Understanding How Teams Relate

In the final episode of our series on the dominant domains, we discuss the Relating domain and how it shows up on teams. The four domains of Strength are another way to organize and think about the 34 themes of Strength. These episodes are meant to introduce you to the language of the domains of Strength as one of the many ways you can better understand the culture of your team. A better understanding of team culture allows you to better prepare for your engagement with your team. It also helps the team better understand the nature and composition of who they are when they come together. 

The Relating Domain

The Strengths in the Relating domain are Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Includer, Individualization, Positivity, and Relater. When we detect a dominant Relating domain in a group, we’re noticing the essential glue that holds a team together. There’s a way that this group acts that helps people get connected and stay connected through change and adversity.

Of the four domains, the Relating domain culture is probably the easiest to detect because it’s the most sensory. When you walk into a room, you can feel the emotional energy. A culture that is highly relational can feel very inclusive to its members and very exclusive to those who are around them.

When you listen to the conversations in a dominant Relating culture, there can be a very relational dynamic and a very professional dynamic at the same time. To better understand teams in the Relating domain, we explore their relational dynamic and how professionally aware they are of their relational impact.

How We Engage a Team with the Relating Domain

We start to engage a team with the Relating domain by being curious. We invite them to tell us how they relate, what they value in the context of a relationship, and how well they are doing with relating with one another. When a team has a dominant domain of Relating, we watch how they treat each other and how they interact with us. This gives us a lot of clues on what they value. Teams in the Relating domain are very aware of the human and community needs that every one of us has. They are motivated by their care for others. We engage them with questions such as:

• What are they paying attention to?
• How do they accomplish their work?
• How do they influence?
• How do they relate whether internally or externally?

Bias, Boundaries, Blind Spots

Teams with a Relating culture have a bias towards human growth, human benefit, and human advantage. Sometimes a team with a high Relating culture is always willing to show up to help again and again, or to listen more and more. They themselves may not have a clear understanding of where their boundaries stop and the boundaries of someone else begin. And oftentimes there are blind spots that exist around change or progress or speed because they’re focused on an individual’s need and not a collective social need.

Understanding Your Team

If you have questions about the dominant domains, the Relating domain, or any of the information in the dominant domain episode series, send an email to Amy at connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com. We’d love to hear from you!