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Case 1: Communication
and Conflict Issues between the Sub-groups
Problem:
The Learning Group was comprised of 21 individuals who were
divided into sub-teams with a few individuals
considered part of more than one team. The
sub-team accountabilities included needs
assessment, business unit learning consulting,
course design, delivering or brokering delivery
of courses, managing an LMS, course evaluation,
etc. The whole group had worked hard to
identify optimal work flow, key hand off points
and clear deliverables for each sub-team but was
still running into difficulty communicating
particularly when inevitable problems or
glitches arose.
Action:
This firm had been using the Team Management Profile in
executive coaching initiatives and decided to
complete the TMP questionnaire and incorporate
it into an offsite focused on team development
and performance. The purpose of the session was
to re-align around their overall purpose and
develop more effective communication and work
flow capabilities. Two primary areas of focus
were planned:
-
Work with the Types of Work model to better
understand the work of the different
sub-teams and to clarify overall areas of
strength and opportunities for improvement,
and
-
To plot the results of the TMP to create
both sub-team and overall team profiles
looking to understand if and/or how work
preferences were contributing to their
current team dynamic.
Outcomes:
Ø
Work at the sub-team level to describe their
work using the Types of Work model and make
presentations helped everyone see how distinct
and focused the work of the various sub- teams
was ranging from the primarily West wheel focus
of the learning consultants to the focused
South-East wheel focus of the events management
group.
Ø
Each sub-group worked on the implications of the
TMP work preference data for their own group
then again reported out on their discussions.
They began to report out insights regarding
interpersonal and communication challenges
between individual team members. Bringing the
data together to create a large group profile
was done using different colors for each
sub-group. Each sub-team profile reflected
significant consistency with the nature of their
work – that is, there was a relatively strong
match between the work requirements and the work
preferences of each sub-group.
Ø
Further discussions led to the conclusion that,
while the diversity of the group may represent
an opportunity, it was contributing to mis-communication,
mis-understanding and conflict – particularly in
times of great pressure to deliver on spec.
on time. In these times, the sub-groups
were locking into ‘group think’ and focused more
on shifting the blame than working together
towards solutions.
Ø
The group spent the remainder of the day
focusing on the skills associated with the
Linking function – building in systems to
facilitate better communication including a
metric to measure their progress on a monthly
basis. All agreed that the day had helped them
understand their differences and commonalities
and given them a chance to practice some new
approaches of communication.
Case 2: More
Effective Meetings
Problem:
Regular meetings were critical to ensure seamless transitions
as the learning projects progressed. However,
meetings tended to be long, tedious and often
unproductive.
Action:
The team decided to build on their off-site and use the Types
of Work model as a framework to structure their
meetings. This worked similar to the way Edward
deBono’s work, The Six Thinking Hats was
developed to help the group‘s focus during
meetings through the creation of parallel
thinking. For example, designating a specific
time frame to consider the Advising function
where everyone in the meeting is focused
on gathering information – what information do
we need? Have we missed anything here? What
assumptions are we making? Another period of
time would be set aside for the
Innovating function and then other work
functions as necessary.
Outcomes:
It took the group awhile to develop this discipline.
Ø
Focusing their meetings this way prevented
people from working at cross purposes (i.e. one
individual in information gathering (Advising)
mode, another in assessing risk (Developing)
mode and still others in moving forward
(Organizing) mode). Research has shown that
many meeting dysfunctions are due to this
tendency of people to think and
work from their own perspective which is
often informed by preference. By designing
their meetings with a time bound focus on the
various work functions meeting effectiveness
increased considerably.
Planning meetings especially benefited
from this approach.
Ø
The overall team and some sub groups discovered
that holding brief meetings focused on just one
or two functions were highly efficient. For
example, a stand-up meeting at the beginning of
a particularly crucial day in the life of a
project to ensure everyone was on the same page.
Ø
Using the Types of Work wheel in this way also
kept the language of the TMS models
alive and helped the group follow through
on their off-site work commitments.
Ø
After experimenting within their own group, the
learning consultants put together an online
mini-course describing the concept for their
business unit clients
Case 3: Behavioral
Interviewing
Opportunity:
Several job openings were coming up due to attrition, growth
and family leave. The team leader was aware of
the overall TMP team profile with a heavy
concentration on the East Wheel preferences.
Also noted was the tendency for preference
‘clusters’ within the sub-teams.
Action Taken:
Everyone had agreed that their specific sub-group risked
group think – particularly in times of
pressure. As the TMP questionnaire identified
preference only, it was understood that the tool
could not be used as a screening device.
However, going back to both the Types of Work
model and the four measures of work preference,
they decided to incorporate behavioral interview
questions that would help them recruit people
with south-west wheel skills and experience.
Focusing initially on the work functions of
Inspecting, Maintaining, Advising as well as the
work measures of introverted approach to
relationship, beliefs-based approach to decision
making and a flexible approach to organization,
they developed some generic behavioral
interviewing questions to seek out the specific
skills and capabilities associated with these
areas.
Outcomes:
The process of developing this approach was highly
informative to the group:
Ø
They recognized their prior tendency to hire
people like themselves and the challenge that
would be presented if indeed they began
recruiting individuals who would be more likely
to challenge the status quo.
Ø
They also recognized they had had a fairly
strong bias toward the extrovert – a bias that
was reflected in their entire
recruitment/hiring/on-boarding process. They
wondered whether they might have screened out
some excellent candidates because of this and
began working to modify their interviewing
process.
Ø
After working on the initial questions, they
carried on to develop an inventory of questions
associated with each function.
Ø
An unintentional benefit was the impact this
process had on clearer role descriptions.
Ø
The group began to consider using the Types of
Work profile (a multi-rater job analysis
questionnaire based on the Types of Work model)
to formalize a means to ensure role clarity and
align job
expectations as well as to inform the
performance management process.
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