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.

The Key Quality of a High Performance Team

In Teamwork, silence isn't golden - it's deadly!

- Mark Sanborn

The importance of getting teams aligned and running smoothly is a key differentiator for an organization's success and tends to give leaders a headache especially when deadlines are missed or quality is less than desired.  

I put out this poll on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.  See the screenshot below on what the poll contained and what people chose.

Some background - Through the past few decades, the most popular models in conflict management were the Thomas Kilmann model and Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.  The first model describes clearly one's possible behaviours during a conflict, and the second model identifies what are causes of poor performance in teams.

So when I have covered the topic of 'Conflict Resolution' or 'Conflict Management' during my Leadership / Managerial Development (or as a stand-alone topic) workshops, both these models have helped the participants get a better grasp on managing and resolving conflicts.

As you may have seen from the poll, the respondents felt that 'Trusting each other' was the key factor for high performing teams, followed by 'Clear Goals'.  Some also shared their perspectives in the comments. Click here to view the interesting comments by some of the respondents in this poll.

The fact is that all four options are important for teams to deliver performance.  Some of my musings on these options: 

Trusting Each Other - What exactly are we trusting each other person to do?  Also trust is built over time, and is quite a fragile thing.  It needs constant repetition, like breathing, if it's going to be of use for a team.

Knowing Each Others Strengths - It's important, no doubt.  How are the strengths being appropriately leveraged by the individual and the team to deliver success.

Clear Goals are Defined - An extremely critical point that speaks of alignment of the team members to the goals.  What's needed post this is actual performance, guidance and flexibility to enable the team to reach the goal - while leveraging strengths, building trust, managing errors and so on.

Manage conflicts effectively - For high performance, the teams will have to work and resolve conflicts quickly.  Why?  because any conflict can consume humungous amounts of time.  A conflict doesn't start out as a conflict, but  mostly as a disagreement or a difference of opinion or a personality clash. So it's actually consuming time from a previous date.  Now we also know (but often forget), time is our most precious resource. Added to this is the amount of emotional energy invested from the initial disagreement to the conflict in progress, by all parties trying to convince the others that they are right.  These tend to become crucial or difficult conversations, which will consume further time and energy to getting the parties to agree to a particular course of action or thought.  

If team members are busy proving that they're right, they don't have time to build trust, get aligned to clear goals, or take the time to know each other's strengths.  As a result, performance will suffer.

The above quote is a reality throughout life, whether personal or professional (irrespective of the industry / organization culture).  Not every disagreement deserves a battle or a war.

Therefore, the faster the team is able to resolve their conflicts effectively, the quicker they are on their way to delivering high performance.  You definitely wouldn't want silence, no matter how golden, coming from your team.

Please get in touch with me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or +919820155778 for workshops and coaching on enabling your teams to work effectively together.

 

A Leader worth Admiring

Who do you consider to be a leader worth admiring? By admire I mean that you are so impressed by them (vision, accomplishments, style, etc) that you celebrate them, become their fan and would like to adopt some of their behaviours into your life.  

So... Gandhi? Hitler? Churchill? Your neighbourhood businessman? A preacher / priest? A film actor? A family member? A friend?  Well, that's your choice.

Now, consider this Ted Talk by Martin Gutmann (the trigger for this short article) that tries to understand this by asking if, by actually celebrating the wrong leaders, we are thereby creating an aspiration to become what might actually be an ineffective leader? If so, what could be the repercussions (on self / team / organization / society) when we celebrate the only shiny (media / social media) side of leadership?

There's a lot of food for thought in this video.  For me, one of the most provoking ideas was about what are the measures by which we tend to judge leaders.  Or rather, which measures are most appropriate to evaluate leaders?  

This further reminded me of discussions I have had during my corporate days while hiring candidates at any level or promoting employees. Practically everyone at the discussion had a different criterion preference when evaluating the person, and it would frequently take us time to understand the other person's perspective when we didn't understand and disagreed with the evaluation.

Things moved forward only when we shared our perspective on the factors we looked at when evaluating the candidate.

