Strategic Team Development - Dr Fazal Mahmood

A team is a group of people organised to work together. Teamwork is the ability to work together towards a common vision, goal or objective. All team members must share in that vision and work both independently and inter-dependently to achieve the goal. Modern managers must have the ability to harmonise individual accomplishment with organisational objectives.

As a team matures, members gradually learn to cope with the emotional and group pressures they face. As a result, the team goes through fairly predictable stages:

Stage 1 Forming

When a team is forming, members cautiously explore the boundaries of acceptable group behaviour. Like hesitant swimmers, they stand by the pool, dabbling their toes in the water. This is a stage of transition from individual to member status, and of testing the leader's guidance both formally and informally.

Forming includes these feelings:

§  Excitement, anticipation and optimism

§  Pride in being chosen for the project

§  Initial, tentative attachment to the team

§  Suspicion, fear and anxiety about the job ahead

and these behaviours:

§  Attempts to define the task and decide how it will be accomplished

§  Attempts to determine acceptable group behaviour and how to deal with group problems

§  Decisions on what information needs to be gathered

§  Lofty, abstract discussions of concepts and issues; or, for some members, impatience with these discussions

§  Discussion of symptoms or problems not relevant to the task; difficulty in identifying problems

§  Complaints about the organisation and barriers to the task

Because there is so much going on to distract members' attention in the beginning, the team accomplishes little, if anything, that concerns it's project goals. This is perfectly normal.

Stage 2 Storming

Storming is probably the most difficult stage for the team. It is as if team members jump in the water, and thinking they are about to drown, start thrashing about. They begin to realise the task is different and more difficult than they imagined, becoming irritable, blameful or overzealous. Impatient about the lack of progress, but still too inexperienced to know much about decision making or the scientific approach, members argue about just what actions the team should take. They try to rely solely on their personal and professional experience, resisting any need for collaborating with other team members.

Storming includes these feelings:

§  Resistance to the task and to quality improvement approaches different from what each individual member is comfortable using

§  Sharp fluctuations in attitude about the team and the project's chance of success

and these behaviours:

§  Arguing among members even when they agree on the real issues

§  Defensiveness and competitive; factions start to form and members start to choose sides

§  Questioning the wisdom of those who selected this project and appointed the other members of the team

§  Establishing unrealistic goals; concern about excessive work

§  A perceived 'pecking order'; disunity, increased tension, and jealousy

Again, these many pressures mean team members have little energy to spend on progressing towards the team's goal. But they are beginning to understand one another.

Stage 3 Norming

During this stage, members reconcile competing loyalties and responsibilities. They accept the team, team ground rules (or 'norms'), their roles in the team, and the individuality of fellow members. Emotional conflict is reduced as previously competitive relationships become more co-operative. In other words, as team members realise they are not going to drown, they stop thrashing about and start helping each other stay afloat.

Norming includes these feelings:

§  A new ability to express criticism constructively

§  Acceptance of membership in the team

§  Relief that it seems everything is going to work out

and these behaviours:

§  An attempt to achieve harmony by avoiding conflict

§  More friendliness, confiding in each other, and sharing of personal problems; discussing the team's dynamics

§  A sense of team cohesion, a common spirit and goals

§  Establishing and maintaining team ground rules and boundaries (the 'norms')

As team members begin to work out their differences, they now have more time and energy to spend on the project. Thus they are able to at last start making significant progress.

Stage 4 Performing

By this stage the team has settled its relationships and expectations. They can begin performing - diagnosing and solving problems, and choosing and implementing changes. At last team members have discovered and accepted each other's strengths and weaknesses, and learned what their roles are. Now they can swim in concert.

Performing includes these feelings:

§  Members having insights into personal and group processes, and better understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses

§  Satisfaction at the team's progress

and these behaviours:

§  Constructive self-change

§  Ability to prevent or work through group problems

§  Close attachment to the team

The team is now an effective, cohesive unit. You can tell when your team has reached this stage because you start getting a lot of work done.

