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Category: Uncategorized
From putting on your slippers in the morning, choosing the right setting on the washing machine, to reviewing complex data sheets – we make a thousand different decisions on a daily basis.
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Effective Employee Mental Health Training For Lasting Change
Continue reading “Effective Employee Mental Health Training For Lasting Change”
Business acumen is not one skill; it is an amalgamation of many skills. Simply put, business acumen is how keen and quick you are in dealing with risks and opportunities in business to lead to a favourable outcome. Of all the skills it encompasses, two stand out in particular –
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Program
IT Consulting | Virtual Team Building
Objective
Due to the high demand of Digitalization, the team had been working very hard during the 6 weeks of confinement. It was indeed tough to maintain a balance between the highly demanding work, and the family for most employees. Despite that, the team had been able to deliver good results and had been very committed.
Hence the head of the department has been very keen to offer them a small break out of the daily routine work.
Background
Our client is one of the premier organizations in the IT Consulting space. They regroup people with years of experience in the things they do best, “Deliver the Goods.” The company helps their clients sustain and extend their IT strategies and objectives whilst effectively mitigating the IT risks which may arise.
The key services offered by the company include: IT Strategy & Governance, Project Management, System Integration, Big Data Analytics, IT Assurance and Cyber Security.The company has worked on projects in Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
Solution
After internal brainstorming and discussions with the client, the engagement finalized was:
Actual Execution:
PHASE 1 : BOMS Challenge – for the smaller team
How it works?
Think of it like the Ironman fitness challenge. The buzzer goes off and the action starts! A series of challenges – one after the other, that engage different aspects – Body, Mind & Sole. In case you are wondering why this is called the BOMS Challenge, the previous sentence would give you a hint. A funny, crazy acronym that just stuck with all our participants and us!
BOMS (Body, Mind and Sole) is an activity with a combination of physical, mental and running challenges. The buzz for the activity was generated as the session started – with a few fun energizers! This got the participants primed up, in a competitive mode and ready to go, the minute the stop clock started.
Teams working in smaller groups had 15 minutes to crack an assortment of challenges – involving finding different items from the house, solving riddles, and also doing some “crazy” things! The challenge was done in two rounds – and it was nice to see teams coming back with resonating war cries that built up the energy!
Before they could realize it, 45 minutes had zipped by! Finally, the scores were unveiled and the winning team was announced. The team came out of the whole experience totally energized!
Impact:
The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive – sample a few:
Thanks FocusU for an engaging and fun session. I never imagined we can do a mini team building in a virtual environment. It’s a great booster, especially when we are all working remotely. It’s an excellent way to connect to our team members and know them better. Thanks again to your team and you. Keep up the good work.
Head of department
Thank you to you and the team for such a lovely time we had virtually. Never thought it will be so fun and that we will have so much of laughter. Hope we can do this activity with my whole team. I’ll speak to the management team tomorrow. Cheers.
HR Executive
PHASE 2 : #Donotrushchallenge – for the larger team engagement
Thanks to the impact of the Phase 1 session, done for a team of 12 participants, the Head of Department decided to go in for the engagement for the whole department of 60 participants.
This time though, the activity chosen was #Dontrushchallenge as this was trendy and had gone viral on social media. It was also felt that this activity would allow the team members to experience something different & new while challenging them to get out of their comfort zones. The key messaging to be landed was also that even at such times, where there was social distancing, they could all still be virtually connected through a fun activity and experience!
The entire session was kicked off with a few virtual energizers to get everyone into the right spirit for a challenge like this. Once everyone was sufficiently charged up, our Facilitators explained the ground rules and parameters for the #Donotrushchallenge – and then moved the participants into different break-out rooms!
The challenge was simple: Each and every participant had to shoot a video of 15 sec – with some conditions and parameters of course. Participants together brainstormed different ideas and recorded their video clips on smartphones. Use of props, help from family members was encouraged while shooting of the videos. The whole process of putting ideas into action, creating videos was thoroughly absorbing for all participants.
