Off the Shelf

The Importance of a Balanced Team

Jeff Seton’s  recent Blog on the personality secrets of the American Idol judges was, once again, a good reminder of the importance of a balanced team. He points out that the addition of Kara DioGuardi rounded out the team to include someone who can focus on “operational” or technical aspects of the singer and the competition. He includes some Myers-Briggs information to assist the reader in seeing the new and, more balanced, approach.

 

Teams need balance. Your team and mine need people who represent different ideas, experience, temperaments and strengths.

Why?

Some reasons:

Balance brings diversity. Having people with differing strengths, backgrounds and ideas brings a natural diversity.

Diversity brings multiple opinions that enrich discussion if the leader is open and patient.

Multiple opinions and discussion lead to quality decisions. Too often leaders want quick decisions or don’t have the patience to allow good discussions that lead to quality decisions. Quality decisions come out of patience and a desire to hear all sides of the issue. Too often the size of the agenda or the meeting’s timeframe dictates the outcome rather than the strength of balanced discussion and quality decisions.

As you assemble your team or prepare meetings remember the importance of balance. Seek to hear from everyone’s perspective and drive hard for quality decisions over rapidly ticking off the agenda items.

Putting People in the Right Spots

One part of my job that gives me tremendous personal satisfaction is making sure people are working in the right spot. Not only is this personally satisfying, I feel strongly that doing this is ultimately the best for the organization.

Over the years I’ve tried several things to help me do this and I’ve settled on two tools that are invaluable to me as I try to maximize my employee’s efforts and get them in the right spot. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with simply asking the employee some questions and observing where they seem to gather energy and what tasks or projects seem to drain them. But, from my experience these two tools are the best way to help them settle into the right spot and their best zone:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I’ve used several temperament tools, but I find this one to be most effective in helping me with my people. Basically the instrument is segmented into four preference categories and it gives you an opportunity to completely understand an individual from those preferences. By doing this you’ll not only better understand the individual, you’ll be able to help them in the context of the team structure.

StrengthFinders. Once I read Marcus Buckingham’s book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, I realized I had a different tool to help me. With StrengthFinders you can easily determine people’s five highest ranked strengths and again, not only understand them better, but also put them into situations that fuel their strengths and their personal satisfation. Consequently, they are more productive, happier and feel a sense of accomplishment.

It’s vital to put people in their most effective working zones and if you’re not using these two tools, I highly recommend that you give them a try and see the positive results for your employees, your team, your organization and yourself.