This article has been extracted from one of the Impression Training course books. All training materials are developed by experienced trainers and consultants.

Impression Training runs courses related to this topic.

Please click here to see the full list of courses

This Is the Best Time of Day to See Your Therapist

If you see a therapist for anxiety or a phobia, you might make more progress in sessions scheduled for the morning hours. Cortisol, a hormone that regulates stress and fear, is highest at this time of day—and a new study suggests this could make a real difference in overcoming emotional difficulties.

The new research, conducted by researchers at Southern Methodist University and the University of Michigan, focused specifically on a treatment known as exposure therapy. During exposure therapy, patients work with mental-health professionals to put themselves in situations that would normally cause panic or fear. The goal, with repeated exposures, is to diminish those stress responses over time.

“For example, a patient may think that standing in an elevator could cause him or her to lose control or faint, suffocate, or may create physical symptoms that would be intolerable,” explained Alicia E. Meuret, PhD, director of the SMU Anxiety and Depression Research Center, in a press release. “By having them stand in an elevator for a prolonged time, the patient learns that their feared outcome does not occur, despite high levels of anxiety. We call this corrective learning.”

Not all patients benefit equally from exposure therapy, though. And Meuret and her colleagues suspected the hormone cortisol—which is thought to help suppress distressing memories and facilitate corrective learning—may influence how its effectiveness varies from person to person. They knew that cortisol levels tend to be highest early in the day, so they set out to test whether morning sessions worked better to help people overcome their issues.

Their study involved 24 people with panic disorders and agoraphobia, a fear of public places. The men and women received weekly sessions over three weeks, during which they were exposed to situations such as tall buildings, highways, elevators, supermarkets, movie theaters, and public transportation.

Overall, the participants showed improvement no matter what time of day their sessions were held. But, as suspected, they made the biggest gains during appointments that started earlier in the day.

When patients came back the week after a morning session, they scored lower on measures of threat misappraisal, avoidance behavior, and panic symptom severity. They also felt that they had greater control over their panic symptoms.

The authors point out that factors besides cortisol levels—like natural circadian rhythm or quality and quantity of sleep—could certainly influence the effectiveness of early-morning therapy.

But higher cortisol levels were also related to better outcomes in the study—above and beyond the time-of-day effects. (Saliva samples were taken during each session.) This suggests that the hormone is at least partially responsible for the a.m. bump, they say. 

Drugs to mimic cortisol’s fear-extinction powers are being investigated, says Meuret, but so far they’ve produced mixed results. For now, she offers another suggestion. “The findings of our study promote taking advantage of two simple and naturally occurring agents—our own cortisol and time of day.”

The study, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, notes that it’s not always possible to schedule therapy sessions for the morning. But exposure therapy also involves “homework” between meetings, the authors say, which can be practiced with more flexibility.

Meuret also cautions that her study looked at a very specific type of psychotherapy. Without further research, she can’t speculate how much the findings would apply to other types—like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT, sometimes known as talk therapy) held in a practitioner’s office.

But she does say that most therapies for anxiety “target the learning of new and corrective information,” and that’s a good sign.

“Our data, along with data from learning and memory studies, suggests that there should be a benefit in practicing CBT skills in the morning hours,” she told Real Simple, although studies are needed to confirm this idea. “Evidence-based psychotherapy is about learning of new information, and memory studies generally suggest that learning is better in the morning.”

Functional Medicine Approaches To Narcolepsy Incorporate Lifestyle Changes Into Overall Treatment Plan

When a Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice study showed that a variety of stress- and fatigue-related issues have been improved through functional medicine, Jose Colon, MD, MPH, was far from surprised.

For years, he’s seen the benefits of utilizing functional medicine, a science-based healthcare approach with an emphasis on addressing the root causes of chronic diseases.

Through his clinical practice, Colon, the founder of Paradise Sleep, has found taking an integrative functional medicine approach to treating sleep disorders—including narcolepsy—to be very effective.

