Styles and Teamwork

It's very common for  a multitude of styles to exist within any team. Some people are more detail oriented, others love the big picture, some like to be "hands on" (doers) while others may be more cerebral (thinkers).

What are the different styles that exist within your team?
How do different styles create conflict?
How do the different styles allow your team to do exceptional work?

Some of the work I do with teams is to provide them with further detail about their styles and strengths. "Knowledge is power" and may provide new insights about team members' preferences, what they value and how they may prefer to work.

Perhaps you are looking to do some work in this area. Depending on your budget, amount of time, team size and focus, you may wish to explore these assessments:
 - DiSc
- Personal Styles Inventory
- Myers-Briggs
- StrengthsFinder (more of a focus on strengths than styles. Can be very useful for teams)

The key to introducing any of these to your team is to use it in expanding the awareness of the group. It's not just to say " I'm an ENFP"  or "I'm a Sensor, and hence I am an x....". Assessments can be useful in reinforcing, or enhancing our awareness around our preferences in how we work, and where our natural abilities/affinities may lay. Sharing this information within the team context can help facilitate a deeper understanding about the overall team strengths, gaps, blindspots, areas of opportunity and potential threat (i.e. all team members are strong in big-picture orientation but not in detail).

How might a conversation about styles and strengths benefit your team?

Have a great week!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley 2010)
Potentials Realized - Team Services | Retreats | Leadership Development
Phone: (416) 996-8326 (TEAM)

Teams on Thursdays: Leverage Your Team's Strengths

The Gallup organization and researchers such as Marcus Buckingham and Tom Rath have been leaders in the field of strengths based leadership. Many of you will have probably read, or heard of books such as Now, Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham), Go Put Your Strengths to Work (Buckingham) and Rath's StrengthsFinder 2.0.

Here are 3 conclusions from Gallup’s research on conversation, engagement, and strengths:
If your manager primarily ignores you, your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
If your manager focuses on your weaknesses, your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

What a difference when you look at strengths!

I saw Tom Rath speak last year in Atlanta and was really struck by one of the business metrics that he shared about how important employee engagement, and a strengths based approach can be:

An engaged workforce has 2.6 x the Earnings Per Share (EPS) than a disengaged workforce. That's a pretty significant figure.

What are the strengths present in your team? As individual team members? As a whole team or system?

How easy was it to answer these questions?

There are some fantastic leading edge assessments available to measure and map your team strengths. One that I stand fully behind, and use with teams that I work with, is the Team Diagnostic Assessment. The Team Diagnostic Assessment has also used in companies including Johnson and Johnson, McDonalds, ING, Unilever, Hilton, Bank of America. The Team Diagnostic Assessment provides a mapping of 14 key strengths of a team. Part of the uniqueness of this tool is that it looks at the team as a system (rather than a collection of individuals). As we all know, any change affects the system -- how often do you take a look at your team as a system? The tool was developed by Team Coaching International.

If you would like to learn more about the Team Diagnostic Assessment, I would invite you to contact me.

Let's discuss how this assessment can provide invaluable insights about your team as a system, its strengths and how these can be leveraged to create, or sustain, a high perfomance culture and results. The assessment also includes a one to two day offsite retreat process with the team, grounded in team coaching. I am presently booking presentations (virtual/webinar or onsite) with corporations who are looking for cutting edge tools and processes to support their teams and results later this year.

Global team? No problem -- the assessment can be delivered in 12 languages, and the retreat can be held virtually. Multiple global (intact) teams? I work with a global network of practionners who can also deliver the program in your languge and culture.

Contact me by email or toll free (1-866-217-1960) to learn more about the Team Diagnostic Assessment and how it could support your team(s). I look forward to hearing from you.

Have a wonderful week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP
Potentials Realized
Email: jennifer{AT}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Go Put Your Strengths To Work

Back in October of last year, I wrote a post on Leveraging Your Strengths. Late last year Marcus Buckingham published his newest book -- Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance.

For those of you who subscribe to an approach where strengths are are leveraged in the workplace and business, rather than weaknesses being put under the microscope, this is a must read. It's a great book for anyone in management and the field of learning and development. I used the Now, Discover Your Strengths process several years ago when I was starting my business and found the book and related assessment invaluable.

If you haven't checked out his earlier books, Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001) and First, Break All the Rules (2000), you may want to check these out as well.

I've put Go Put Your Strengths to Work and Now, Discover Your Strengths in my Amazon Associate bookstore (http://astore.amazon.com/yourbalancedlife-20) -- here's the link to these books and some other great business and management reads.

Enjoy and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, CPCC, CHRP
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer[at]potentialsrealized[dot]com

What are your strengths?

What are your strengths? If you are interested in looking at what your signature strengths are, you may want to check out www.authentichappiness.org . This free 30 minute online assessment is a fantastic tool for business leaders, business teams and business owners to get a sense of what your core character strengths are. The assessment will identify your top strengths of out of a total of 24 strengths including love of learning, ingenuity, integrity, honesty, and zest.

This assessment has evolved out of the research undertaken by those in the Positive Psychology field which focuses on strengths and potentials of individuals, rather than mental illness. For more information on this amazing field, you will want to read Dr. Martin Seligman's book - Authentic Happiness.

Enjoy!

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized
Web: www.potentialsrealized.com
Email Me
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960