Alltech Symposium focuses on sustainability

In the general session, Declan Coyle from Ireland looked at building high performance teams. In this he stressed the importance in difficult times of having inspired leaders who had vision – people who ‘saw it and were it’. These people must have high visions and be focused on them. He highlighted the importance of selfimage, goals and values and, interestingly, highlighted how children aged four years old are 96% positive in their self-images, yet by the time they have reached 14 years old they have become 98% negative! By 12 years of age the average child has received 100,000 NBRs (negative belittling remarks). Another interesting study has shown that the 3% of Yale students who had clearly focused written career goals went on to be worth more than the remaining 97% of their college contemporaries. Declan highlighted the importance for managers to ‘get things going’ and when staff have achieved things to celebrate their successes with them. The first three minutes with staff determines the outcome of the next five hours! Senior managers must prioritise and studies have shown that the two key traits in successful senior managers are the ability to prioritise and to positively instil urgency into their teams. In times of difficulty the greatest danger is that we set goals too low and achieve them! The important thing is to understand the 80:20 rule and to focus on the 20% that brings 80% of the returns! He compared management to a bus in that you have to get the right people on the bus and get them seated in the right seats and those who should not be on that bus should be removed from it. The importance of making staff feel important, feel valued, feel appreciated and being told that what they do makes a real difference was stressed on several occasions. It was intriguing that how management thought staff felt and how staff actually felt on key issues varied so much (see Table 1). When it came to exit interviews 46% of departing staff felt that they were not appreciated, 61% felt they were unimportant and 88% felt that they had been undervalued.