“When we look to treating sleep disorders, we often spend a lot of time worrying about the nighttime but it’s especially important to address what’s going on during the daytime as well,” says Colon, author of The Sleep Diet-A Novel Approach to Insomnia. “I think of disorders like narcolepsy, a 24-hour disorder.”

That means helping patients with narcolepsy look at other factors that contribute to excessive sleepiness, such as their lifestyle choices. Colon says it’s all about helping patients make lifestyle adjustments that will help improve their condition (along with the sleep disorder medication that’s necessary).

While treatment approaches and methods vary from patient to patient, one lifestyle change Colon has recommended to some narcolepsy patients is a low glycemic diet. Eating low glycemic foods has been found to improve mood and lower fatigue, according to a 2010 study.

“Patients like to know what’s going on with their disorder and what kind of lifestyle accommodations we can make,” says Colon. “That includes scheduling naps or making nutritional changes to ultimately improve the quality of life among patients that have excessive daytime sleepiness.”

Other recommendations include reminding patients to stay hydrated, since fatigue can be a sign of dehydration. Even trying out essential oils in the peppermint or citrus variety to maintain wakefulness sometimes provides a needed boost.

“There are of course medications that can sustain alertness but sometimes a patient just needs to get through a test, sometimes a patient just needs to get through a meeting, and it is an option that you can add another medication or give them another short-acting medication. But another option is that they can look at another option backed by science that can be helpful,” says Colon.

Will functional medicine approaches become more prevalent in our conversations about narcolepsy?

Most likely so.

“I think we’re making movements, and if you take a look at the amount of data on mindfulness today and the amount of data that was on mindfulness 10 years ago, it’s a boom in the amount of information that’s out there,” says Colon.

The Fertility Crisis is real - and it's getting worse

Couples are waiting longer and longer to start families for many reasons. Too often, when the time is right financially, socially or professionally, it may not be right physically. Problems and delays in conceiving lead to pressures and stress between couples who fall prey to false hope and promises from an overly publicized IVF community.

IVF is a propitiously suggestive and expensive protocol that safeguards revenue by not disclosing accurate failure rate or injured organ data. IVF professionals feed into the panic; capitalizing on it through its money-making fear mongering protocol. They routinely formulate life in LABS rather than investigate and solve what is impairing a woman's fertility. Couples end up cashing in their life savings in hopes of having a child and many end up never conceiving.





                                              Jennifer Mercier's own struggles with conceiving led her to years of drugs and disappointment. She questioned the IVF community and its practices and began to dedicate her life to researching alternative practices that were less damaging to the body and the purse. The result: Jennifer found that a focus on the cause of the infertility is a better approach to take. Through research and her practice, Jennifer created an approach to conceiving that boasts a 5X more success rate than IVF for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the stress to the couple and the body's reproductive organs. Her whole-body approach maintains the integrity of the woman physically and her reproductive organs remain unscathed, intact and free of drugs.

Deep diving into the Digital World.

How to Use Social Media and Be HIPAA Compliant | VONT

 

 

Healthcare Strategist and Senior Account Executive Kim Laramy has been with Ethos and VONT since 2005. Her expertise in healthcare marketing began while “in house” at Bath Memorial Hospital and Mid Coast Health Services (as she says, “a loooong time ago). She has served as account executive to MaineHealth, Maine Medical Center, and Maine General Health, and currently to Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, Inland Hospital, and EMHS. Today she shares her insights into how to join the social world while respecting HIPAA.
Hospitals and healthcare providers, like other businesses and organizations, understand the benefit of social engagement with customers, patients and employees. But there is a hurdle to overcome if you’re a healthcare organization – can you take advantage of the power of social media without running afoul of HIPAA?
HIPAA is the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The primary goal of the law is to make it easier for people to keep health insurance, protect the confidentiality and security of healthcare information and help the healthcare industry control administrative costs.
The good news is that you CAN be social and still protect patient privacy – but it takes some effort, thought and commitment. Here are some steps that will help you on your journey into the social realm:
Identify objectives that social media can address for your organization. For example, social media is a great way to share healthcare tips, honors, upcoming events, research and profiles of your medical staff – none of which go near HIPAA.
Determine the best social media for your objectives. Facebook is more about two-way conversations; a blog may be more about sharing your expertise.
Identify the one or two people who will act as administrators for the social medium. Add more administrators later if needed, but start small. Be sure that the administrators understand they are making a long-term commitment. They will need to carve out time in their schedules so that they can frequently and regularly monitor and participate in the social conversation.
Train your social media administrators. They will need to know how to:

