The core of every organization is its workforce, and the growth of a business depends largely on the way the employees function in an interactive and interdependent way.

There has been a major change in the government and in the corporate world, where the success of large departments is evaluated in terms of the performance delivered by the smaller teams within such departments. Therefore, it is very critical to keep these teams motivated and contented so that the overall performance level of the organization improves. Teambuilding events are an excellent way of re-energizing employees.

Teambuilding events are held for various purposes. When it comes to induction of new employees or launch of a new project, nothing works better than preparing employees with these teambuilding events. However, many organizations have made these events an essential part of their culture, with teambuilding activities being organized periodically so that employees’ motivation never dwindles or inter-personal relationships don’t get strained. Taking up challenges and coping with constraints in these events helps employees to bond and improve their teamwork skills.

A successful teambuilding event is an eye-opener for an employee, as he realizes his/her role in the company, while the management also takes notice of the good work done by an employee and shows appreciation. These events include cultural programs, sports, award ceremonies, and other innovative exercises.

These events are a great opportunity for bringing the past achievements of employees in recognition, besides letting them to have lots of fun and preparing them for the future. The employees can come out with a greater sense of satisfaction, encouragement and guidance for future.

The current economic downturn with all its uncertainties can cause turmoil in employees’ minds as they begin worrying about their future with the company, and teambuilding events are the best cure for all the ills brought about by such negative and unproductive thinking.

Organizing teambuilding events is generally the responsibility of the HR department of the organization, but companies can also engage the services of specialized agencies that can organize such teambuilding events.

One of the common denominators of successful people is their ability to persevere when things don’t go as planned. Effective people don’t allow themselves to get bogged down in feelings that don’t serve their purpose.

On the other hand, ineffective, unsuccessful people allow their emotions to rule rather than their rational and objective nature. They lament what happened or what didn’t and become victims rather than masters of their circumstances.

We all have disappointments. We all suffer setbacks. If we’re going to attempt anything worthwhile, we’re going to experience failure. The mature-and ultimately successful-person sees failure as part of success. When one method fails, they try again with a new one. Sometimes it takes many attempts.

In my coaching/consulting work, I see all too often the tendency to fix blame instead of fix problems. Rather than looking at challenges rationally and objectively, emotions are allowed to dictate the process.

They’re unable to make corrections without invalidation. Something goes wrong and they want to blame. Profit isn’t reached fast enough and someone needs to be fired. There’s never a shortage of people or things on which to blame the failure.

I suggest a different approach. It’s a process I call, “What Worked, What Didn’t, What’s Next?”

This practice works whether you’re dealing with a business, a relationship, a project or your life. The key is to evaluate often, objectively and then to move on.

And the more often and impartially you measure and evaluate, the better it works. It’s just feedback-and feedback is neither positive nor negative. It’s simply information. I call feedback the “Breakfast of Champions.” Looking at what happened with a healthy degree of detachment allows us to make better decisions.

What Worked?

What actions moved us toward our objective? What’s worth repeating? What felt good? What created excellence?

Acknowledge your successes. Celebrate! Praise your own as well as the efforts of others.

When you focus on what worked, you begin with positive energy. And you create momentum toward solutions.

What Didn’t?

OK, where did we screw up? What created the mistake? Not who dropped the ball, but when, where and how did we drop it? How can we avoid it next time?

It’s rarely people who mess up but rather systems that don’t adequately support them. Most people mean well and try their best. The focus should be on how to better support one another to reduce errors and increase quality.

There are many ways to accomplish what you desire. Often, in finding new ways, we create things we never would have if the first or second effort had succeeded.

Acknowledge the mistakes, make new plans and devise new strategies.

What’s Next?

Regardless of how well or how badly things went, it’s history. Nothing is going to change the past. Being upset about it, feeling guilty, placing blame or even resting too long on our laurels will cause us to lose headway.

One might be wise to use the U.S. Marine Corps acronym, FIDO-Forget It, Drive On. But I would add one more piece: learn from the experience.

