Archive for the ‘Teamwork’ Category

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Can you feel the love?

October 22, 2013

Chefs tasting

“I can taste the love in the food”

I was fascinated as I listened to this restaurateur describe how he knows when the dynamic is right between the team at his restaurant. He reckons having a happy team who enjoy working together is essential to producing great tasting food.

He tells me he can taste “the love” in the food when it exists with the team and even more importantly he tells me he can taste it when the love is not there.

The ingredients are exactly the same, the preparation is exactly the same but when things aren’t 100% with his team the food just doesn’t taste as good as it should.

For this reason he works hard at talking to his team, having fun with them, listening to their issues, eliminating any issues or strains quickly and generally devoting a lot of his energy to making sure the spirit is as good as it can be.

Is it enough that your team turns up and punches in their time, is it enough that they execute their roles efficiently and professionally?

Without love that food just won’t taste as good as it should.

How does your food taste?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are an Irish Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Customer Care, Motivation, Staff training, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Can Win Happy work?

June 23, 2013

Fuzion team

It was a gorgeous summer Saturday in Cork and I was strolling around the city with Dee and my two kids.

Everyone was in great form and I knew I should have been but I was miserable and my head was bursting – work was killing me. I had been caught in the middle of a corporate crossfire for over two years between the joint owners and unfortunately this was a no win situation for me.

I was the General Manager and I could have had an easy life if I toed the line, kept my head down, settled for the status quo, played the politics and enjoyed the benefits. This wasn’t me ….I was miserable!

On that Saturday afternoon, 10 years ago I decided I was handing in my notice (handing back my new Saab and turning my back on a hefty salary) and it was the day Win Happy was born.

Win Happy

Fuzion teamThis has been my goal ever since – never again did I want to spend a minute feeling miserable about my work.

It is really important to me that happiness is at the heart of what I do every single day.

Happiness for me is working in a place that I love, doing work that I enjoy, with great people and for clients that I respect.

Utopia?

I guess in a way it is Utopian but why not have that as a goal?

I will be the first to admit that it isn’t always that way but mostly we get pretty close.

Happy..

I do love what I do (except for some horrible admin work every now and then), we work for who we want (we don’t answer to any head office or anything like that, we can accept or even reject work if we choose) and we have carefully chosen a group of really good people to work with.

Every Friday we break bread together as part of a sacred lunch routine we have, which we call Fuzion Friday.

I believe that if you get all of that right you end up with an atmosphere that creates the perfect conditions for great work ..for winning.

Win?

Kerrie & DeeHappy is the first part of my philosophy. I am very driven and while I am not motivated by money I do want to be successful in our profession and this is where the satisfaction from Winning comes into it.

We work extremely hard and we keep ourselves up to date with trends and developments. We carefully choose talented people for our team and we make sure they understand the Fuzion way.

Together we work hard to get results for our clients even if this means us doing more than we are contracted for.

If a talented team, in a happy environment, work hard for clients then you should get lots of wins. Winning leads to more business – simple!

This philosophy has stood us well since the business started and in the 10 years that I have been with Fuzion we have continued to grow our business and our team, mostly with a smile.

#WinHappy

Can it work? – Tell me what you think?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Self Help, Teamwork | 7 Comments »

If that doesn’t work …get out of there!

May 20, 2013

Escape

That was another incredibly busy week, meeting with clients, attending client events, dealing with stakeholders, meeting prospects, running training programmes and dealing with the every day things associated with running a business.

I meet people from so many different walks of life working in organisations and companies in private, public and non-profit sectors and with my social media activity I interact with many people on a regular basis.

This week in particular, whatever was in the air I seemed to meet a lot of incredibly “frustrated” people.

People who feel no one listens to them, people who feel its impossible to get anything done, people who despair of their organisation because it is choking with politics, people who were bullied out of jobs by colleagues, people blaming colleagues for things that went wrong when in fact they put them under so much pressure they couldn’t perform, people who are insecure so they play games to protect their own positions, people who are hostile to visitors and people who can play a huge part in making significant changes but ….once again feel this is impossible with people busy playing politics who will block all positive initiatives.