For example, one of the teams that had “Keeping Fit” as a theme, came up with a storyline of eating chocolates in one clip, and doing exercises in another. Each group had a unique storyline illustrated uniquely too!
Like in the teaser session that was run earlier, time just flew by. Finally came the wow moment for all the teams: Showcasing of all the final videos live and having team members to vote for them!! The excitement at this stage was palpable.
The activity was brought to a close by a meaningful debrief at the end of the session, where several themes related to good teamwork cropped up. Here were a few:
• Ownership: Every team had to come up with their own video. However, the quality of the video depended on the extent of ownership taken by each and every team member.
• Resilience: In uncertain times, the success of a team depends on how resilient they are. And a team’s resilience depends on how effectively they can tap onto each other’s strength, ask for help and support each other.
• Situational leadership: Natural leaders emerged during the course of the activity. We used the observations to debrief around the importance of situational leadership at the workplace. Leadership is not through the title we hold, but rather through the actions we take. Anyone can take up leadership through their actions at the workplace.
Impact:
Like in Phase 1, even after Phase 2, we received a lot of positive feedback from the participants that gave us the sense that the intervention had made an impact on them.
Here are a few we received:
• Thank you. It was a pleasure participating. We did enjoy ourselves
• We had a great time doing the video. Thanks
• Good job team❤️.We might be not the best.. but we did our best.. that is more important! We enjoyed
• Thanks FOCUSU. Much needed fun during the confinement
• We indeed had a great time together. Thank you FocusU team!
• Hi FocusU team ☺️. Today was really a refreshing change and break from the routine life. I fully enjoyed myself. Thanks again ✌
• Keep up the good work! Thanks to the whole FocusU team
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Program
Cook-off Challenge session done virtually
Objective
To run a teambuilding session for the team virtually!
Background
IndianOil Institute of Petroleum Management, or IiPM as it’s popularly known among IOCians, is the apex learning & development institute of IndianOil, the nation’s flagship energy major and the largest commercial enterprise in the country. The only one of its kind in the petroleum sector, IiPM aims to create a vibrant bridge of knowledge managers to lead the Indian energy companies.
Over the years, IiPM has grown from strength to strength and helped the Corporation in developing the leadership required to steer the company ahead with clarity, confidence & courage.
Solution
The idea to do this was triggered off by the ED of IiPM, Mr.C.K.Tiwari. “In the current scenario of the lockdown, how can we engage with employees in a manner that brings them together and also ensures they have fun together?” that was the question posed to us.
Various activity options were evaluated by IiPM. Finally, the Cook-Off Challenge was chosen, since it was thought that an activity that engaged both the employees and their spouses at home was required.
The key idea of the activity was for the participants in their (virtual) teams to cook a full course meal with a main course, dessert, starter and a mocktail, and of course in the process to feel connected with each other.
Execution of the activity:
Time – 20 mins
• At the scheduled time, participants logged in to the session via Zoom
• The facilitator started the session by welcoming the participants and kicked off the session with a few fun virtual energizers!
• The lead facilitator then briefed the participants about the activity, along with objectives, instructions & end goals
• One of the main objectives included that the teams prepare an entire meal, from starters, to main course, also a dessert and a mocktail.
• The group was divided into 5 teams of 5 participants each, at random.
• Once the activity started, teams could discuss, plan and strategize as to what each individual would cook
Time – 60 mins
• Every team got 60 mins to complete the challenge.
• Each team was also given two recipes (from another group) by the FocusU Faciitators. The ask was that the teams cook, in addition to the full course meal, at least one of the recipes from the two in order to gain bonus points.
• Family members of the guest were also a part of the challenge. They were encouraged to take pictures of the dishes being prepared and also capture the overall action in their kitchens and share the pictures too.
Time – 30 mins
• After the stipulated time for the challenge, came the time for the debrief.