After you analyze what happened, the question should be, “What’s next?” This takes the focus off from what’s happened and places it on where we’re going and what needs doing.

You can quickly go through this process alone or with a group. It can take a few moments or several hours, depending on the complexity of the project.

The key is to do it with impartiality and objectivity. Mistakes, corrections and new attempts are merely part of successful ventures. They don’t mean anything; they’re simply opportunities to create excellence.

Many people forget that important changes come from within. This means starting off with a clear mind, so that you not only know what the end of the journey looks like, but are able to plan a better more effectively. This means a route with a reduced risk of encountering hardships along the way.

Think of it this way, if you were into a plane in New York and were flying to Great Britain, wouldn’t you want the pilot to have a flight plan (map) and a clearly planned digital route (another map) before they took the plane thousands of feet into the air?

When desiring to make definitive changes in your life, you’ll discover that traditional ways of setting goals are just not sufficient. Think back to the times you may have sat down with a pen and paper, or sat in front of your computer, and typed up a list of goals which you felt were important at that particular time in your life.

This process may have taken you a while as you mulled over what you actually wanted to do you may even have put your goals in order of priority. You might have deliberated for some time over how you could reach your goals, but then when you had finished making your list and re-read it once, you just it filed away out of sight away from possible future reference? Why hide the future from yourself?

In a lecture I had, a professor once said that one of the greatest problems people had in completing projects was getting ready to get ready. At some point, you make a plan and then you act on it. Its not the plan that’s the problem, the problem is in the plan’s execution.

If you are completely honest with yourself, how many times did your list get used for reference purposes? How many times did it even see the light of day?

How long after you got knocked about, when something bad happened, and then forgot all about what you really wanted out of life?

Even more importantly, did you deliberately focus on each goal until you could almost see it, touch it and sense it?

Most of us have great intentions to better ourselves. We all wish to self-motivate, improve our self-discipline, and have a stronger sense of purpose.

We would all like to increase that vital sense of drive and passion for life. That would make it so much easier for us to achieve our aims, and the simple reality is that we can.

Taiana is 26 yrs old. She practices Reiki in her work as a professional body worker, with study and experience in Holistic Therapies. Taiana is also personal trainer, and has extensive experience with coaching people to make the breakthroughs in life, that they’ve waited for ” all their lives. She believes in rekindling the flames of inspiration in life’s first step for motivation. Taiana lives in Australia, where she relocated to 16 yrs ago.

In the summer of 2007, the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) launched the new version of its best practice framework for Service Management – known as ITIL (R) V3 – and since then, has been busy putting its new qualifications scheme into place. The new top-level certification for the latest version is known as the ITIL Expert qualification.

However, perhaps this new qualification scheme could – before it has really got going properly – already be due for a review according to the most recent figures for ITIL training. They show a high number of candidates taking version 3 foundation level training, but a very low take-up for the subsequent capabilities and lifecycle training courses.

Perhaps the reason for this situation is the sheer number of courses needed to be taken to qualify as an ITIL Expert. Delegates now need to complete six or seven separate courses to qualify; which translates into between twenty-two to twenty-seven days of training. By contrast, the older V2 scheme leading to the Service Manager certificate only took thirteen days to complete.

The new qualification schema is a three-level affair with a fourth level also scheduled. Of course, this new range of courses may be good for training providers, but the key question is: is it right for the market? The absence of a significant number of bums-on-seats seems to me to suggest that it absolutely is not.

In addition, whilst the V2 Service Manager certificate is live, it remains a much more attractive route to the new top-level V3 qualification for many people since it only requires eighteen days to complete from scratch; and just fifteen if you already hold a V2 Foundation certificate. This boils down to less days out of the office, lower cost and fewer exams to pass.

It is, in my opinion, time for APMG to be decisive and act immediately to support the V3 qualifications scheme. It is finally time to axe the old V2 qualifications and really get behind the new scheme.