Leveraging the “Hidden Gems” on Your Team

In my last blog, I gave you some tips for assessing your team in the areas of communication, effectiveness, openness, work efficiency, and respect among team members.  I hope by now you’ve had a chance to evaluate where your team is in these areas, and collectively decide on the things you need to do as a team to move forward.

In my work using Lumina Spark with teams, there are a couple of things we discover that provide tremendous benefits when it comes to team performance, team communication and managing team conflict. Lumina Spark looks at three persona: 1) the Everyday, which is how you show up at work based on your role and what’s expected of you; 2) the Underlying, which is how you behave more naturally, and when relaxed; and 3) the Overextended, which is how you behave when you are under stress.

Recognizing the Underlying persona and identifying the qualities associated with that persona can reveal some “hidden gems” that may have lain dormant because they were not perceived as needed in the current environment. This may provide an opportunity to move forward from an area where the team has been stuck, by leveraging one of those hidden gems. Not only will it help the team, it will help the individual become more engaged and motivated by having the opportunity to use a strength that has been idle.

Learning how team members behave when they are Overextended, and identifying the triggers that put them “in the grip” is extremely helpful in managing team conflict. As team members become more self-aware in recognizing their own triggers, they can learn to manage their responses (Emotional Agility, launching April 1 in the US) and avoid nonproductive conflict. A certain amount of conflict is healthy in sparking creativity and new ways of thinking, but when it’s not managed it has a detrimental effect.

Take a look at your current team initiatives. What are your goals, challenges, and needs?  Are there hidden gems within your team that could raise your effectiveness in meeting these goals? In addressing some of your challenges? As an answer to your needs?

Would you recognize the strengths someone on your team might bring to the table if, in fact, those strengths seem opposite to their currently recognized strengths and job role definition?  Are you aware of how to find the power of passion for your individual team members?  If you can tap into this, you don’t ever need to worry about employee engagement.

When the going gets rough, are you aware of how you, as a leader, respond? What are your triggers? What are the triggers for the individuals on your team and how do they respond to stress?

What can you do, as the leader, to get your team “out of the grip” and back to high performing?

You can learn the answers to these and more questions and begin to propel your team forward with Lumina Spark.  Contact me at info-us@luminalearning.com or 888.827.8855 to learn more.

Evolving Beyond Labels with Lumina Spark

New Spark App coming soon – Individuals, teams and organizations using Lumina Spark
will have access to a brilliant new hi-tech app.

As a learning and development professional, I’m always thrilled when I share new information with someone and see the virtual light bulb go on.  That “aha” moment when knowledge and clarity intersect is where the door opens to personal, internal transformation.

This happened recently when I reviewed the results of BruceKasanoff’s Lumina Spark assessment with him. Like many people, he was a veteran of other behavioral assessments, and a doubter of sorts, since the labels those assessments provided didn’t quite fit.

At Lumina Learning we don’t believe in labels. Humans are far too complex to be categorized as EITHER/OR, or abridged into one of 16 personality types.  Reducing the complexity of the human personality into such a narrow scope can limit an individual in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others. It is both limited and limiting.

Lumina Spark is a more innovative, comprehensive and realistic approach that focuses on traits, not types.  It recognizes the complex contradictions that make each one of us unique. For example, an individual may have both introvert AND extravert qualities; they can be tactical AND strategic; they can focus on results, AND also care about the people.

Based on the latest academic research in the “Big 5” personality traits, as well as certain elements of Jungian theory, the Lumina framework embraces the fact that each individual possesses opposing personality traits. It’s “AND” thinking versus “EITHER/OR” thinking. Lumina embraces the paradox. 

Everyone possesses all five of the “Big 5” personality traits – extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience – but we each possess them to varying degrees. We are unique individuals, not types.

Lumina Spark achieves this more comprehensive view by looking at 8 aspects and 24 qualities, and measuring these along a continuum to create a unique portrait for each individual. And it goes deeper.  Each quality is measured for three personas

1.       Your Underlying persona – who you are most naturally
2.       Your Everyday persona – how you “show up” based on what’s required of you at work
3.       Your Overextended persona – how you behave under stress

Attaining self-awareness by understanding your strengths and development areas in each of these personas is powerful.  For example, if your job current role doesn’t give you the opportunity to use one of your underlying strengths, that may be the root of your desire to move on.  Spark may help you discover “hidden gems” – underlying qualities that you can consider in career decisions or leverage to add more value in your current role. Also, when you understand the triggers that shape your behaviors and interactions when you are overextended, you are better able to control them.

Teams also benefit from the knowledge and understanding provided through Lumina Spark.

I recently worked with a newly-formed team made up of development professionals from different parts of the company. Their charter was to create and implement a leadership development initiative to be rolled out across the organization. The problem was, that while they collectively generated a lot of big ideas, the action and structure needed to put those ideas into play wasn’t happening. 

