Team Motivation 

Imagine your company as a family - no one should be of less importance as if they contribute positively and add value to your business. Workplace inclusivity allows everyone to grow and most workers are more driven when there is a sense of belonging and ownership. Putting yourself in the shoes of workers participating in team networking events will help cultivate a strong feeling of acceptance and inclusion, motivating to seek personal growth and development through sharing with fellow work peers through higher levels of engagement.

Power dynamics can be particularly challenging when too much power is vested on only a few or limited to one authoritative figure at the workplace. Management role sharing would be ideal for fairness and effectiveness, but this is often impossible for smaller companies with less available resources. Therefore, careful considerations should be taken by the management on their approach towards more junior employees, most importantly when a company is experiencing growth at a faster pace – for example, setting ground rules for direct line managers and fostering a workplace with sufficient peer support.

Anger is a normal yet powerful emotion that one can experience during conflicts, and it isn’t always bad. Acknowledging that anger is a valid emotion instead of ignoring or suppressing it will help preventing escalation of the conflict at a later stage. Recognition of its triggers can expose the root cause of the problems, allowing insight into underlying issues which must be addressed. Acknowledgement of anger should not be seen as encouragement of letting out steam at the workplace whenever there is a disagreement. If anger is causing too much aggression and negativity at work or conversations are becoming too personal, managing the emotion first before dealing with the conflict itself should be the first step to take. Approaching anger in a constructive way helps turn conflicts into opportunities for personal growth and foster stronger relationships between employees.

The rationale behind conflicts is that things are always easier when you get somebody to turn to, or in a to worse scenario, to blame on. Communicating with someone who is not involved in the conflict reduces the tension and bitterness between the parties, which can be emotionally draining and definitely not helping when logic is most required.

Strategic partnerships can take many forms, such as joint ventures, or technological collaborations for businesses to co-operate and achieve mutual business benefits. Subjecting data to stringent access control for different strategic partners, reasonable duration shared for specific agreed and permitted use, encryption of stored data and data in transit, installing firewalls and intrusion detection systems to block malicious activities should all be crucial factors for data security and confidentiality in cybersecurity considerations – the pro-active steps a business can take when working with a strategic partner. Having a confidentiality agreement maybe good as a safety net but normally relates to remedies after a breach has occurred.