Taking Your Team to the Next Level in 2016

January is typically the time when we reflect on the past year and plan for the new one. What went well last year? What needs to change? Where do I want to be, and what do I want to be doing by this time next year? How will I get there? Goals. Objectives. Plan of action.  We do this as individual contributors, and as leaders.

But how often do we do it as a team?

If you want to take your team to the next level, it’s important to take a step back and assess what the team needs. How do you, as a team member or as the team leader, rank the team in areas that contribute to team success – communication, achieving goals, openness to ideas, work efficiency, respect?

When I engage with an organization to use Lumina Spark with one of their teams, I begin by asking the team 5 key questions. This gives me a baseline, and helps identify the areas where the team is most in need of development.  In order to move the team forward, we need to know where it’s been. I then ask each team member and the leader, to write down one thing the team could do to develop to the next level.  The data and ideas resulting from this exercise add context to the work we do during the Lumina session, and help us arrive at a team initiative by the end of the session. The work is practical and relevant.

If you want to move your team to the next level in 2016, I suggest you go through this exercise to rate your team on the 5 key areas of highly successful teams. You may be surprised at what you find out. And it will help you identify and prioritize initiatives to make things better.

Rank your team on the 5 Key Areas for Team Success:

Use a 1-5 scale ranking with 5 being the highest score.

1.       Effective communication of the team

2.       Team’s effectiveness toward task/goal completion

3.       Team’s openness to team members’ ideas

4.       Work efficiency on the team

5.       Respect among team members

Then, ask each team member to answer one qualitative question on the team: What one thing could this team do to take itself to the next level?

On one team I worked with recently, nearly every person identified “clear roles and responsibilities” as ‘the thing’ that would help move the team to the next level. This was also reflected in the scores from the 5 questions, where “work efficiency” scored the lowest, no doubt due to confusion around roles and responsibilities.

The most successful teams are those made up of individuals with diverse skills and experience, different personalities, and varying points of view. Lumina Spark helps identify differences and similarities and provides insight to any gaps on the team. For example, if the majority of the team is strong in “big picture thinking” the team may generate a lot of ideas, but have difficulty executing on those ideas.  Lumina Spark produces breakthroughs for team transformation. A Spark team assessment will not only highlight the gifts and talents of your team members ‘collectively’, it will uncover the “hidden gems” on your team – those strengths that lie dormant because they were perceived as not required or not of value in this situation.   These hidden gems can be leveraged to make the team more effective and achieve the team initiatives in an easy way by getting into the flow.  Qualified Lumina Practitioners are helping teams get into their flow every day.  It’s easy once the team becomes self-aware.    

If you’d like to learn more about Lumina Spark and how it can help your team, please contact me at info-us@luminalearning.com or 888.827.8855.