All teams are inherently dysfunctional, so the buck stops with you (and me)

Have you ever been asked to do one of those personality tests at work??You know the sort, a 15-minute online questionnaire. Dozens of quick fire ‘this or that’ style statements.?

Don’t overthink it though, and don't try to lie, it’ll catch you out.?Sound familiar?

There's a plethora of tools out there and I seem to have bumped into most of them at least once in my career over the years, be it Disc , the Birkman Method , or even Myers Briggs (which has a bit of a bad rep these days).

They all tend to pigeon-hole you as one of four colours, yellow, green, red or blue.

I’m yellow if you’re wondering. A creative type. Likes the sound of his own voice. Overly optimistic. ?

Each time I do one I remember certain things about myself I’d rather choose to ignore. For instance please don't talk down to me or give me poor instructions. I don't really like being told what to do, full stop!

My colleague on the other hand is a full-blooded red. Omg. Driven? When he gets stressed, he just works even harder, faster, longer.?But then there are the blues in the team – they are such downers, draining all the energy out of the room. Even before you've had a chance to sell them my latest AMAZING idea, they’re coming up with reasons why it won't work.??Finally, you have the peacemakers - the greens. ‘Great idea Dom, but let's just consider the impact on others shall we? How are they going to feel about it?’.?

The danger of all these types of tools is that you can fall into using stereotypes or placing people into a specific box that they can never get out of. Which is why I am so impressed with Mindflick .

Mindflick profiles both ‘behavioural style’ and ‘mindset’. Rather than presuming we are static beings, entrenched and stuck in all our beliefs and ways of working, It presumes you can flex, you can adapt, you can move.

Importantly it measures your performance ‘preferences’, it is not a measure of capability. For high-performance teams, the spectrum of preferences are held in equal regard and are considered to be intrinsically valuable.?

There are no ‘better’ preferences (despite what some of us like to think!).

The other revelation is that everyone in the team is a blend of all the preferences. Although certain aspects may be stronger or more apparent for you than someone else, we can, and we do possess the ability to choose our behaviour and our mindset.???

Which got me thinking about team dynamics, particularly in meetings or brainstorms where you expect everyone to be able to think on their feet or generate ideas on demand.?

What if some people’s performance preference is to think inside their heads, rather than immediately vocalising their thoughts??

What if the introverts (for want of a better phrase) need time to reflect, gather evidence, explore in their own time??

Given adequate time to prep for the session, rather than picked on in the moment and put on the spot – leading to brain freeze and hot flushes all at once – they could bring more to the table.

So how does Mindflick work in the real world??

A few months ago, I was lucky enough to see a master of the tool in action with a team of eight senior leaders.?

Everyone attending had completed their own profile surveys in advance and had been given a one-hour debrief. They’d also had the chance to reflect on their own personal drivers and strengths, to consider how their overplayed strengths could negatively impact others in the team.?

From the minute we went around the room introducing ourselves (tell us one thing that may surprise others about you) one participant immediate asked the facilitator to come back to them – ‘I need to give that some thought’.?

What became apparent was how diverse the eight people around the room were. But also how the combined strengths of the team, as they got to know one another better, started to emerge. They began to value their differences.?

One person’s negative was indeed the other’s superpower.?

The previously considered doubting voice or naysayer in the team, quickly flipped into being valuable asset - the ‘early risk detector’.?

What were the yellows (the big ideas people) missing? What’s obvious and staring the blues (logical minds) in the face?

“I think you’re all missing the point. The thing you’re describing is simple to fix. I know how to do that. The bigger problem is this…”.

Cue gasps.

So what’s the moral of the story? In your team, department, friendship group, family even, there will be people who have different behavioural and mindset preferences to you.?How you choose to react is in your control.?

But also, if you want people to be at their best you need to mindful that we all receive, compute and translate information differently.

Tasked with putting your best thinking into practice, the discipline of exploring a topic in advance, then collaborating at the meeting brings new energy and purpose. Harnessing the diversity of thinking in the team rather than suffocating it by assuming everyone prefers to do it in the moment.?

And being open as the member of a dysfunctional team that the reason why it is not high performing maybe because of you and your mindset, not them.