Getting the Most From a Cross-Functional Team

Building a common culture within your cross-functional team Let’s start with a surprising fact. According to a study cited in the Harvard Business Review, 75 percent of cross-functional teams are ineffective and will not deliver the project or service they have been tasked with in the way the organization would like, if they are even…

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The Secret Sauce for a Successful Hackathon

Employee Award Winners

Do you want to know the secret ingredient for enhancing team performance during a hackathon? The answer is actually simple, and our recent experiences have shown that it gives your team that extra kick and perfect flavor for success. Before I reveal the ingredients, let me explain what a hackathon is. In its most traditional…

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Tackling Four HR Challenges Through the Power of Cognitive Diversity

Intuitively, we all understand that it’s important to have different perspectives represented in the workplace. If you would like more than intuition, read these case studies that articulate the value of cognitive diversity in product development and problem solving, or read Harvard Business Review’s article: “Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse.” Simply…

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Unleash Your Team’s Full Potential

Team Potential

Cognitive diversity matters. In my last blog post about my book Work That Works, I highlighted the positive role that different thinking and behavioral preferences have on problem solving and performance. I also shared tips to build a cognitively diverse team and help them work together effectively. Often, after I discuss the topic of cognitive…

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How Do You Foster a WEteam’s Worth of Collaboration?

Creating a group of the musics

Cognitive diversity is a vital aspect of successful teams. Studies reported in the Harvard Business Review, hiring practices and numerous case studies over the years have revealed the importance of differing perspectives and their positive impact on innovation and problem solving. While we understand that we need cognitive diversity, it can be challenging for teams…

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The Dynamics of High Performing Teams

Building high performing teams is an opportunity that most companies, nonprofits, boards, leaders and talent management departments are challenged by. After all, in the middle of managing daily operations and seeking out emergent opportunities, it can be easy to overlook team building. It’s typically only after notable challenges occur within or between teams that organizations…

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10 Questions People Usually Ask About the Emergenetics Profile

Virtual team participating in a training

Whether you’ve completed your Emergenetics® Profile or not, you might be curious about the tool and its applications. Here are 10 common questions about our psychometric instrument. 1. What Is the Emergenetics Profile? The Emergenetics Profile is a personality assessment that reveals your preferences for thinking and behaving. These preferences reflect the tendencies that come…

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What You Can Start Doing Now

Image of Emergenetics Profile

Congratulations on receiving your very own Emergenetics Profile, and taking the first step to understand yourself better. We hope you have learnt more about your preferences, and that of others from the workshop! We know it might be a lot of information to process, so here is a quick recap of the Emergenetics Profile: The…

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Understanding Means Respect

The beginning of this new century (new millennium, actually) is presenting again the frightening characteristics that books of history have always represented: conflicts, violence, human exploitation, racial and religious hate, wars and even rumours of a third world war! We at AFS/EFIL* can play a relevant role in this delicate historical moment, where new walls…

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How to Value Each Thinking Attribute

Several years ago as a leader in a Fortune 500 company, our Training and Development Manager brought Emergenetics to my team. At first, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into, but it came with high remarks from people I respected, so I agreed to a Meeting of the Minds (the introductory workshop) with…

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