One of the most exciting parts of being on a team, and also one of the most challenging, is working with others who have a different style and different preferences. As someone who has led teams, or worked with teams, globally for the better part of the last three decades, I see this as one of the biggest challenges for teams.
Past posts here at the Teams365 blog
Key to becoming more effective in working with different styles in a team is:
#1 - Know Your Own Style and Strengths
We each have a unique style, and there are many great assessments on the market place today - MBTI, DisC, or the series of strengths based work through assessments such as VIA Character Strengths, or StrengthsFinder2.0.
What do you know about your style and strengths?
How does that help you? Hinder you in your work?
# 2 -Understand the limitations of your own style
With strengths come limitations, particularly if we are over utilizing or focusing on those. When others have to work with you as a details oriented person, what is that like? If you are constantly driving for results, how is that for others who have to work with you?
How does your strengths and styles help you? Help the team?
Where do your strengths and styles get in the way?
#3 - Understand what happens to your style when you are under pressure. Pressure in today's context is a daily occurrence for many. Whether it's working with limited resources or getting a project done in half the time it needs, pressure is constant. What typically happens when we are under pressure - time, resource pressure or stress - is that o ur styles can get magnified. Our strengths become a blindspot. So, our attention to detail becomes over magnified, or our penchant for strategy becomes over utilized without a focus on the practicality of what can, and needs to get one.
What happens to your style, when you are under pressure?
The focus on ourselves is one part of the equation. The other part is to explore what happens across the team and how strengths and styles overlap and connect. There may also be gaps.
Have you as a team created space to talk about strengths/styles?
Where are you aligned?
Where are you in contradiction or opposition to each other?
What gaps exist?
Finally, with these ideas in mind, we also need to think about how we "dial up" and "dial down" our strengths. When do they become over magnified? When are they not enough? When do we become entrenched with them?
I hope that this post sparks some conversation for you as a team around your unique styles and how that is supporting or hindering you this quarter. For those interested in learning more about how I could support you and your team in this discussion, please reach out and set up a phone call.
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Past posts here at the Teams365 blog
Key to becoming more effective in working with different styles in a team is:
#1 - Know Your Own Style and Strengths
We each have a unique style, and there are many great assessments on the market place today - MBTI, DisC, or the series of strengths based work through assessments such as VIA Character Strengths, or StrengthsFinder2.0.
What do you know about your style and strengths?
How does that help you? Hinder you in your work?
# 2 -Understand the limitations of your own style
With strengths come limitations, particularly if we are over utilizing or focusing on those. When others have to work with you as a details oriented person, what is that like? If you are constantly driving for results, how is that for others who have to work with you?
How does your strengths and styles help you? Help the team?
Where do your strengths and styles get in the way?
#3 - Understand what happens to your style when you are under pressure. Pressure in today's context is a daily occurrence for many. Whether it's working with limited resources or getting a project done in half the time it needs, pressure is constant. What typically happens when we are under pressure - time, resource pressure or stress - is that o ur styles can get magnified. Our strengths become a blindspot. So, our attention to detail becomes over magnified, or our penchant for strategy becomes over utilized without a focus on the practicality of what can, and needs to get one.
What happens to your style, when you are under pressure?
The focus on ourselves is one part of the equation. The other part is to explore what happens across the team and how strengths and styles overlap and connect. There may also be gaps.
Have you as a team created space to talk about strengths/styles?
Where are you aligned?
Where are you in contradiction or opposition to each other?
What gaps exist?
Finally, with these ideas in mind, we also need to think about how we "dial up" and "dial down" our strengths. When do they become over magnified? When are they not enough? When do we become entrenched with them?
I hope that this post sparks some conversation for you as a team around your unique styles and how that is supporting or hindering you this quarter. For those interested in learning more about how I could support you and your team in this discussion, please reach out and set up a phone call.
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Retreats.
Follow us on Twitter @Teams365
Phone: (416)996-8326
Looking to enhance your virtual conversations - Conference calls? Webinars? Virtual coaching work? Pick up a copy of my new book, Effective Virtual Conversations, at Amazon.
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