Getting a Team to Leverage their Strengths to Collaborate

I was asked to enable a team to use their strengths to improve their collaboration as a team with the help of the CliftonStrengths assessment.  

Love that thought - especially since I'm a certified Strengths Strategy Coach.

This team were the leaders of R&D and had teams reporting in. So yes - their average experience per person would between 18 to 20 years.

The challenge - covering a lot of content along with reflection and discussions within a short time.  Specifically I was given a day, after a lot of negotiation. There's many dimensions to CliftonStrengths that have to covered before a participant is able to understand how strengths manifest, as well as how they can be triggered, unconsciously and consciously.  This is true for group settings as well as one-to-one strengths coaching.

The base workshop design was from my Signature Workshop "Decode your Strengths", and I included a lot of pre-work and post work - i.e. articles to read and exercises for self-reflection.

The participants were wonderful and invested their time to complete the pre-work assigned to them, in addition to completing the CliftonStrengths assessment.  Their participation during the workshop definitely enhanced the learning experience for everyone.

We covered the 34 Strengths, Great Wall of Talent, Theme Dynamics, how collaboration happens when weaknesses are negated by complementing strengths, and ended the day with short case studies of how strengths, when understood, can be used to manage different situations at work.

What's next? Practice and Reviews.  Let's see how they go.

Here's some of the action from the day.

Building the Top 5 Great Wall of Talent

The Great Wall of Talent

Creating the Team Domain Map

Do connect with me if you wish to build a Strengths-based Team or Organization that can use their strengths to effectively collaborate with each other.

Reflections from IAF Mumbai Hub Session - Springboarding Sustainability through Stories

Pic credit: Dall-E

Conducting a facilitation session for the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) is always a pleasure.  It can also get a bit tense if you try to do different topics using a process that fits the session, but you haven't tried before.

That's what I did last month when I agreed to do a session on "Springboarding Sustainability through Stories" for IAF's Mumbai Hub.  I was blessed with participants who gave their full attention in the session.  There were two CPFs in attendance - Shyam Iyer and Kala Diwanji.

Here's what went well  - a deep discussion on the vast topic of "sustainability" was enabled for the participants.  I learnt that the process "Impact Gap Canvas" can generate deep discussion.  Participants were able to first research sustainability stories and then create some of their own as they discussed how they can make sustainability practices a part of their life.  I contracted with the CPFs to be participants in the session.

What I could have done differently - I could have designed more physical movement during the session for the participants as it would keep their energy levels up.  I also could have spent more time setting the context for the session.

Here are some pics of the action:

Some possibilities of actions towards sustainability

With Parineeta Mehra who willingly supported me with the logistics

The harvest at the end of the session

My gratitude to IAF Mumbai hub for this wonderful opportunity.  

Additional thanks to 

• Parineeta Mehra for her support with logistics.  
• SessionLab where I found the Impact Gap Canvas
• The CPFs for sharing with me a few tips for improving my facilitation skills.
• The participants for giving of their time and whole-hearted attention.