How Understanding Team Personalities Saved the Project and the Kingdom
by Joni Harris Minault, co-Founder, SeeChange PartnersOnce upon a time, in a Kingdom called Conference Room C, there lived a project team. One day the King's messenger arrived with a proclamation that the King had entered into an alliance with a very large, prestigious client who required the team's services right away.
The project was so vital to the future of the kingdom that the King summoned two of the finest consultants in all the land to lead the team. They were both highly sought after for their problem solving skills, their technical expertise, and their many years of hands-on experience. Sir Lance and Lady Gwen arrived forthwith.
Days passed. There was no word from the team. Soon, bickering could be heard throughout the castle. Sadly, Sir Lance, Lady Gwen and the entire team were very, very unhappy. The two leaders fought mightily, for Lady Gwen believed that excellent problem solving meant generating lots of positive options, so she skipped from idea to new idea, thought to thought, vision to vision, and the team could barely keep up with her.
Sir Lance felt that it was his duty to troubleshoot ideas, ask questions, gather data, and in an effort to save the kingdom from unnecessary risk, slay each idea that he deemed unrealistic. His team, and most of all, Lady Gwen, felt that he was a naysayer who was standing in the way of progress. Alas and anon, a pall fell over the land.
It so happened that as kings go, this King was a wise man. He summoned them both to his chambers to offer them counsel. You are both more similar than you think. Be patient. You are each following your own realities - Lady Gwen reframes situations to see only the positive; Sir Lance anticipates only the negative. You each must temper your own realities with those of the team around you. We must all make decisions with little information and the worst case happens rarely. Listen without judgment, and act with intention. You must both come closer to the center.
Days passed and soon the team, led proudly by Sir Lance and Lady Gwen, delivered its most creative product of all time. Peace was restored to the Kingdom. Bells rang, birds sang, the sun shone, and gold ingots dropped from the sky. And they all worked happily ever after. The End.
The moral of this story is that you shall have all the world's riches when your relationship skills exceed your technical expertise.
This classic fairy tale illustrates that no matter how technically skilled you are, your personality style is the factor that will make or break your progress at work. The success of your organizations depends on you - how well you communicate, work in teams, lead, give and receive feedback and resolve conflicts.
Do you prefer to communicate by e-mail or in-person? Is your speaking style direct and forceful or subtle and sparse? Why?
How do you approach problem solving? Do you revel in working through the process with others or would you prefer to work alone until you come up with a solution?
And how do you view conflict and deal with confrontation? Would you rather have a root canal than confront someone, or do you welcome the opportunity to state your needs and opinions?
What is your definition of a good leader and do you meet your own criteria?
Every day, your organization makes a serious investment in technical training, yet managers see the greatest return on investment when they work on tools to increase emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to know and manage yourself, understand others accurately, and interact with others productively.
How can you increase your emotional intelligence?
1. Know yourself. There are many tools available to help you gain insight into your personality and increase self-awareness. The enneagram (any-a-gram) is the oldest, deepest and most powerful system, since it not only describes our behaviors, but it examines our motivations for those behaviors. When you know your motivations, a whole new world opens up to you because you can determine if they are still useful for you. You learn that you have choices about how to react, interact and behave in the world.
2. Observe your own style of communication, leadership, resolving conflicts, and team participation. How do others react to you? Are you fully present in conversations and meetings? What kinds of changes could you make, today, that would increase your effectiveness at work? Do you recognize your own signs of defensiveness that prevent you from participating fully on teams? Can you experience conflict as an opportunity to solve problems?
3. Use your self-awareness to understand others and increase your effectiveness. As an individual, you are more valuable to your management and team when you can play more than one role. As you come to truly understand and empathize with the different ways other people experience the world, you will naturally broaden your own behavioral palette.
And managers can use these new skills when they are assembling teams. When you understand personality styles, you can make excellent matches of your resources to your client teams. The right personality fit outweighs the right bundle of technical skills every time.
As soon as Sir Lance understood Lady Gwen's need to generate options, and once Lady Gwen understood Sir Lance's need to reduce risk by gathering information, they were better able to meet each other in the middle. They learned a common language that enabled them to work together productively and let go of personality differences.
4. Work on it! Make a serious investment in relationship skills. The return on your investment will be higher than it will from gaining more technical expertise. Increasing your emotional intelligence is a process. After all, it takes a lot of time to become proficient in your organization's and your client's business systems - it will take just as long to become proficient in your own business operating system - your personality. It takes time to gain insight. With some outside help and just a few sessions devoted to learning these skills, you will see the rewards of higher productivity, lower turnover, and deeper levels of problem solving that flow to the bottom line.
When we navigate relationships smoothly, we unlock energy that becomes available to transform us into creative, innovative, productive individuals. We are more satisfied at work and our attitudes spread across our organizations.
And we may just live happily ever after.
The End
Note: This article was originally published at www.PSVillage.com