Is The Dark-Side Destroying Your Business?

BRADFORD ON AVON, England, January 12 /PRNewswire/ -- If you run a business you can probably put your people into one of 3 Categories, according to how they work and their team skills ( http://www.thinktd.co.uk/team-skills.html ):

    - Luke SkyWalkers

    - Followers

    - Dark Side

First, the 'Luke Skywalkers' of this world. These are the people who will never let you down and strive to achieve great things, whatever is thrown at them (You probably have a few of these in your organisation).

At the other end of the scale, you have those people who primarily like to moan a lot and drag everyone around them down in the process. We'll call these people 'The Dark Side' (You probably have more of these).

The Lukes are immune to the Dark Side - they will not enter the Dark Side and will not be influenced by those on the Dark Side. However, the middle group, well, that's a different story.

The middle group of people usually contains the majority. We'll call them the 'Followers'. The quality of their output will often depend on how much they are influenced by each of the other groups. If they're with the Lukes, all will be well. But once the Dark-Siders get hold of them though, with their talk of the credit crunch, recession, cut-backs and redundancies....you have no hope of getting much work done.

The table below gives an example of how your company productivity can be affected by negativity:

        Group         Percentage of               Reason
                      the day being
                       productive
    Luke Skywalker         90%         Everyone has scope to improve
    Followers              75%         Listening to moaning of people below
    Dark Side              50%         Moaning half the day

Now for a little maths quiz. To work out the average productivity of your team, you first need to decide which category they each fall into. Let's assume you have 100 people:

    10 Lukes x 90 = 900
    50 Followers x 75 = 3,750
    40 Dark-Siders x 50 = 2,000
    Total = 6,650 Average 66.5%

Divide the total by 100 to find the average percentage of time your team is productive. In this case, it's 66.5%.

The Dark-Siders are the people who will tell you what you're doing wrong so it's not a bad thing to have a few of them, yet you don't want too many. The trick is to motivate as many as possible to move up a category or, better still, two.

As they do, there will be less distraction for the Followers and you will find that their productivity improves too. Here's an example:

    15 Lukes x 90 = 1,350
    75 Followers x 80 = 6,000
    10 Dark-Siders x 50 = 500
    Total = 7,850 Average 78.5%.
    The big question is...How do you achieve this?

The answer lies in training and development for your employees. It's worth remembering that in staff surveys, employees often rate 'learning and development' and 'culture' higher than 'money' when asked why they stay with their employer.

Think Training & Development specialises in Team Skills, Leadership and Motivation Training.

If you want to know how to improve your corporate culture, motivate your Dark-Siders and improve your productivity, visit the site here http://www.thinktd.co.uk/blog/2010/01/dark-side/ )or give us a call on +44(0)1225-479756

About Think Training & Development

Think Training & Development was founded in 2003, by Wendie Michie and Gavin Aubrey. They have had the good fortune to coach and train thousands of people in more than 10 countries across 4 continents.

    To book a course for your company or to find out more, please contact:

    Wendie Michie and Gavin Aubrey
    Think Training & Development,
    Unit 8,
    Widbrook Marina,
    Bradford on Avon,
    Wiltshire
    BA15 1UD
    Tel: +44-(0)1225-479756
    Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Think Training & Development