Recognising your team type
Recognising your team type
I am a “big picture” person. When it comes to ideas, grand plans, finding solutions, I’m your gal. But I’ve never been much on detail. In fact my school reports all said that my homework looked like it had been done on the school bus and that, unless I concentrated more on the minutiae, I would never be a success.
I am glad to say that although my teachers definitely had me right in terms of my strengths and weaknesses they were inaccurate about the outcome. I did learn that detail was important and taught myself skills to overcome my innate dislike of detailed work.
But my preference for creative work remains. I succeeded in my previous career as a journalist because it is a field where fresh ideas are valuable currency and I could carve out a place on teams as the ideas person. As a coach and businesswoman I have taken a different approach. Knowing where my strengths and preference lie, I have surrounded myself with people who have complimentary strengths and preferences, for instance my business manager who has a hawk’s eye for the little things and keeps me on the straight and narrow when my ideas run away with me!
What’s this got to do with you?
This story is intended to demonstrate that we all have different work preferences. One person will thrive on analysing data. Another can think of nothing worse but does enjoy putting ideas in to action. Another prefers to plan ahead whilst another observes from a distance and pulls together everyone else’s ideas.
Whilst we can learn to be good at activities we don’t particularly enjoy, the more time we spend on work that fits our natural preferences, the more contented we will be. Large amounts of time doing work that conflicts with our work-style preference leads to stress, low morale and dissatisfaction.
What type are you?
Many studies have analysed the different work-styles found in teams. Some divide team members in to 8 types, others in to 6. All conclude that effective teams contain individuals of different types and that no single type is more important than another.
Equally, we may recognise ourselves in more than one category. Sometimes we will see ourselves in two or three.
The following is adapted from Ian Maitland’s book “Motivating People” and is based on R.M Belbin’s studies in to team roles at work:
The Thinker
- Big picture/overview
- Has lot of (rather hit-and-miss) ideas
- Not so good with detail
- Thrives on praise, even flattery The Organiser
- Attends to practical details, arranging and allocating tasks
- Tends to be calm when things run smoothly and methodically
- Can be seen as head-down/blinkered
- Finds it hard to work in vague of changing circumstances
The Doer
- Get up and go attitude
- Active, extrovert, impulsive, impatient of indecision.
- Can be temperamental or press ahead regardless The Team Worker
- Keen to unify the team
- Supportive
- Likes to develop other people’s ideas rather than their own
- Loyal
- Can have low profile in the team. May need encouragement to come forward
The Checker
- Keeps a close eye on how things are progressing
- Conscientious and meticulous (or is that compulsive and obsessive?!)
- Key role in ensuring deadlines and targets are met The Evaluator
- Can be slightly detached (objective?) from the team
- Tends to analyse ideas, suggestions and actions before reaching an opinion
- Often respected and listened to
- Slows down impulsive people
How can you use this information?
If personality typing really interests you, I recommend you take this further. Many companies, including my own, will carry out team profiling analyses on you and the other members of your team to give an accurate picture of what type each member is.
However, just reading the above table can give you an indication of what type you may be…and what types are in your team.
Armed with this insight:
• You may consult specific individuals in your team about projects that are not within your area of strength or preference. E.g. if you are a checker but need to get buy-in from other team members for a particular project, the team-worker may be able to help.
• You may re-asses how work in your team is assigned to ensure those who are most attracted to certain types of work spend more of their time doing that type of work.
• You may decide to delegate based on work-style preferences. Asking the thinker on your team to analyse data and write a report is likely to result in resistance and possibly a shoddy piece of work. Asking the evaluator would be much more suitable.
• You may realise certain types are missing from your team and that you have too many of one or two personality types. This may explain why your team is weak in some ways. Re-configuring your team may have a huge impact on results.
• If you are unable to make significant changes to the content of your job right now, an awareness of the above will at least give you an insight in to why you are highly motivated and interested in some types of work and disinterested or even stressed about other types of work. We are capable of becoming very good at things we don’t enjoy so knowing your type is no excuse to slack off!
• Having said that, you may realise that you have focused your professional life on areas you are good at rather than areas you really enjoy. It might be time to re-think your career path.