Not one of these people were giving out about money – all of them wanted to contribute and enjoy and long for the satisfaction of making something happen.

If that’s you then start making some noise, keep pushing, let your voice be heard, push for the right things to happen, speak up when they are not happening, challenge  the rubbish, encourage working together as a team, talk about making a difference, make the political “players” uncomfortable (they want to make a difference as well) and push them towards doing the right things and at least go home on a Friday with a feeling that you have had a good week.

If that doesn’t work …get out of there!

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design firm with offices in Cork and Dublin in Ireland

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Posted in Bullying, Ireland, Motivation, Personal development, Positivity, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

Just a Worker?

April 9, 2013

Cog in a wheel

“Can we go for a coffee?”

Even though I was up the walls it was clear he wanted to have a chat about something, so off we went.

After some small talk he eventually blurts it out “I’ve accepted a job offer“.

“Ah for God’s sake ….you can’t be serious” …..”Why in the name of god would you want to leave?” – after that all the things said just rolled into one and we went back to work.

I can’t help it – I take this stuff personally. I put everything into work and what we are building and I do feel that everyone is part of a Fuzion family, so when this happens I feel cheated, betrayed ..the word “traitor” is the one that comes to mind first. That’s probably a bit harsh but there ya go!

Normally you are battling away together, fighting for business, winning business, dealing with challenges, dealing with disappointments – whatever it is you tackle it with a sense of togetherness. You get to know people, you get close to them, you understand them, the good, the bad and the ugly, a bond forms – you even get to know about their families. It’s your team and you pull together against whatever challenge presents itself.

This team thing is special, it’s the little piece of magic that is fabulous when it clicks into place – you feel when that happens. Everyone together is better than a bunch of separate individuals  – it’s what I work hard at creating and its what I enjoy building and being in the middle of.

For the next few weeks I felt awful working alongside someone who has chosen to be somewhere else – in effect they become just a worker and are no longer part of the team.

The month has passed, we gave him a good send off and we have started a new journey with a great guy who will hopefully be a valuable member of the Fuzion family.

The guys tell me I shouldn’t take the whole thing so personally, maybe they are right?

In truth for me if it wasn’t personal I would become just a worker.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing & PR firm with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Friendship, Motivation, Recruitment, Teamwork | 23 Comments »

I had a Great 2013 because ….

December 18, 2012
Diary entry

I has a Great 2013 because ….

Well – how did you do?

Did you achieve what you set out to achieve in 2012?

Did you make ambitious plans and fall short of them or did you make any plans at all? – If you did, well done!

I don’t know about you but making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year I find myself at the start of that loop all over again making promises than often will never materialise!

A few years ago I wanted it to be a little bit different and I had my own creative and quite practical idea, which was inspired by a book I read called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).

This idea is rooted in the power of visualisation – the principle behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (unbelievers ….stop reading now !!)

Here goes ..

Take a pen and paper and simply write your diary entry in advance for your last working day of the year to come..

Imagine just before you switch off the lights in the office, before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest, you quietly write your diary entry.

It might go like this..

23rd December, 2013

Wow, that was some exciting and really fulfilling year!

It was a great year because I really achieved what I set out to both personally and professionally and even more besides because of those opportunities that cropped up that I wasn’t even expecting. At least I had my eyes open and when they occurred I spotted them and grabbed them.

I started the year with a few really clear goals including (go for it, be specific – list at least 5!)

I thought these goals were going to be really challenging, but I achieved these as I made a few important changes in my life that were necessary such as (be honest – what needs to happen for you to achieve those goals – your conditions for success).

It wasn’t all plain sailing and I had a few setbacks but I kept a clear focus on my goals, I kept a positive outlook and by digging deep and having a clear belief in myself and my abilities I managed to achieve them all in the end.

