Dying People’s Top 5 Regrets

 

Dying-People-Top-5-Regrets

There was an interesting article titled “Dying people’s top 5 regrets revealed and they may just change your life” on the Mirror website.  It was written by a nurse, Bronnie Ware, who took care of patients who were dying.  The top five regrets were, I wish I:

  1. Let myself be happier
  2. Stayed in touch with friends
  3. Expressed feelings
  4. Focused on work that matters… not busy work
  5. Lived a true life not what others expected
standardApril 7Tom SalonekLife Balance

Building a Best Place to Work with the Final Four

Intertech-Employees-Watching-Final-Four

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Above, Intertech employees taking in some March Madness)

There was an interesting article titled “Watch March Madness at work?” on CNN.com.  It shares that viewing parties, like watching the Final Four, help create employee engagement.  The article states “Studies suggest three factors are essential to the development of authentic, meaningful friendships: familiarity (being around the same colleague often), similarity (finding commonalities in your background), and self-disclosure (revealing personal information about yourself every now and then, and having your co-worker do the same).”

The article goes on to say that we’re more likely to give our best when we’re engaged and have friends at work.  In short, we’ll give our best because we don’t want to let them down.

standardApril 2Tom SalonekHappy Employees

What a Leader Does in 25 Seconds

What does a leader do?  Take 25 seconds and listen to the interview with John Chambers.

standardMarch 26Tom SalonekLeadership

Virtues of Virtual Teams – Technology (Part 5 of 5)

Virtual-Team-TechnologiesIf you’ve been following this series on virtual teams, you know I’ve been sharing highlights from the Harvard Business Review article (12/14) article “Getting Virtual Teams Right” by consultant and business author Keith Ferrazzi. So far we’ve examined the importance of having the right team, sound leadership and the right touchpoints.

What’s left? Technology of course. Without the right technology virtual teams simply do not work. Or, as author Ferrazzi so eloquently puts it: “In our experience, even those with top-notch virtual teams—those with the most talented workers, the finest leadership and frequent touchpoints—can be felled by poor technology.”

Among the components virtual teams should use:

  • Conference calling—“Look for systems that don’t require access codes but do record automatically or with a single click and facilitate or automate transcription. . . Also consider one-on-one and group videoconferencing, since visual cues help establish empathy and trust.” At Intertech, we use UberConference.
  • Direct calling and text messaging—Nothing beats picking up a phone and talking directly with someone on the team. Texting comes in second. We like the Microsoft tool Lync.  Not only does it allow us to indicate when we’re “in” the office (versus on a break), but it facilitates “conversations” over the web, including voice and text, and allows people to see each others’ desktops, which makes it easy for two virtual team mates to work together in real time on a particular issue.
  • Discussion forums or virtual rooms—At Intertech, Slack allows all team members to share ideas, files, and other artifacts… in a searchable repository.  According to Ferrazzi, “scholars call this type of collaboration ‘messy talk’ and say it’s critical for completing complex projects.”

At the end of the day, virtual teams can save time, reduce hassles and bring valuable intellectual resources to regions where they may be sparse. Following the strategies I’ve described in this series on virtual team can do a long way toward making virtual teams highly successful.

standardMarch 24Tom SalonekIT