The Key Learnings

While the general team dynamics were important, where the day had real impact and produced real takeaways for the business moving forward, were:

1. We have a major opportunity for strengths-based management and strengths-based task allocation in the Senior Leadership Team.

People realized they were all falling into the common trap of assuming that everyone didn’t like the same tasks that they don’t like, so we were all accepting tasks out of professional commitment that didn’t energize us or play to our strengths.

The discussions that unfolded, guided by the REACH framework, led us to realize that we all like and don’t like different things, and we tend to do the things we like more enthusiastically, proactively and thoroughly than those we don’t; it’s just human nature.

However, we all fell into the same trap of assuming that, because we dislike something, everyone else must feel the same way.

For example, many of the team members don’t like writing detailed policy and business process documentation, so we all assumed that none of us do. However, as we went through our discussion, we learnt that there are a couple of us on the team who really enjoy that stuff, and if those tasks were picked up by them, they would be completed more quickly, more proactively and most likely to a higher standard.

This was a fantastic opportunity to help all of us to spend more time focussing on the things we enjoy and gave all of us the best opportunity to contribute more to the organization.

2. We have an unbalanced senior leadership team, so without care we’ll get sub-optimal outcomes.

“We reviewed out Team Visualizer and recognized that we need to keep aware that if we don’t proactively stretch, or don’t purposefully delegate to our teams and external contractors, we’ll get less than optimal outcomes.

We identified that we are heavy in coaches and counselors in the senior leadership team, but we only have 2 drivers and 0 advisors.

We’ve identified that we need to be mindful that our skewed approach will leave a lot of things not considered, or not considered well enough, so we need to ensure we involve our team members with different natural approaches, and ensure we solicit input from our external contractors to balance our approach. We have also made a commitment to delegate purposefully, and to actively listen to the views of other people, so our organization gets well considered and well-balanced input.

I am proud and pleased that we have such a people-oriented leadership team, however the organisation and our customers need to ensure that we approach today and tomorrow with balance and diverse thinking.”

Outcome

“After the session we have most certainly become much closer and have a better understanding of each other with more compassion, and I can see a significant shift toward what I would call real teamwork. I can see an immediate shift toward a high performing team playing to our strengths with respect and understanding of ourselves and each other.

It’s a great practical outcome that I anticipate will have bottom line impact.” said Mr. Stratton.

To learn more about their organization visit con-x-ion Or the REACH Ecosystem website for more information REACH.