And the two final thoughts that struck me from this video:

• Is there a leader authentic enough to be worth admiring, particularly when we look at the current behaviours of some of the world's politicians and business leaders?
• How do I leverage my strengths to become a leader authentic enough to be admired?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Certificate of Appreciation from IAF

 I like helping and I regularly volunteer my time with the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) and other organizations as my schedule permits.

I recently did this for the IAF Asia conference which was held in Hyderabad on 30th Nov, 01st and 2nd Dec 2023.  I was pleasantly surprised to receive this certificate.  

Gratitude to IAF for the opportunity.

When Your Calling Doesn’t Call: What Do You Do Without a Life Passion?

Interesting headline? Read on... 

“If we don’t know what we want to be when we grow up, is there something fundamentally wrong with us?”

Following our joy, chasing our bliss, finding our dharma: these are good things, right? We want to be like the heroic people who gave up the security of some well-paying 9-to-5 in order to move to Greece and start a goat farm that can power a small village. Amazing, right? Let’s all follow our passions!

But what if we don’t have one? What if there’s nothing in particular we’d want to give up our steady paycheck for? What if we care about living a meaningful life but don’t know what, exactly, that would look like?

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. The people that turned their passions into lucrative careers are happy to toot their own horns about it, and loudly. But most of us aren’t doing that. We haven’t found our calling, so we keep waiting for the phone to ring. We join the circus or buy a mobile home to sell our jewelry out of, and for a while, it feels like a life calling. It feels meaningful and important. Then, after a while, exhausted from working too hard and making too little, we realize that we’re bored and frustrated and maybe we’re not in love with what we thought was our calling anymore. Turns out the call was just spam.

Then we start to wonder: If we don’t know what we want to be when we grow up, is there something fundamentally wrong with us?

There isn’t. It’s a myth that we all have some single grand life passion that we must be following or we’re living some pale, flaccid version of life. It’s as mythological as the idea of The One for romantic love.

Read the rest of this fascinating article here.

While you do that, I advocate that you should identify a Purpose that aligns with your strengths. This purpose is not written in stone - meaning, you can change it whenever you like, or even have more than one Purpose at a time. I support my Strengths-based career coaching clients in this journey.

If you want to know how to do this, contact me on +919820155778 or write to ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com for a discussion.

Action from The Selection Discussion - Finding the Right Fit

Just completed a customized two-day workshop on designing behavioural and competency behavioural questions for a logistics organization to sharpen and focus their hiring practice.  This is part of an overall change management initiative. The participants included the management team and a few direct reports in addition to HR.

They all participated fully by asking questions, sharing their viewpoints and taking part in the discussions that were designed.  Some topics covered were:

• Making the interview a positive experience
• Articulating the behaviours that indicate the culture
• Designing Competency based and Behavioural Event Interview Questions
• Improving the quality of hiring decisions

Here are some images from the action.

Plenary discussion of non negotiable behaviours that contravene organization culture norms.

Learnings from 2 days

I'm extremely grateful to the organization for the opportunity.  The workshop went well because of the active participation of the audience.

Please do contact me on +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com if you want to have a conversation about such workshops for your organization.

The Recipe for Effective and Long-term Collaboration

Photo Credit: pexels-alexander-grey-1212407

Have you ever watched a movie with friends, and then later realize that each of you liked and disliked different parts of the same movie that you just saw together, at the same time in the same place?  A similar thing happens with real life people. Have you wondered what causes this difference of opinion? I am sure you noticed that this happens in other areas of life too, including the workplace.  Well, you are not alone in this.  Have a look at this snippet from the world of tennis.

From Facebook - "US Open 1981 final...who thought it would be their last match? McEnroe wrote in his book he could not motivate himself for 2 years after Borg quit. He tried to persuade Borg to comback. When Borg was in Chennai in Feb 2023,he was asked about his rivalry with John in a press meet. Borg recalled the interaction he had with McEnroe in 1982 and 1983. This is what Borg said.