• Use the social media tools
• Handle communication in the social media tool based on user expectation and best practices;
• Respond to any issues that may arise;
• Thoroughly understand patient privacy (HIPAA) regulations;
• Train back-up support to cover their vacation/sick days.

Develop a plan to actively promote the site to acquire followers. Merely setting up a page or account does not ensure you will have followers or an active community.
Set a general calendar schedule for posting new information. Assemble subject matter experts and people interested in social media who will be regular content contributors. Designate 1-2 people to oversee.
Be prepared to respond to negative posts. Generally, posts that are negative toward your organization should not be taken down. Instead, treat them as an opportunity to show the public just how well you handle adversity. Be respectful, contrite, and helpful. Offer an apology and an offline conversation to seek a solution.
Immediately take down posts that violate any patient’s privacy. Fortunately, most people who work in healthcare know and understand what not to say publicly about any patient, and so the risk of intentional HIPAA violations is low. There is a greater risk of unintentional violations – two examples are noted below.

Example 1: Patient Sam goes onto Caring Hospital’s Facebook page and shares what a great stay he had while an inpatient. He calls out his doctor, a nurse, and his roommate Patient Joe. Without intending to do so, Patient Sam has let the world know that Patient Joe was at Caring Hospital. In this case it is up to Caring Hospital to remove the post. If this happens to you, be sure to contact Patient Sam and explain why you needed to remove his post. Who knows? He may be so happy with you that he reposts excluding Patient Joe’s name so that the rest of the world can enjoy his kind words.

Example 2: Gramma Sue is so pleased with her new grandbaby that she goes onto Caring Hospital’s Facebook page and posts a photo of the baby in the nursery, several other babies are also in their bassinets with nametags visible. Gramma Sue has every right to show her own baby, but not the others. Again, if you find yourself in this situation, be sure to contact Gramma Sue and explain why you need to remove her post. You don’t want to unintentionally hurt one of your happiest supporters.

 

 

 

10 Home Security Tips If You Live Alone

There’s no question about it, living alone has its perks! You have complete independence, you always find things where you left them and you never have to fight your roommate for the remote.
This does, however, make you an easier target for burglars. Here are some things you may want to consider to keep yourself, and your home, safe these holidays.

1. LOCK UP

This is good advice for anyone that lives anywhere! Seems obvious, but an astonishing amount of people become victims because they failed to lock up before leaving the house.
Statistics indicate that 34% of burglars enter a premises using the front door. The next entry point is first floor windows, followed by back door. If you want to find out more read our article on how burglars enter your home or confessions of a burglar.

2. KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURS

Being friends with your neighbours is not as easy as it used to be, unless you live in the suburbs or a small community, most people will naturally keep their distance. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just means you will have to make the first move.
Try to strike up a conversation if you run into a neighbour, offer your help and be friendly. You may not become friends overnight, but these people will offer a helping hand if you need it.

3. KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD

Taking it one step further, knowing the area you live in can help you in a bad situation. In case of an incident its helpful to know where the nearest police station is, not to mention the streets you should avoid when walking alone late at night.

4. INVEST IN SOME CURTAINS

Getting some thick, non see-through curtains can go a long way to protecting your home against burglars.
Statistics indicate that most opportunity burglars will look into windows until they see something of value. Drawing the curtains prevents burglars from seeing the layout of the house, seeing your possessions and noticing that you live alone.

