From the course: Teamwork Foundations

Appreciate the different strengths of your team

From the course: Teamwork Foundations

Appreciate the different strengths of your team

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- It's easy to find people irritating if they're different to you. And this might be a difference of, for example, the detail person versus the speedy one, the hurry up person, or the harsh person versus the sympathetic type of person. Well, perhaps being an ideas generator versus an evaluator of other people's ideas. But actually the person who's different to you is exactly the person you need in your team. The detail person needs the fast person and the fast person needs the detail person. The key is to see them not as annoying, but as having just the skills that you need. Does the harsh person need a sympathetic person to work with? Well, sometimes. Otherwise, they can miss things. And does the sympathetic person need the harsh person? Well, yes, sometimes to make those tough decisions. So who do you find difficult? And can you change this perspective in your mind and see the benefit of that other person? Now you'll find in the learning materials I've made for you a little chart, and you can list out who the person is, why you find them difficult, and perhaps based on why you find them difficult, what strengths they have to contribute? For example, there might be someone you find difficult and on reflection, it's because they're slow and pedantic. So in their strengths column, you could put, good with detail. And the person you avoid because they're too pushy, always in a rush, making you feel under pressure, in their strengths column, you might put, good at getting me to see the big picture, or good at getting groups to make decisions. Now, just one more example. The person that's a bit sensitive who gets upset easily, in their strengths column, you might put, good at spotting when I've forgotten to consider others in my plan, or good at including the quieter team members in the planning process. This will help you to see the strengths of your team members and maybe help you to use them in the right way and for the right situations. So I'd just like you to download that form now, fill it in for some of your team members, and see what comes out of that.

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