"When I stepped away from the game, I was very young. I played an exhibition in Tokyo. John came to me and said, ‘You cannot stop playing tennis.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘No. Because I need you there!’ ‘But I don’t wanna play!"
“But he was always pushing me because I think, as long as I was there, he was pushing (himself). He liked it, he enjoyed it very much and that was very important for him. And he was very sad, disappointed. And he called me year later and said, ‘You sure you not going to come back to tennis again?’ ‘I’m sure. John. Listen, you do your things. I do my things.’

A similar sentiment was expressed by Freddie Mercury in the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody" when he said that while his solo career was successful, he missed the pushback from the Queen band members when they were writing songs. This pushback helped them deliver some of the best music that has stood the test of time.

If you think about it, this is not unusual at all. You would find this kind of team behaviour mentioned in the Storming, Norming and Performing stages of the Tuckman Stages of Group Development model. Every team tends to go through all the stages. Looking at the Storming stage, team members start to display more of their true selves and their differences while working together, which can lead to conflicts.  In the Norming stage, the team members have worked through their differences and establish some consensus (norms) about what and how things will be done.  There may still be disagreements, but are unlikely to derail the work.  In the Performing stage, the team members understand and accept each other better, enabling them to deliver great performance.  These stages aren't linear and team members are likely to revert to the earlier stages in case of new projects, disagreements or changes in leadership. As the leader or team member, the model will help you understand the stage that your team is in, thus enabling you to make relevant adjustments in your behaviour. You can read more details about the model here - https://hr.mit.edu/learning-topics/teams/articles/stages-development

I have seen this kind of scenario in other situations too. I've learnt that it's important because if you don't have someone who is good enough or better than you to work with, then you cannot improve more than what your mind comes up with.  We know that the seven colours of the rainbow combine to give us many more colours. Similarly, the mind gets it's ideas and inspiration from the points of view that are different / unique / contrary more than the homogeneous.

This absolutely drives home the need for interacting and being with people from diverse  ways of thinking.  We have diverse ways looking at the world and making our strengths come to life (i.e. using them) because we come from different homes, cultures, education, experiences and upbringing which have combined to give us a unique worldview.  This is a practice followed by masters through the ages. Most of the time, however, we're not fully aware that we're doing this.

Could this be because we tend to see things as we are, not as they exist in reality?

So, we must first accept that there are things we prefer to do and things we prefer to NOT do - not try to do everything.  NEXT we have to identify them. If we are able to identify and filter out some of the censorship that is invariably there (fear-driven, cautious behaviour from our Imposter Syndrome being a key culprit) that exists in our minds, we give ourselves the opportunity of asking "why not" or "how about" and exploring possibilities while experimenting with different ways of doing things.  You will find your tasks / work sparking into experiences filled with fresh learning and success.

As a strengths strategy coach, I help teams understand each other's strengths and weaknesses and enable them to build the necessary synergy (and engagement) for creating magic at work.  I use PRISM Brainmapping Inventory or the CliftonStrengths assessment as a primary aid for this.

If you want to know how to get your team to collaborate by complementing each other's weaknesses with their strengths, write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call on +91982155778.

 

Upskilling instead of hiring

Fascinating article that discusses #upskilling of employees based on #potential as well as #performance.

To me, the line "Lead employees to a role they love by helping them identify whether their current role matches their natural interests." talks of building a #strengthsbased #organization. Just substitute the word 'interests' with 'strengths'. Of course, this means you inculcate this in the hiring process first, so that #peopledevelopment becomes more easier.

Read the rest of the article here.

Merry Christmas 2022

 

Leadership Authenticity Starts With Knowing Yourself

Here's a must read article if you want to develop yourself as an "Authentic Leader".

From the article - "Authentic leaders are always investing in strengths -- their own strengths as well as those of their followers." 

When you think about it, you realize that trying to fix weaknesses wastes time, causes unhappiness, dissatisfaction and disengagement, and building on strengths can accelerate growth while having a positive energy experience.

