Newsletter #1
MindStore’s first anniversary in France and Switzerland
Using the core MindStore techniques has been essential to our successful first year of operations…>>
Go for Gold!
Planning a management meeting or needing a motivational boost for the sales team?...>>
Getting the buggers to behave
Teamwork: where is it when you need it?
MindStore Institute
Don’t worry, be happy!
Publications
MindStore celebrates first year of activity in France and Switzerland
Like any start-up business our first year in France and Switzerland has been full of challenges. It has been a very active year of participation in dozens of local events, as well as welcoming several new clients to MindStore and laying the foundations for what should be a very successful second year.
The core MindStore techniques have been essential to making this first year a success.
Together with our many tools that build determination and a positive attitude, we have been:
- managing energy and stress through the Peak Performance Cycle,
- creating positive outcomes through Visualisation
- finding great ideas by deliberately using our Right Brains.
As we have always said at MindStore, It Only Works!
Go for Gold!
Planning a management meeting or needing a motivational boost for the sales team? See what a winning attitude can do for your business with a MindStore motivational event.
Bring your team to Lausanne, where we can organise your event to take full advantage of the current temporary exhibition at the Olympic Museum: “The Mind Makes a Champion”.
Imagine the boost to your business if your whole team could get inside the heads of the greatest Olympians to understand how they did it, and transfer those skills to the workplace!
We can tailor for you a complete winning event – from a one hour speech to a two-day seminar: contact Marvin Faure for a detailed proposal.
Getting the buggers to behave
The title of a book to help teachers handle classrooms full of rowdy teenagers, this could equally apply to the challenge faced by managers who want to change their employees’ behaviour. Wouldn’t it be nice if all it took was a good pep talk followed by a short training course?
Unfortunately, training and communication are both necessary but insufficient conditions for success in major organisational change projects.
The single biggest success factor in organisational change is a shared vision: managers must create the conditions under which enough employees share the same clear, positive vision of the future and begin working towards making it happen.
Achieving this means following a participative process such as MindStore Future Perfect. The employees progress through five critical stages
- Initiate: recognise the need for change,
- Inquire: identify the best of the current situation to carry forward
- Imagine: create a vision of what the future should look like
- Innovate: plan how to bring it about
- Implement: make it happen.
The process creates enthusiasm and energy for change by building on people’s pride in the company and in their own past achievements.
Teamwork: where is it when you need it?
Some fascinating recent research has shown the importance of a healthy ratio of positive interactions for effective teamwork.
Observing 60 different management teams as they crafted their annual strategic plans, the researchers* found that the 15 highest performing teams all showed high levels of support, encouragement and appreciation between team members, and asked each other a lot of questions intended to understand the speaker’s viewpoint.
The lowest performing teams, by contrast, were frequently disapproving, sarcastic or cynical with each other, and spent too much time arguing their personal standpoints.
So far so predictable…
More interestingly, it is possible to be too positive. Too much agreement leads to shallow analysis and “groupthink”, where everybody jumps quickly to the same erroneous conclusion.
The highest performance teams all had at least three positive comments for every negative comment, and the negative comments were expressed in limited, constructive terms intended to improve understanding of the issue under discussion.
Developing effective teamwork such as this is at the heart of MindStore Future Perfect.
* Fredrickson, B.L. and Losada, M.F. (2005) Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing American Psychologist, 678-686.
MindStore Institute
Dedicated to helping people in the terminal stages of cancer, the MindStore Institute opened in the hills above Stuttgart in September 2006. Klaus Pertl of MindStore Germany teamed up with his lifelong friend Lothar Hirneise to bring together two visions into one perfect solution.
Lothar is world renowned for his expertise in the care of cancer patients. He has written a number of books and is constantly speaking at conferences on his work. Lothar has successfully helped countless cancer patients with his three-pronged approach to care and the use of MindStore techniques plays its part.
Klaus and Lothar’s dream was to open a centre where they could oversee and provide the best possible therapy for those who have been given little or no hope by their doctors and for those who wish to explore non conventional methods.
Klaus and Sabine, Lothar and his wife Christina together have created a wonderful opportunity for those who face a hopeless future. For further information please visit www.hirneise.de and www.mindstore.de
Don’t worry, be happy!
Maintaining a positive, optimistic outlook to life doesn’t just feel good and bring you more success at work. It will also bring you more friends, substantial health benefits and, statistically speaking, allow you to live longer too. All these benefits have been well documented by researchers (feel free to ask us if you would like to read some of the original research).
Trying to be positive and optimistic is hardest of all just when you need it most: when everything seems to be going wrong in your life. Things can then only get worse if you add to your very real problems by feeling inadequate because you can’t be positive.
The best way forward we know, short of seeking professional therapy, is to use some or all of the battery of tried and tested tools we teach at our MindStore for Business seminars. These give you a structured approach to building resilience which goes far beyond the “think positive” mantra expressed in Bobby McFerrin’s song “Don’t worry, be happy!”
Take a look at our customer reference list to see the many great companies that have benefited from a change in attitude from their employees after taking MindStore for Business in-house.
Publications
Marvin Faure’s article “Problem-Solving Was Never This Easy: Transformational Change With Appreciative Inquiry”, originally presented by Marvin at the European Academy of Management annual conference EURAM 2006, was published by Wiley in the October 2006 edition of the Performance Improvement Journal.
The article describes Marvin’s experience in using MindStore Future Perfect to effect positive change in organisations.
Contact Marvin for your complimentary copy.