Discover the Other

This is the fourth article in a series on 10 keys to high performing teams. You can see the original post here.

The links between productivity and workplace relationships are so obvious they hardly need spelling out. You are much more likely to work hard and go the extra mile for people you care about. You are much more likely to let down people you don’t care about.

Not only that, good relationships are the number one reason for people to remain in their current jobs. A recent poll conducted by the Australian Institute of Management found that ‘good relationships with co-workers’ topped the list of reasons to stay. It was ahead of job satisfaction, flexible working arrangements, great work/life balance, feeling valued by the organisation, or job security. Salary came behind all of these other reasons.

And supportive colleagues can also help prevent lost work time due to stress-related illness. A major survey of 24,000 Canadians found that lack of social support at work more than doubles an employee’s risk of depression—the leading cause of disability worldwide.

So how to you get your team from being colleagues to being friends? Here are a few pointers: (more…)

This is the first of a promised series of posts exploring 10 keys to getting high performing teams.

This one looks at having the right people in the right jobs.

A key part of this comes at the recruiting stage. Don’t make the mistake that many businesses do and focus on skills and experience. Skills can be easily taught and experience can be gained. It is more important to look things like personality, strengths and values.

Get this right and you will find people who have an intrinsic motivation to work in that role. In other words they will enjoy what they do. That is a powerful drive, and will mean that they are not so dependent on extrinsic motivators – the carrots and sticks of traditional performance management.

I use the Talent Dynamics test to find out in what roles a person is most likely to find their flow. There are other personality profile type tests, such as Myers Briggs (MBTI) DISC and various derivatives of them with different names. Personally I find Talent Dynamics more suited than the others for reasons I go into here. What it will help you find is the person who is most likely to thrive in the role you want them to fill. It’s no use having someone who is a creative big-picture person trying to do repetitive detail-orientated work. Likewise it’s no use having someone who is systems and numbers focused in role where they routinely need to engage with people’s emotions and irrational behaviour. (more…)

This is the fifth in a series of articles on frameworks for understanding and managing diversity. Part 1 looked at different developmental stages. Part 2 looked at the huge issue of cultural diversity. Part 3 looked at the sensitive question of religious differences, and part 4 looked at the role of different values. This article builds on the previous articles and looks at personality differences and some of the tools available for assessing personality.

The concept of different personality types has been studied for thousands of years . Many of the modern personality profiling systems have their roots in the Four Temperaments, as described by Hippocrates about 2400 years ago. These four temperaments: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic, remained commonly used categorisations of personalities right up to the present time. The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung used them as a basis for his own theories of personality which were then, in turn, picked up by others. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the DISC assessment both have their roots in Jung’s work on the psychology of personality. Both MBTI and DISC are often used in the business sector to help managers better understand the teams they are managing. (more…)

Some people have different communication styles (Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/netzkobold/2574312734/)

This is the third of a four-part series on conflict analysis looking at the four causes of conflict in the workplace. Part 1, different information, looked at the conflict when two or more parties have different information. Part 2, different interests, looked at the conflicts arising when each party wants something different or wants a different outcome.

The third root of conflict is the clash of different personalities and personal styles. (more…)