Communicating
Potential tensionYou prefer Informal communicating, but your team’s behavior is Ordered.
Suggestions for you
Clarify expectations
Ask the team to make it easier for you to engage with the rest of the group by clarifying expectations around structured communications (”What information do we share, when, and how do we do so?”) and by developing guidelines and templates for the team’s most common mechanisms for sharing information
Make room for new ideas
Look out for situations in which your team is tasked with solving creative problems that require new models, frameworks or concepts; in these moments, your natural tendency towards a more free-flowing, organic approach to information exchange will help you adapt more quickly to the situation at hand
Processing
Natural fitYou prefer Logical processing, and your team’s behavior is Logical too.
Suggestions for you
Clarify expectations
Help clarify the team’s expectations and norms around analysis with the more relationship-driven individuals on the team by sharing with them a variety of past examples of the team’s approach to interpreting information
Bring in another perspective
If there are specific experts on the team who have context, knowledge or abilities that uniquely fit the information at hand, it may be both faster and more effective to rely on their judgment, rather than applying the team’s typical approach of building a broadly understood analytical framework to guide the interpretation
Deciding
Natural fitYou prefer Authoritative deciding, and your team’s behavior is Authoritative too.
Suggestions for you
Clarify expectations
If a naturally consensus-driven team member is asked to lead a decision, help them weigh the relative importance of the input they are soliciting and help them calibrate to the team’s expectations around when sufficient input has been gathered and incorporated
Build commitment
When confronted with a decision that will lead to a particularly difficult, time-consuming, or counter-intuitive course of action, encourage the team’s leadership to invest more time in socializing and debating the decision to create more buy-in and broader commitment to the path ahead
Executing
Natural fitYou prefer Spontaneous executing, and your team’s behavior is Spontaneous too.
Suggestions for you
Make the next steps clear
Help the more deliberate members of the team identify and prioritize the areas where they most need clarity from a planning and ongoing execution perspective, and work with the rest of the team to provide that clarity
Plan for the stakes
When tackling an effort where the consequences of an unexpected outcome (or delay) would be significant, push your team (and yourself) to set aside the natural instinct for lightweight, reactive plans in favor of a more detailed blueprint for execution