I’m glad I kept a positive outlook and kept my eyes open for those genuinely unique opportunities, which I know will only present themselves in this challenging economic climate – it made a huge difference to my business this year, which I wasn’t expecting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,  2013 – Bring it On!

Your signature (make sure you do this)

Put this in an envelope, place it in your top drawer and have a peep at it on the first day of every month (set a reminder in your computer to do this) and see what happens.

We did this with our full team at the end of 2010 and 2011 and I can tell you it worked out quite well, thank you very much!

We will do it again this time round – I’ll let you know how we got on in about 12 months’ time.

By the way I’ve just spent a year driving a really nice new car – guess what was on my list at the start of 2011!

…what are you waiting for?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 2 Comments »

Are you having meetings about meetings?

November 12, 2012
Meetings about Meetings

Another meeting ….

I remember sitting in a senior managers meeting getting all stressed out worrying about sales performance – the trend, annualised was worth a fortune to the company but I seemed to be the only one at the meeting getting all worked up!

Why was no one else getting as bothered as I was? They all seemed to be focused on some other issue that just didn’t seem as important to me. Let’s arrange a meeting to discuss this before our next meeting .. Oh my God!

This was Guinness, this was big business and it was management at the very highest level where the stakes were huge – what was I missing?

I had joined from a subsidiary company of Guinness in Cork called Deasy’s – we manufactured our own (quite profitable) soft drinks and distributed beer and soft drinks from the major manufacturers including Guinness. I had moved from the role of Financial Controller to General Manager, I had a lot of autonomy and now I found myself working in St.James Gate for Guinness as part of a large team.

My practical, work hard, do the (what I thought was) right thing, straight forward, no nonsense approach just didn’t seem to be cutting it at this level – in truth, I was struggling and getting very frustrated. I was starting to learn about the concept of meetings about meetings about meetings for the first time and it was driving me bonkers!!

The other thing I started to learn about was life in a large organisation and corporate “politics” and how these high stake personal power games were played out – as I said I was struggling with my very limited tool kit. At this stage in my career I needed to learn other skills to survive and thrive.

One of my big questions was how could these huge organisations succeed with such high stakes where potentially destructive personal politics could dominate and interfere with good constructive, positive work on an ongoing basis?

After three years of working with Guinness I figured out that “Success” happens in big organisations when “agendas” align.

A Senior Manager has a list of items that if he or she achieves them they will make them look good and advance their “personal” journey in the organisation. The Business has a list of items that are a priority and if these are achieved it will be successful. When the managers list and the business list align you get magic and progress is made – often this may not happen enough!

For a long time I thought that a corporate career was for me – I discovered I was wrong! Guinness was a great place to work, I made great friends in my time there, I learnt a huge amount but ultimately meetings about meetings was not for me ..

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing and PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Motivation, Personal development, Teamwork | 11 Comments »

Katie Frenzy

August 10, 2012
Katie Taylor - Frenzy !

You just “have” to win Katie

Like the rest of you the Fuzion crew ended up ducking out of work early and headed to Sober Lane (great name for a bar!) to watch Katie Taylor’s Gold Medal Winning Olympic Fight.

I must admit that I had never seen her box before these Olympics but my heart was in my mouth for that really close, nerve racking match as we all watched on the edge of our seats.

Of course it was fabulous for Ireland to win a Gold medal and it was extra special that such a special young girl did it for us, but I did feel there was an extra dimensiongoing on.

To me it felt as if the whole country had funnelled all of our hope, our depression about the recession, our frustration about the lousy weather and even our disappointment about the Euro Championships onto the shoulders of this girl and really “needed” her to do something great – we really, really needed her to do this, maybe in a disproportionate way? After the fight was over I saw a tweet by someone who declared the “recession to be officially over” – I knew what she meant!

