On the leadership programme for which I am a coach, one of our regular speakers is athlete Kriss Akabusi. If you've never seen Kriss and get the chance, grab it - he is truly inspirational. One of his mnemonics for success is FIT - Focus, Innovation and Teamwork.

The challenge is often to enable very different people to bring their best to a team situation, and to work together effectively despite their idiosyncrasies. One of my favourite starting points is Facet5 Teamscape, a personality profiling tool which enables team members to share their profiles and understand each-others' approach better. I recently wrote an article about team building using personality profiling for the Sussex Branch of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). You can read it here.

After last month's plea, more of you contributed to the survey. Thank you to everyone who did so. Unfortunately, there were still only 8 contributors, so the results are not representative. I'll share some highlights here.

Over half of those who responded had seven or more people in their team. The rest had up to 6 people. Two thirds of you felt that your team performance was excellent or good. However, the other third felt there was room for improvement, with occasional missed targets and patchy quality. Most of you felt you had good morale, for one it was excellent, and for one it was poor.

Interestingly, half of respondents felt they did not give new team members a thorough induction, and half were ambivalent about whether communication was good or not. For two thirds of you, both team development and learning from mistakes were important.

Asked which three factors you believed were most important for ensuring team effectiveness and high morale (a free-form question), half of you mentioned trust and respect, two thirds mentioned communication in one way or another, and encouragement and empowerment also featured.

My friend and colleague Kate Harmond and I will be running a one-day "Springclean your Career" workshop at the Friends Meeting House in Brighton on Saturday February 24th.

Come and join us to:

• identify and manage your personal impact at work

• understand and manage conflicting points of view

• clarify your values and strengths

• identify what holds you back and take steps to deal with it

• review and update your CV

• handle interview questions effectively.

Some of my books bristle with those handly little post-it page markers which remind me of aha moments and memorable passages. This is one of them. Chris Johnstone was a junior doctor in the UK when that meant working 48 hours without a break, and 100 hour working weeks. He became a leading figure in the campaign to change junior doctors' working conditions. It took courage and determination - two attributes he encourages in his readers. He now specialises in treating addiction and teaching positive psychology.

The book is very much for people who want to recover from setbacks and to find and use their own power for positive results. The first part of the book is called "The power to begin", the second part is "the power to move through blocks" and the third part is "the power to keep yourself going". This book is invaluable: realistic, optimistic, and full of valuable insights, clear illustrations and real examples. I really do recommend it.