Part 3: CliftonStrengths for Teams

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Click here to view and download this month’s worksheet(s) to utilize on your own or with a Group and/or Team.

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“Build a better team just like you’d build anything else, piece by piece.”

Excerpt from How to Build a Better Team, Gallup

 

High performing teams, we all want them, we all try to build them, and we all know “together everyone achieves more!” Amidst all the team building efforts, ropes courses, trust exercises, ax throwing parties and happy hours (all which appeal to some and certainly enjoy some level of positive impact), leader managers would benefit from being equipped with tools to help them build teams piece by piece as they seek to create high performing teams.

The CliftonStrengths tool, when used alongside a consistent, disciplined people development process, provides a leader manager with insight into the unique talents a team member brings to the organization and a methodology for building teams that can yield highly impactful results. Yes, Together Everyone CAN Achieve More!

The business community is recognizing the workplace’s role in providing team members with opportunities to make a meaningful contribution while fostering environments that promote team members’ mental and overall well-being and that of others. Gallup’s research found people who focus on using their strengths are three times more likely to report an excellent quality of life.

Investing in people and building teams will certainly benefit the bottom line, however, most importantly is the life impacting role the workplace can play in creating healthy individuals, families, and communities. Over and again research generally shows that people who do not work or are not meaningfully employed (or underemployed) may experience a sense of disconnect, some level of unhappiness and or feel unfulfilled.

Understanding the unique gifts and talents of the individuals on your team is the first step in achieving “the right people in the right seats” on the proverbial bus (Jim Collins). Gallup points out, “teamwork is not always defined by ‘getting along’ but rather should be about having respect for individual ideas and personalities. In other words, teamwork has a couple of faces, but it’s up to the executive to handle the tension between great products and outcomes, as well as great relationships.”

Creating an environment with a focus on building high performing teams requires vacating the philosophy that we are a “family.” The greatest expression of teamwork is interdependency; with each person bringing their individual gifts, uniqueness, talents, and energy to create what only can be produced by a team working together. We are a team of people with conditional expectations, adults in the workplace, not children being parented in an organization.

Reed Hastings, Founder and CEO of Netflix stated, “We're a team, not a family. We're like a pro sports team, not a kid's recreational team. Coaches' job at every level of Netflix [is] to hire, develop and cut smartly, so we have stars in every position.” Leader managers are player coaches who learn to bring out the best in each team player.

It is useless and futile to expect that an un-coached, ill equipped, undeveloped team will produce superior results. Leader managers must invest the requisite amount of time coaching, equipping, and developing everyone on a team, ensuring each individual is placed in the best seat and best setting thereby synthesizing collective efforts. Then and only then will teams be on the path to high performance and achieving the best results possible. Leader managers recognize, as people who coach sports teams know, their job is to put each person in a position on the team to bring out the very best in the overall team. Leader managers spend time:

 

  • Scouting and recruiting for the best talent

  • Understanding the unique contributions of each team member

  • Synthesizing team strengths in action

  • Mapping and studying the team strengths

  • Providing each team member with roles, engagement opportunities, and assignments that utilize their strengths

 

As we have explored during the third quarter of 2023, the CliftonStrengths tool identifies four talent domains our strengths reside in. We all possess strengths in all four domains. The most effective approach is to identify each team member’s greatest strengths and to play to the team member’s strengths as you create project teams and help individuals work together to achieve results.

From administering CliftonStrengths to hundreds of people, I am struck by the distribution of the strengths. Many leader managers possess a significant number of strengths in the relationship building and execution domains. We have found leader managers, primarily hired for their subject matter expertise, tend to have 65-70% of their strengths in those two domains.

The schematic in this article illustrates the interdependency of the domains as the route to achieving desired outcomes. The process of achieving results is never linear, rather always circular and requires all domains/themes at every juncture. For purposes of the attached illustration a leader manager will be able to align the strengths of the team with the needs of the organization.

We need the Strategic Thinking team members to help us absorb and analyze information that informs betters decisions as we make choices and chart a way forward. (8 of the 34 strengths)

  • Analytical

  • Context

  • Futuristic

  • Ideation

  • Input

  • Intellection

  • Learner

  • Strategic

 

We need the Influencing team members to help us take charge, speak up, and make sure others are heard. Influencing team members bring everyone into the loop. (8 of the 34 strengths)

  • Activator

  • Command

  • Communication

  • Competition

  • Maximizer

  • Self-assurance

  • Significance

  • WOO (Winning Others Over)

 

We need the Relationship Building team members to help us hold a team together and make it greater than the sum of its parts. No one is left out or behind as the team finds their way forward. (9 of the 34 strengths)

  • Adaptability

  • Connectedness

  • Developer

  • Empathy

  • Harmony

  • Includer

  • Individualization

  • Positivity

  • Relator

 

We need the Executing Team members to help us make things happen and “get stuff done!” They relish in getting done what we have all set out to do. (9 of the 34 strengths)

  • Achiever

  • Arranger

  • Belief

  • Consistency

  • Deliberative

  • Discipline

  • Focus

  • Responsibility

  • Restorative

 

Gallup provides an overview of the essential roles individual team members can fill to help achieve results. When assigning tasks and responsibilities consider which team member may take the lead in the following areas:

  •  Build Relationships – establish connections with others to build trust, share ideas, and get work done

  • Communicate Clearly – listen, share information succinctly, and be receptive to others’ opinions

  • Create Accountability – identify the consequences of action and hold everyone responsible for performance

  • Develop People – help others become more effective using strengths, expectations, encouragement, and coaching

  • Inspire Others – encourage others using positivity, foresight, confidence, questioning, and recognition

  • Lead Change – accept change happens and set goals that align with a plan for how to adapt to it

  • Think Critically – seek and evaluate information, apply knowledge, and solve problems

 

Unquestionably we need to realize and reap the benefits of all the strengths all the time, however no one individual is capable of making that happen all at once! The beauty of the CliftonStrengths tool is the measurable, quantifiable ability to identify the unique gifts and talents of each team member.

The CliftonStrengths tool helps unlock the code to ensuring the right person at the right time is in the right seat making the most effective contribution to the team. Moreover, providing all team members with a rewarding and engaging opportunity to live their best life by building a team piece by piece; literally changing lives, and positively impacting and influencing well-being. Truly, Together Everyone WILL Achieve More!

-LS

This Month’s Worksheet

Click here to view and download this month’s worksheet(s) to utilize on your own or with a Group and/or Team.

Recommended Quarterly Reading

StrengthsFinder 2.0
By Tom Rath

2023
Managing From The Inside Out

Winter 2023

February 1, 8, 15, 22
March 1, 8, 15

AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.

Spring 2023

May 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
June 7, 14

AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.

Fall 2023

October 4, 11, 18, 25
November 1, 8, 15

AM Classes: 8:30-11:30 A.M.
PM Classes: 1:30-4:30 P.M.

Register today to engage in professional growth and development as a Leader Manager and join us for Managing From The Inside Out! Simply email Kelly Martin at kelly@lauraschanz.com to reserve a seat for yourself or a Team Member. The 2023 Registration Fee is $1,295.