Ensure a positive team atmosphere!

Modern working life can often be stressful and challenging. People experience external challenges as a burden when they feel they have no control over them and do not believe they have sufficient resources to cope with the stress of everyday life. But there are ways in which you can make your working day stress-free.

The rapid technological change brought about by the digital transformation, the flood of ambiguous information, a large number of vacancies to be filled and an increasing shortage of skilled labour are just a few examples of how the demands of the modern working world are constantly increasing. This leads to mental and/or physical overload for employees and managers.

We hear and read a lot about topics such as "self-management", "mental health", "resilience" and "inner world". We are looking for help to better cope with today's demands. A recent study by Techniker Krankenkasse shows that a third of Germans sometimes feel stressed and a quarter even feel this way frequently.

In today's polarized world, conflict is inevitable. This is especially true in the workplace, where teams are often made up of people with diverse backgrounds, values, and perspectives. While conflict can be disruptive, it can also be an opportunity for growth and learning. Team coaching can help teams to resolve conflict in a constructive way and emerge stronger as a result.

Are Sales people coachable at all?

While B2C sales are very often product driven, focusing on the large consumer target market and maximizing the value of one single transaction, B2B sales are relationship based, very often with a very focused target market and aiming to maximize the long-term relationship value. While B2C relies to a great extent on the image created through marketing and tries to trigger an emotional buying decision, B2B sales are - at least on the face of it -characterized by rational buying decisions based on business value.

Since the 1950s, McKinsey [&] Company, one of the world’s leading strategy consulting companies, has been known to employ the best graduates from the best universities, and to use performance incentives and a very formative high performance culture to shape these young, hungry ‘high potentials’ according to their requirements. After these young consultants were pushed to the maximum by their international projects, most of them voluntarily leave the company on good terms after three years at the latest in order to take up leading positions in the industry and then to become potential customers of their former employer. Over the past few decades, this HR strategy and its accompanying high performance culture was adopted in the field of professional services by the majority of international companies and is now also entering many more traditional industrial and service-based companies.

In trying times, resilience is required. Resilience refers to the ability to adapt in times of pressure and 
stress and emerge strengthened from them. Resilience, in turn, is composed of various protective 
factors. One of these factors is authentic relationships. What makes them up, and how can coaches 
assist their clients in forming authentic relationships?

Resilience is being widely talked about. But what exactly is resilience, and how can authentic 
relationships help strengthen it? Furthermore, how can coaches support their clients in cultivating 
authentic relationships?

The term “psychological safety” is thrown around a lot these days.

What do Thomas Edison, Frida Kahlo, and Michael Jackson have in common?

That they were famous? That they were resilient? Yes and more. They are all examples in a great book that I keep diving back into when looking for good ways to kickstart my creativity. Or a good hack that is based on neuroscience. The book is called:

Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind

Scholar and author Scott Barry Kaufman ( psychologist) and creativity expert Carolyn Gregoire merge both psychology and neuroscience to examine some of history’s finest “messy minds” aka creatives. The result is a fascinating look at the often contradictory habits and practices of creative people. Warning: this is not your usual how-to book. The authors take a deep-dive into the scientific underpinnings into how creativity can be understood:

”The creative process requires disciplined switching between rational and imaginative thinking, each of which is supported by distinct networks in the brain. The creative person harbors paradoxes, prefers complexity, extracts order from disorders, takes risks, perseveres, and feels passion”

And lest you think the book is too abstract. The authors also report on the 10 habits on how to instill and drive creativity. Here are 4 that you can start with today:

1. Make time for your own space and enjoy solitude. For all the benefits of collaboration, open offices, and constant connection, we can easily forget the value of solitude. And there are many, including the opportunity to find flow, daydream constructively, and think about the meaning of your life. For optimal creativity, set aside time for solitude -- from taking a walk, to carving out moments when you’re fully removed from social distractions and really present to what is.

2. Contradict yourself! Think differently – intentionally. Creative people are nonconformists. The most original contributions in any field don’t result from efforts to please the crowd. Research by neuroscientist Gregory Berns suggests that innovative thinkers “bombard the brain with new experiences,” in order to mix existing categories and forge new connections. And the more intentional we are, the better. One study of more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and business executives found that innovators spend 50 percent more time trying to think differently -- and these intentional efforts sparked new ideas and associations.

3. Try meditation. We’ve all heard the benefits of meditation and I can personally attest to it. But research by Italian cognitive scientist Lorenza Colzato and her colleagues shows one type of meditation is particularly effective for creative thinking. It’s called “open-monitoring” meditation – in which you are receptive to your thoughts and emotions without focusing intensely on, say, your breath or a mantra. The more traditional focused-attention meditation was better for “convergent thinking” (coming up with a single best solution to a problem). So depending on where you are in your creative process, try to make time for at least a 15-minute meditation a day.

4. Fail fast and often. Embrace adversity. History’s creative geniuses weren’t necessarily tortured souls. But they were all good at finding meaning and guidance from their setbacks. Some of the greatest creators did have a seeming disadvantage -- a disability, mental illness, or loss of a parent -- which they channeled into their art, writing, or entrepreneurship.