As I charted their individual Spark results into a team profile, it was clear that their collective Everyday personas leaned heavily toward conceptual, imaginative, big picture thinking, and other qualities you’d expect to be present in a development team.  This was especially true for the team leader. When I looked at the underlying qualities, however, I discovered in the Underlying personas that there were two individuals who had a strong natural inclination toward structure, reliability and other discipline-driven qualities that contribute to defining processes and procedures. Once the team recognized and leveraged these “hidden gems” they were able to get the job done. And the team members whose natural abilities had been dormant and were now being used were thrilled!

If you’d like to learn more about Lumina Spark, please contact me at info-us@luminalearning.com or 888.827.8855.

Leading from within,

Rebecca

Improving Processes Through Diverse Viewpoints

The ability to build rapport and communicate effectively with others is a key skill for any role in the organization. It leads to more productive sales conversations with clients, enables teams to reach the “performing”stage more quickly, and helps leaders engage and retain their employees.  In previous blogs I’ve shared with you some examples of how Lumina Spark  has contributed to results for individuals and teams in the areas of sales, leadership and team development.  Lumina learning tools can also have an impact across the broader organization. 

Many organizations today are employing Lean Six Sigma principles to improve their processes and the quality of their products and services. Effective communication is a key component in Lean Six Sigma thinking and doing. To better understand this, I spoke with Nancy Barlett, Six Sigma Green Belt and President of The Barlett Alliance, a Texas-based consulting firm that works with organizations in the public sector to improve process efficiencies and organizational performance.  Here’s what she said:

“When organizations are using Lean Six Sigma in their work, that translates into deploying many different people over a variety of functions to solve process problems. Typically, the members of each team are working on a process/problem that they have in common, but often they have never worked together before. We know how tricky communication can be with people we know, so imagine how much more complicated it is when we have “strangers” coming together for a relatively short period of time to solve a common problem. 

“In case a picture of that doesn’t readily come to mind, consider the following. The FranklinCovey Company surveyed thousands of employees around the globe. People were asked if they agreed or did not agree with a number of statements. One of those statements was: I actively seek out differing viewpoints. The percent of respondents who “agreed” with that statement? Only 32%!

“Lumina learning tools can be of significant assistance when that’s exactly what we need people to do to improve the process: seek out different viewpoints. When individuals can speed read each other and quickly discern why and how they can approach the work from a variety of perspectives, that turns into a true asset for teams that have a powerful but short shelf life!”

Lead on,

Rebecca

For more information, please contact me at RebeccaBales@luminalearning.com.

Team Talk: Effective Dialogues for Improved Performance

In today’s workplace teams come in a variety of flavors: department teams, project teams, virtual teams, global teams, cross-functional teams, permanent teams, temporary teams, task force teams, self-directed teams and combinations thereof.  Each of these has its own inherent challenges.  Common among them, however, is the need for effective dialogue. Here’s how to achieve it.

Establish communication standards.  Whether it’s about sharing ideas or resolving conflict, it’s essential to develop and implement guidelines that encourage and support open communication. This means using a common language (especially important for global teams), identifying trigger words and phrases to avoid, emphasizing effective listening strategies, and promoting an understanding and appreciation of varying communication styles. These guidelines should also include regularly scheduled meetings and recommended communication media. For example, email may be OK for information exchange, but issues should be discussed in person or, if that’s not practical, by phone.

Identify and address barriers to open communication. Barriers to communication generally fall into three categories: physical, emotional and environmental.  Support effective dialogues by removing any physical distractions (these could range from a noisy conference room to a bad telephone connection). Work to understand and appreciate the diverse styles of your team and create opportunities for the team to develop a mutual understanding of each other. As they learn to consider each other’s style and frame of reference, they’ll learn to minimize the emotional reactions that get in the way of effective dialogues.

Create guidelines for managing conflict. A certain amount disagreement on a team is natural, and necessary for innovation and optimal performance. The key is how you channel and manage it.  Give your team tools for dealing productively with conflict by working together to create conflict management guidelines. Emphasize respect and active listening. Include feedback best practices. Encourage a dialogue that begins with points of agreement and develops from there. Ensure that the focus is on the issue at hand rather than personalities. State the team goals and expectations clearly and concisely and remind the team of their mutual commitment to those goals.

Evaluate and improve. Like any relationship, team relationships need to be nurtured. Make time for a “check in” periodically for an open dialogue specifically around how team communication is going. Encourage those who are typically less vocal to weigh in. Identify areas – from team feedback and your observations – where improvements could be made. Then make them.

What are you doing to promote effective dialogues on your team?

Lead on,

Rebecca