The match was really strange with both boxers being very cagey and slow to engage – it had all of us quietly biting our nails but then I listened to the Irish crowd in the stadium and they were literally in a “frenzy” lifting the roof off with their sheer noise. I wondered were they even watching the match? – if they were as nervous as we were, they would have been in near silence. I worried at one point that they might pressurise Katie into launching right in there too quickly, but she kept her focus and did her job.

Were we watching more than a contest for an Irish gold medal – I wonder?

Well done Katie & thank you! 

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Ireland, Irish Economy, Motivation, Olympics, Teamwork | Leave a Comment »

This is my “Colleague”

April 6, 2012

Fuzion gang

At what point did we end up being work “colleagues“?

I must admit that it never sits well with me when I hear the word “colleague” being used during introductions of co-workers at meetings or functions.

Is it just me or am I the only one who thinks it is the worst, dispassionate, unfeeling way to introduce someone you work with?

When I the hear the words being used I automatically think that we just “work together” and that’s about as far as any bond goes – maybe I am over analysing it but I feel it lacks emotion, depth and personally it leaves me cold.

In some organisations maybe that is the reality (I’ve worked in places like that!) but at best the “introduction” words used should convey something positive that reflects the spirit of the organisation.

So … What is the right language to describe someone you work with?

Fuzion team

The one that works best for me when I really think about it is the description “team-mate” – after all, we are on the same team, fighting for the same cause, we don’t have to particularly like each other (it obviously helps that you do like and respect who you work with) but we do wear the same jersey and the word does have a strong positive association to it.

It still feels strange to use the description as it seems to be reserved for a sporting context but even on websites and on credentials documents we often see the words “our team” being used and you see people say things like “our dedicated team will look after you” ..

… we don’t normally see a section describing the personnel as “colleagues“, but I guess you will often see in emails “one of my colleagues will contact you” … awful, maybe I am wrong?

If you use the right words it can be a powerful way in describing what kind of organisation you are.

Is it just me? .. how do you describe the people you work with?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Personal development, Recruitment, Teamwork, Uncategorized | 16 Comments »

Keeping your feet on the ground

April 3, 2012
Greg Canty & Kevin O'Shea, Fuzion at the DMA's 2012

Boys looking sharp at the DMA's

It was a big night for me and the Fuzion crew.

We just received our new business cards with our new brand revealed as we headed out the door to the Nokia Digital Marketing Awards in Dublin at the National Convention Centre where I was a judge and we were sponsors.

We put on the glad rags for this very glamourous and prestigious affair and I made an extra effort taking out the white dickie bow …. very dapper (very Downton Abbey as someone said to me)!

Over we marched to the event and arrived early so we could liaise with the event crew about the workings of the Fuzion twitter quiz, which was to run between courses during the night. We were greeted by the event signage where our new branding was on display alongside household names such as Nokia. Dee kindly jumped in and photographed me and our fab creative director Kevin O’Shea in front of the branding …. all done quickly before people arrived!

The night was a huge success and a very proud one for us and for me personally. Our brand was on display constantly as the quiz ran during the evening and then came the moment when I had to go on stage and present Blue Cube with an award for the Best Social Media campaign – this was the “real deal“, opening the envelope, cameras everywhere and posing for photos ..

When I was walking from the stage Barry Murphy, the MC from Aprez Match fame made a comment that I should win a smart dressed award … this night was getting better and better!

We had a cool crew at our table including the “boys about town” from B Scene, Brendan Scully and Sean Montague who whisked us off to Lillies Bordello – do you think we had to queue? No chance …. our boys were so well known that our crew were whisked quickly in past the queue and marched straight upstairs to the VIP room.

We sat around, ordered our Mojitos  and chit chatted as the fab hostess looked after her bunch of VIPs!

