The Foresight Institute Newsletter - January 2008
I hope that like me you have had a great Christmas and New Year. It's not hard with the fantastic summer weather we have been having. For many people getting back into work mode can be something of a struggle, so I thought herea are some positive messages to make it easier.
- Make a Positive Start to the Year
- Improve Your Mental Toughness
- Accentuate the Positive with Dr Martin Seligman
- Recruiting Talented People
- Increase Your Employees' Capability and their Employment Value (Foresight Public Courses for Improving Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude)
- Speaking Engagements
Make a Positive Start to the 08 Year
If we focused only on last year's major sports results, we could get depressed - the America's Cup, Rugby World Cup, Netball World Cup ... it's quite a list. But already this year we have seen some standout individual performances. For some inspiration on what the right attitude can do, find out what Shorty Clark has achieved recently. He's in action again at Kinloch, Whangamata Bay, Lake Taupo, on Sunday February 3 at 7am.
Mentally tough and resilient high achievers are able to put setbacks behind them while learning valuable lessons that take them forward. A few days ago, I penned a few thoughts for the Weekend Herald on making work more enjoyable and satisfying in 2008
>> click here to go to this article
Improve Your Mental Toughness
There's a growing recognition that the mental fragility of New Zealanders is holding us back. To handle the current economic headwinds, and find the opportunities that always accompany danger, we need new levels of mental toughness.
The Foresight Institute's mental toughness course is now at number five on the University of Auckland's Top Ten Short Courses, and it's all about how to set your sails regardless of the weather.
Fletcher Building is one of many organisations that use our expertise, backed by solid science, and offers employees this two-day short course at the University of Auckland's Business School.
Massey University also ensures that its MBA students have an academic advantage by engaging Foresight to provide a workshop, introducing the core concepts of mental toughness.
Accentuate the Positive with Dr Martin Seligman
The guru of Positive Psychology, Dr Martin Seligman, will be in this part of the world for the next few months and will, for the first time, be providing public seminars in New Zealand on Positive Psychology.
The Importance of Emotion in the Workplace
One Positive Psychology study revealed that organisations with the best emotional mood also had the best profitability, customer satisfaction, and employee 360 ratings. They also had a good balance of both advocacy and enquiry communication styles. In the poorly performing organisations advocacy was the dominant style - there was not much listening to, and valuing, others' thoughts and ideas.
Employees are happier and more productive when communication involves a lot of enquiry, indicating a sincere intention to gain ideas and insights from employees on making the enterprise more effective.
You'll learn much more about this and other workplace influences at Dr Seligman's seminar.
Recruiting Talented People
This is a good time to review your recruitment strategy.
- Are you differentiating the must have factors from the nice to have factors?
- Would your top performers make it through your current recruitment process? Often, candidates with great potential get rejected on spurious grounds, while those with low potential slip under the radar.
- How do you measure and monitor your recruitment process - how do you know that it leads to good hiring decisions?
- Do you use testing to check your gut instinct, and are the tests you use proven to be effective?
The Foresight Institute helps clients with a suite of recruitment tools, including Seligman's Attitude Questionnaire, and the Caliper range of rests.
>> click here for to see how one organisation uses the Caliper expertise to achieve peak performance
We have also got together with specialist sales recruitment and development company Rev Sales Network to offer complementary services.
Increase Your Employees Capability and their Employment Value, Invest in a Foresight Course and Improve Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude
- Mental Toughness at the University of Auckland - February 19/20; April 16/17 A Top Ten Course
- Employee Engagement at the University of Auckland - February 28/29
- Superior Resilience with Conferenz - May 7/8, Wellington - May 14/15, Auckland
- Mental Toughness For Sales Professionals at the University of Auckland - August 19/20
Conference / Speaking Engagements
The rapidly increasing interest in Mental Toughness, Resilience, Positive Psychology means our diary for Q1 & Q2 is filling fast, and we are receiving enquiries for Q3.
Call us soon if you want to have the pick of the dates ...
Jamie Ford
Director
"It's not what happens to you that matters. It's what you think about what happens to you that matters"
Martin E.P. Seligman
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