approach for maximum success with many different personalities.