5. OPTIMISE TIMER LIGHTS

Most burglars are not killers and will try to avoid confrontation at all costs. Seeing that the lights are on is a great deterrent.
Of-course you can’t always be home to turn your lights on and this is where timer lights come in handy. Set them to switch on as soon as it gets dark and if you have the chance, get creative. Set the timer for different times in different rooms or at least adjust the time every few days.

6. GET AN IP CAMERA

The thing burglars fear most is getting caught by the police. An IP camera mounted on your window sill will deter a thief. Cammy Home Alarm app you can view your IP camera on your phone or from the web anytime, anywhere. The system also comes with real intruder alerts so the moment someone steps on your property, you will be the first to know.

7. LOCK DOWN SOCIAL MEDIA

Burglars use Facebook too! For example, a burglar could get your name by looking at your mail and then searching your name + suburb on Facebook. Most people don’t realise how much of their information can be viewed online by complete strangers.
Next time you are posting pictures of yourself relaxing by the beach on an exotic island, make sure only the people you trust can see it. The best way to check is to create an alternate profile and access yours to see what can be viewed.

8. BE CAREFUL WHO YOU LET INTO YOUR HOUSE

One of the most common ways burglars scout the layout of your house is by visiting it in disguise. An unexpected door knock from an electrician asking to read the meter or a nosey salesman asking to enter your home could be a warning sign.
Request they come back later and arrange for someone else to be there when they do. Same goes for maintenance work or repairs. It never hurts to have someone else there to keep an eye on them.

9. FIND A SAFETY BUDDY

If you have a close friend its a good idea to set up a buddy system. For instance, you can agree to make contact once a day at a certain time. If for some reason you don’t, your friend will know something has happened and can contact police or drive by your house to make sure you’re ok.

10. GET A CAT/DOG

If a close friend is not able to help, a furry friend might. If your landlord allows, you can choose to get a pet to monitor your house for you.
Burglars tend to avoid properties with pets because they often get in the way. If you have the option, get a large dog, the sight of one growling will send most thieves running!

Conclusion

Living alone can be scary but with the right precautions you should have nothing to worry about. Trust your instincts and use your common sense. If you don’t feel comfortable or fear you might be in danger, get help!
Otherwise follow the 10 tips we outlined.

• Lock up
• Know your neighbours
• Know your neighbourhood
• Invest in curtains
• Get timer lights
• Get an IP camera
• Lock down social media
• Be careful who you let in
• Get a safety buddy
• Consider a dog

Above all, enjoy your freedom. After all, living alone can be a lot of fun!

Woman dies of cancer one day before wedding

Anna Swabey passed away a day before her dream wedding but left a legacy that will last forever Time



(NEWSER) — A 25-year-old woman diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in January 2015 died Friday, one day before her wedding, People reports. A month after being given three years to live, Swabey joined Tinder, where she met Andy Bell. She told Marie Claire she disclosed she was going to die to Bell up front, knowing that it meant she was doomed to "break his heart." She figured that would be the end of it; it wasn't. They fell for each other, and Bell stayed by Swabey's side through 12 rounds of chemo, according to Us Weekly. They even managed to have a normal relationship. "We still bicker over whose turn it is to wash the dishes," Swabey told Marie Claire. "We just make up quickly."
After 10 months of dating, Bell proposed to Swabey last December. "I cried and asked if he was sure—if we went ahead, he’d be a widower before he was 30," she said. "He said that he’d rather be married to me for a few years than not at all." They scheduled their wedding for Sept. 17, and Bell said he couldn't wait to introduce Swabey as his wife. He never got that chance. Swabey died peacefully early Friday. "Amongst our sadness, we are so proud of her courage, her spirit and the determination she showed throughout her illness," Swabey's family posted to Facebook. Before her death, Swabey chronicled her battle with cancer on her blog and helped raise nearly $100,000 for brain tumor research. (Real-time video reveals how tumors form.)