• The Facilitator invited participants to share their experience about the session – the challenges of working together as a team virtually, while having fun together.
• The discussion was guided towards intended outcomes of team creativity, collaboration, team morale in times of social distancing and working from home.
• The session was brought to a conclusion by announcing the winning team and the first and the second runners up. To do this, the pictures of the dishes were put together by the FocusU team and were shown to the participants, who decided on the winning teams through a simple poll based on creativity and presentation.
• The participants logged off with not just a great virtual experience and team memories to cherish, but also winning certificates and certificates of awesomeness!
A few points that emerged in the debrief discussion:
1. Team bonding – Participants shared that they had a good time connecting with their colleagues and their family informally and that it was a refreshing experience.
2. Coping with ambiguity – Several guests mentioned that when they decided on their recipes, they were under the impression that they would be required to prepare the same. They were taken by surprise when they were asked to cook something entirely different. It took some helping, problem solving and collaboration to decide who will cook what.
3. Helping each other – One of the behaviours that emerged was leveraging different people in a team in figuring out what their strengths were and dividing responsibilities accordingly.
4. Fun needs to be optimally challenging – Participants enjoyed figuring out which team member could prepare a certain dish taking into stock the availability of resources in the respective homes!
Check out the video from the program out here.
Impact
Here is what some of the participants had to say after the workshop (verbatim):
Dilip Kumar This challenge proved orderliness is possible in chaos.
ED, IIPM: Shri.CK Tiwari My sincere compliments to FocusU for energising the IOCians and their family members in a different, one of its kind competition. Surely, they would have sharpened their team skills.
Ratna Singh This garland of amazing memories will be cherished throughout our lives. Mirth and joy was at the zenith directly from the heart of hearts!!!!
Urvija Bajai What wonderful team spirit displayed by all! Am sure this would transfer to the workplace setting too. Great!
Vineet Kumar Thanks to everyone I really loved it.. you made my lockdown My first such event and it was really goooooood and scintillating, you guys gave me a new cocktail drink- “The Heaven’s Call”, which I will cherish for a lifetime… Keep rocking
Vaibhav & Kashish Mathur It was awesome and a fabulous idea of involving all family members in this cook off challenge, making it quite some fun and innovative.
Ajay Kumar I was excited, then surprised, engaged and now amazed. This was a fully packed competition. Like it and want to live it again.
Juliana Haloi Cooking is just more than food. It’s the whole family bonding over good food, fun conversations and togetherness. Thank you Sir. I am indeed privileged and humbled to receive this certificate. I am grateful to IiPM for providing us the platform for showcasing our culinary skills and I also thank my team members for their combined efforts and coordination
Deepika Soni We came…..we got together……it was an endlessly-delicious journey.
Mayurika Patwari Working towards common goal, building strong teams & coming out with delicious results. This was it.
Rizwan Ali My first ever such participation. Lots of enthusiasm, fun and interaction with people from different location. It boosted my interest on cooking. Thanks a lot for making this wonderful event IIPM & FocusU.
Neeraj Kr Singh These Garland of amazing memories will be cherished throughout our lives! Mirth and laughter, ecstasy & joy, inspiration & motivation, zeal & passionate quench for excellence and above all team play was at its zenith which made the show one of the most brilliant, liked family engagement program ever organised by IiPM under the creative & dynamic leadership of our beloved ED & IIPM Head, Shri C K Tiwari Sir and team FocusU making it a grand supreme success!!!!
K K Chandra Thanks to the IiPM team for organizing this kind of innovative exercise.
Dilip Kumar Thank you Sir and team. Hats off to the entire IIPM team to conduct such a great event in this pandemic time. Thanks for the opportunity and looking forward for such events in future
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Program
HUL Market Immersion And Team Engagement Workshop
Objective
To engage 120 professionals from the Homecare division of HUL in an activity that serves the purpose of both team building and spreading brand awareness.
