Our Top 5 Posts from 2015: All About Teams
2015 was a great year for Leadership Vision. We grew our team by three, took on several new clients, and launched an online version of our core offering. We continued Strengths Communicator training, bringing the total number of participants to over 200. 2015 also provided three opportunities for preview experiences (the next of which is February 12, 2016).
The one big theme we kept coming back to was team. Not only in the way we thought about and intentionally grew our own team, but the way we worked with other teams has changed a bit as well. Teams are vitally important to any organization. Without a strong, healthy, functioning team (comprised of strong, healthy individuals), organizations don’t stand a chance of succeeding.
Drilling into our google analytics, it was obvious that this is what our readers cared about as well. Below are five of the most searched and shared articles from 2015. All of them, in some way, reference Strengths work with teams.
Through Their Eyes: Using Strengths to Understand Perspectives
Aleasha is quickly becoming our resident team expert. In this post, she tells us that, “…It is crucial to remind ourselves that we each view and approach the world with a unique lens of strength.” This is something we have recently been reminding ourselves of as we go through our own growing pains.
If we are constantly curious about learning why others tick, (assume positive intent), and invite regular Strengths conversations into our lives, we can intentionally get to know those around us and thrive as individuals and teams.
Why Leaders Who Leverage Their Strengths Win More Often
This post isn’t directly about teams, but as Joseph points out, “Finding your natural talents… allows you to know what you are not as strong at, and figure out ways to team with people who are strong in those weakness areas.”
It is all about your ability to “team with people” in positive, life giving ways that allows you to win more often. “Leaders, Teams, and Cultures that focus on strength have a better chance at winning in their environment.” Taking time now to better understand your own Strengths directly correlates to your ability to succeed as a team.
Team Health Check: Is your Team Surviving or Thriving?
Another post from our resident Strengths Team Expert, Aleasha put to paper our process for working with teams in professional contexts. The “Team Health Check” was the first in a four part series of our Team Engagement Model. We realized that a gap existed between the individual strengths work and the integration of it at the team level. Over multiple years, we studied over 140 professional teams. Regardless of the industry, team size or structure, the obstacles to maintaining a healthy, high-functioning team centered around the ideas of knowledge, purpose and trust.
The other articles in the series are:
- Knowledge: Why Knowing Your People Matters
- Purpose: Does Your Team Have a Purpose?
- Trust: It Begins with Trust
Aleasha says, “A common thread in our findings was that a team’s greatest potential for function or dysfunction existed in the alignment within these areas.”
Team Building Communication – A Strengths Based Activity
This post is part of another series that I wrote around the key activities we do with teams. Vision Trekk is our experience-based application of the learnings from StrengthsFinder in a partial, whole or multiple day event. It happens in a creative space, outdoors, or other non-work related environment. We lead functional teams toward a common objective, emphasizing individual uniqueness and team dynamics.
This Strengths based activity is all about communication. Essentially the chaos and confusion created during this team building activity (all in good fun of course), often mirrors a real team environment. With communication coming from multiple sources at various times, it can be difficult to understand what is most important to focus on.
The point of this (and all of these) is to observe team interaction, individual attributes and characteristics, while making specific application to leadership and innovation.
Tips for Integrating Strengths Into Your Team and Organization
Over 13 million people have taken Strengths to date, yet it’s amazing how many wonder what to do after getting their results. Many times, our first conversation with a client involves them asking us how to use it to transform their organization.
The reality is that it simply takes focused and intentional time.
Aleasha shares again some tips for integrating this into your team or organization. If you want to get a jump start on this in the new year, post reflection questions like these to your team at your next meeting.
- Discuss one of your strengths that is deeply valued in your culture or upbringing.
- How do you use your strengths to make a difficult decision?
- What strength do you rely upon in conflict situations?
- Do you have a strength that gets in your way sometimes?
Your Favorite
Do you have a favorite post of ours from 2015? Was there something that was particularly helpful to you as you begin, and continued your Strengths journey? Share it below! We love to hear how people are engaging with our material.