Read the rest of the article here

3 steps to confront your Boss

 https://fierceinc.com/blog/3-steps-to-help-you-confront-your-boss/?utm_campaign=22_Promotions&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=217781268&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-87Mv7qiMlTn0EgUBGif78JTIZeMKPXyWhidDQk8pFNoHp6Bq2a80q7QpN_tuKi1vZSRD21SJjColGjZBpBUI0aSbOIJPPT3xUj42jB1jMLdY1FOoE&utm_content=217782024&utm_source=hs_email

Super article on how to have #toughconversations with your #boss

From the article - "Confrontation conversations aren’t meant to be versations. The latin root word “con” means “with,” and this is not a one-sided speech. In other words, this is not an opportunity to go in and rail against your #leader and expect them to just sit there and listen."

Read the rest here

Feedback - Design Your Life Workshop

I had the pleasure of conducting a workshop entitled "Design Your Life" recently for 30 young participants of St. Blaise Church,  Amboli.  They were initially shy and then warmed up to ask interesting questions and make the workshop more engaging.  Interestingly, we had a few parents who also attended too, and that added an interesting dimension to the discussions.

We covered aspects of planning one's career and life (both are intertwined anyway). 

I shared with them tools such as a Personal Values Exercise, a Personal Brand Exercise, How to identify where they may have talents, how to build flow, how to identify areas of success to work on, and a few more reflective exercises, that would help them make better decisions for their career.  I also spoke about the #PRISM Brainmapping Career Match Report that is great in helping people identify possible career paths. Please call me onn +919820155778 or write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com to know more about this neuroscience-based tool..

My sincere thanks to Fr. Leon and the volunteers who provided all the necessary support.  Here are some images that depict what the participants are going to work on, and a wordcloud that shows what they felt after attending the session (the range of feelings was expected, as it demonstrates to me that they started to think about designing their careers).

Don’t bother working on weaknesses. Success lies in playing to strengths

This article is why I use Strengths in my work as a career transition coach and as a trainer / facilitator. 

Here's a line from that article:

"Encouraging a focus on knowing and building strengths is the route to a vibrant, happy workforce giving their best."

On a personal note:

Too often I have seen talented people stuck in roles that are not aligned with their strengths.  They are in their current career / job, because they were guided by someone who had their best interests and safety at hear. They are not at their most liveliest during the interview.  They seem to be going through the motions at work.  They're reluctant to make a transition to the career that is better aligned with their strengths, perhaps because of loans to pay, fear of the unknown, or fear of what people will say.

You might say - but we all have weaknesses, and we can't really say no if our work involves that.  

That's true.  What you can do is understand the weaknesses they have that matter in relation to the job in hand, and see how it can be complemented by a colleague's strengths - AND vice-versa.

Read the details in article here.

To know more how to leverage your strengths, please view my articles:

Strengths-based Career Conversations

Setting Your Goalsetting Conversation

9 Critical Aspects to consider when setting goals

How do I develop my Strengths?

And I am NOT! - How to leverage your strengths for Resilience?

Why 'Any Job' will not be appropriate for you?

A question to help you DECODE on your Strengths-based Career Path

 While I use a number of questions and a detailed career coaching process to enable my candidates decode and design a career based on their strengths, here's a question from the Gallup organization that can definitely help you drill down towards identifying your strengths based career.

Here's a short comment from the article - "You probably can't be anything you want to be because you just can't be good at everything. But if you know and apply your strengths in your role, you can be more successful."

Defining your Organization's Identity

 

Facweek Feedback - Resilient Leader Session

As a member of the IAF (International Association of Facilitators), we celebrate FacWeek every year in the month of October where we facilitators go out and do 90 minute sessions for corporates, NGOs and Educational Institutes - probono.

I have been doing this for IAF since 2018, and this year was no exception.  I did four sessions on topics chosen by that organization.  Here is the feedback from "The Resilient Leader" session that I did for two organizations.  In one of the sessions, I had the pleasure of having Hardy Alexander as my co-facilitator.

Have a look at the feedback and let me know what you think.

If you want me to do this session (it's actually a full two-day workshop, write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com