This is the third article in a seven part series. Read the first and second articles. Let me ask you a question; at work, are you comfortable asking for help, admitting mistakes and limitations, and offering feedback? What about others on your team, how would they answer? Great teams trust one another on a fundamental, emotional level, and they are comfortable being vulnerable with each other about their weaknesses, mistakes, fears, and behaviours. In a survey of over 4,000 people, 84% of respondents said they would trust their co-workers more if those co-workers admitted their
The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team
In my last article, I spoke about the five dysfunctions of a team. If you haven’t read that article, I suggest you start there before reading on. If you have read it, let’s keep going. We identified five of the reasons that teams become dysfunctional as: an absence of trust, no conflict amongst team members, a lack of commitment, no peer to peer accountability and the lack of team focused results. So, if these behaviours are lacking in a dysfunctional team, how do they play out in a cohesive team? Vulnerability-Based Trust: All great teams are built on the foundation of trust, and
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Picture this: You have a great idea; you start a company and you get funding. You use that funding to hire a team of smart, skilled, capable and hardworking individuals; it seems that nothing could possibly go wrong. Surprisingly, a year down the track, the team has produced underwhelming results, operate in silos and don’t openly discuss failures or problems. What went wrong? It doesn’t always happen in this way, but this is not an uncommon occurrence in a team. Many leaders we work with often describe it as “we’re not bad, but we could be much better”. In his book, The Five
What is Clifton StrengthsFinder?
Conventional wisdom teaches us that if we want to improve, we must work on our weaknesses. Think back to your school days when your parents found you a tutor if you were struggling at English or Math. We are so focused on fixing our weaknesses that we don’t often think about increasing our strengths. Enter Donald O Clifton. Dubbed the father of Strengths Based Psychology, he developed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment (clearly he was high Significance), an online assessment that identifies the talents in which an individual has the greatest potential for turning into strengths. Now
