Strengths On Teams
Happy Thursday! This week’s theme has been strengths – what are they, how do you use them, how do they play out on teams?
It starts with identifying your strengths. Hopefully, by now you’ve taken advantage of the free StandOut assessment that I told you about earlier this week. If not, go do it now!
Next is using your strengths. To learn 4 strategies to intentionally use your strengths, attend a free workshop I’m doing TONIGHT at 6:30pm MT. Zoom link here. I’ll be doing 30 minutes of Q&A afterwards so we can dig into your particular situation.
“But, Bijal, how does this work on a team?” is a question I’ve gotten. The key lies in AWARENESS & COMMUNICATION. Each team member needs to be AWARE of their strengths and then the team needs to have a frank DISCUSSION about them. Focus on the process of how individual strengths can play together nicely on a team to help you reach goals, tackle obstacles, AND enjoy the journey. Now it’s not all warm and fuzzies and only taking on the tasks you like…it’s about strategically scanning the short-term and longer-term horizon for the team, current and upcoming projects, goals, and discussing as a team who will tackle what with a strength-based lens.
For instance, yesterday I led a 90-minute workshop for a leadership team. Through a frank discussion, they realized 1 person loves “white-space planning” and creating, but admitted he hated the iterative back and forth that happens afterwards. Then a colleague volunteered that she has a strength in that next step of their process, and would welcome the opportunity to connect with others while improving an idea. Boom! They are off and running and super engaged with what they are doing because people feel good when they are doing something that is a strength of theirs.
Now, it doesn’t always work that cleanly, and there are varying levels of nuances to it. (Like what if no one on the team has a strength related to a critical task? The short answer: How can the team do that task differently to leverage a team member’s strength. The long answer: there’s a process to figure that out, but it’s too long for this email. Email me if you are interested.)
The key takeaway from today is to start the conversation with your team to understand what their strengths are – what are the tasks & activities that they look forward to. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that some of the tasks you loathe are ones that others relish!
Be well!