Solution
The opportunity was brought to us by one of our favourite event partners – Shobiz, who were working closely with HUL on this engagement. The brief they came to us was as stated above.
While exploring various options along with Shobiz, we figured that in our discussions about the home care products and how they get used, the word ‘housewife’ cropped up several times. This led to a question – How can we make a difference for the housewives belonging to lower-middle-class families? And from there was born “The Home Make-over Challenge”.
The broad idea was this: To identify houses in the city from the lower middle class strata and challenge the team, broken into smaller units to give them a make-over using mostly (but not restricted to) HUL Homecare products.
The roll-out involved different steps:
⦁ Step 1: Ideation
How do we deliver to the client brief and yet bring something more to it? Some fizz as like to call it. In this case, it came from the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) angle of the whole engagement.
⦁ Step 2: Planning & Preparation
Ideas are dime a dozen. At the end of the day, it comes down to the rigour in planning and preparation. We set out on the streets of Jaipur, where the HUL team offsite was scheduled to do a recce of possible households who would be amenable to an engagement like this. It was a revelation of sorts. The trust levels in our society is so low because of people always trying to pull a fast one, that we had to contact 3 times as many houses to shortlist and identify 10 houses, which the teams would work on.
⦁ Step 3: Getting our co-conspirators on board
At home, the wife is generally the boss. To be able to pull off something so audacious, we had to first get the husbands to secretly collaborate with us. Brave husbands are few and far between. And yet we did finally manage to find this intrepid species. Their role as co-conspirators was to find plausible reasons for sending their wives out during the make-over of their homes. From visits to beauty parlors, shopping, to complimentary coupons – which were arranged by the HUL team.
⦁ Step 4: Actual Execution
Vision without action is fantasy. So it came down to the D-Day execution. On the day of the workshop – the session started with some interesting energizers to get the ball rolling. Once the team was sufficiently energized we randomly split them into 10 groups and handed them their challenge for the next 4 hours. Jaws dropped in awe and anticipation. But the excitement was palpable. We knew that this would be one of our most joyful experiences so far.
All the teams had pre-designated houses and were shown pre-captured video of the house that further helped them broadly plan all that they needed to procure for the makeover.
Each team was handed a virtual budget, which they used to buy the material from the shops we had set up with all the household material that was pre-purchased. This included curtains, flower vase, lamps, bed sheets, cushion covers, plants, cleaning mop, Vim, Rin, Domex, etc.
After the procurement, teams headed out with a mission to transform someone’s house. The next 3 hours saw the teams getting their hands dirty in the execution of this holistic activity and giving their best. The time pressure was real here because the woman of the house can be kept away from her kingdom, but only for a limited period of time. Work happened at a frantic pace, with everyone working as a team.
Finally, came the moment of truth. The housewives knocked on the doors and the sheer look of surprise, delight, and wonder on the faces of the women when they entered the house made this challenge worth all the effort. All this was of course recorded discreetly by our team with handycams.
Impact
Here is what Mayur Thakkar, the Account Director, Shobiz Experiential Communications had to say after this workshop:
As the name says F-Fantastic, O-Outstanding, C-Confident, U-Useful, S-Safety – I have been working with this Team from the past 4 years and trust me they have surpassed the Quality & the way Team Building Activities that are conducted. They get into the minutest details at all times, they plan well in advance and manage the entire event with so ease, they you really don’t have to ask anything what’s going to happen next. An amazing Team with brilliant concept and assured outcomes.
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Introduction
Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.
His book, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” Dale speaks about making realistic changes that can help one to stop worrying. He mentions in the preface of this wonderful book as to how he decided to write this book to help himself. He was a self-proclaimed unhappy lad in the happy city of New York. He also mentions that later in life, while he prepared himself to teach adults, he realized that one of the biggest problems faced by the everyone is that they do not know how to handle their worries, and this eats up the joy of living. He mentions that there is no textbook that teaches one to deal with their worries, and therefore he decided to write one himself.
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