Unable to contain myself I was busy tweeting about my fabulous night of accomplishments and all of a sudden I misjudged my balance, the stool wobbled and I quickly tipped backwards and ended up with my two legs up in the air with the full VIP section of Lillies looking at me ….. “pathetic drunk” …. no one said that but I’m guessing that’s what some of them were thinking!

Red faced I finished my drink, put my twitter machine away and asked if anyone fancied a whopper in Burger King.

Guess I needed to get my feet back on the ground!

Thanks for reading ….. (it was a great night)

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

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Posted in Marketing, Personal development, Positivity, PR, Social Media, Teamwork | 3 Comments »

What are we teaching our young workers?

February 28, 2012
Young workers

Happy Workers?

My young friend of mine rang me last week all excited – she had been offered a full time job in a sports store in the city.

While she was thrilled she was a little bit upset because she would have to leave her current job, which was also in a sports store. She is a loyal creature, she liked working there, she had made good friends and it had been a real confidence booster for her.

Each week she was one of the best performers in the store, beating her weekly targets consistently and selling well above the other staff members.

So, why was she leaving ?

The store have one of these short sighted recession led policies of restricting  all staff members to just over 20 hours a week so that it would save money – I’m not sure if this was down to saving on breaks or savings due to PRSI class. Either way someone in the organisation set a policy of maximum hours per person to save money.

This money saving was deemed as being better for business than allowing your best people have the most hours – the difference in performance between the different sales staff was thousands of euros consistently each week. Who’s saving money?

Eventually my young friend was left quite demotivated, the penny dropped that no matter how well she performed it would make no difference to her hours or career prospects so she decided to shop for a better position.

Her very last experience with her existing employer was when she handed in her required two weeks notice. True to form she was punished and her hours were slashed in her last two weeks.

I have encouraged her to hold her head up high and to finish off her last days there professionally. Unfortunately she has been left a little disillusioned by one of her earliest work experiences in one of Ireland’s biggest retail chains. I know myself that all of these early experiences play a huge part in forming your attitude towards work and your employers.

What are we teaching our young workers?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion PR

(p.s. I have written to them out of curiosity to see what they have to say)

Update 

This post was actually about my daughter. She started her new job in another sports store and can’t believe the difference it is. They look after their staff really well and from the very first minute she was made feel really welcome and appreciated.  She is lucky to find such an employer and thankfully she is now learning more positive “work lessons”.

I was really annoyed about how she was treated by Lifestyle Sports so I wrote to them hoping for a response but also hoping that they might take the lesson on board. I never received a response to the email that I sent. Maybe this is a reflection of the culture that exists there or maybe it is just a coincidence?

Email to Lifestyle Sports: (career@lifestylesports.com) – see copy below:

Hi ,

I am writing to you to both thank you and express my disappointment with you as an employer.

My daughter has worked with you for nearly two years in a Cork store and despite being one of the top performers in her store with her targets etc she has been held back to the minimum amount of hours each week.

I understand this is a policy to minimise costs – this is a foolish policy when the net result is employees that perform well getting disenchanted as they lose out on hours to other staff. These are foolish savings that are costing your business money and are also demotivating to staff. Too many accountants (I started off life as one) getting their way!

Eventually she managed to secure a full time job with a competitor where she is starting off soon. I was thrilled for her when she was offered the post but she was upset as she had built up a loyalty to Lifestyle Sports.

The last bitter pill was when she handed in her required two weeks’ notice and her store manager “punished” her by slashing her hours..

What kind of spirit are you nurturing? Not only have you really upset her in her last two weeks but you have also upset her colleagues that she works with.

She will freak out when she knows I wrote this as she is frightened she won’t get a good reference.

I trust you will not let this email affect her reference.

As I said at the outset ….. thank you for employing her for the last two years but please, please review your internal policies. You are getting rid of and demotivating performers and undermining the excellent training you give them.

I would like a response to my email.

Regards,

Greg Canty

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Posted in Customer Care, Irish Economy, Personal development, Retailing, Staff training, Teamwork | 23 Comments »

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