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Strategy Performance Change

Business Advisors Network

Newsletter

2012 / no.3

Greetings!

In this issue we touch on two challenges that most leaders will face at some point:

How to make a team work well in spite of different personality styles?
What to do when the organization is in crisis, but employees resist change?

In both instances, the approach we recommend is to bring individuals around to see the bigger picture; the key is to allow individuals to come to their own understanding and conclusions of their own volition by providing an environment where they can get their questions and doubts answered.

Send us your comments. We would love to hear about what you think and your experiences.

Sincerely,

Alain Bolea and Scott Brumburgh

In This Issue

Creating a New Vision in the Face of Adversity

Personality Types in the Workplace

Creating a New Vision in the Face of Adversity

One of the toughest challenges for any business leader is to create a new vision in the midst of prolonged adversity. Aside from having to deal with their own doubts, leaders generally face the skepticism of team members who, by then, have often become demoralized, and may even quietly blame the leader for the hard times they are going through.

The paradox leaders find themselves in is that although things are not working well, their ideas for change are generally met with resistance.

Before trying to establish a new course of action, it is crucial for the team to recognize that they cannot continue to do the same things that have led to the current issues, whether productivity problems, financial difficulties, customer dissatisfaction, or low employee morale. The group must acknowledge that the current reality is not working before suggestions of change can be considered in a positive light.

"Facing reality" cannot be done by the leader simply telling the group that things are not working; when the boss makes such a statement, it tends to trigger reactions of defensiveness. People need to be able to voice how it has not worked for them before they can listen to how it is also impacting the business as a whole. Without this initial step, leaders will face continued resistance, whether open or passive, to their new ideas. Even if the leader is clear that change is necessary, the group needs to come to that same conclusion first.

Personality Types

in the Workplace

In every day speaking, using the phrases "great personality" or "difficult personality" to describe someone are code words for saying that this person is easy to work with or not. This is often the sort of feedback that one gives about their colleagues when leaders try to delve into behavior or conflict issues that affect the performance of the team.

Psychologists, on the other hand, have done extensive research to identify personality types and map out how individuals are likely to think, feel and react in a particularly situation, and consequently how they are likely to behave in groups. It is logical that one would try and apply this understanding to improving dynamics of a group and therefore its productivity. Large organizations often work with tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to better match their staff requirements or to create more productive working team cultures.

What we have observed is that using personality information is cumbersome when trying to handle team issues or assemble the optimal team. While knowing one's personality type is a very useful coaching tool for personal insight to understand why one individual has different work or social style preferences than another, there are practical shortcomings to going beyond individual application to the group.