Blending Different Perspectives,
Achieving Consistent Competence

T.J. Elliott

Cavanaugh Leahy & Company

Competence

Competence ¾ the ability to produce desired results over and over again in an efficient and satisfactory manner ¾ requires valid information. Competence flows from choices based on this well-founded and reliable data. This data, both quantitative and qualitative, arranged to describe the world most accurately and understandably, informs these decisions and the ongoing testing of their validity especially as they are being implemented."

Differences

However, selection and acceptance of what data is relevant is complex when there are multiple members working together. Everyone involved in an enterprise eventually has to "be on the same page’; however, they may have to confront and work through tough disagreements in order to get to an integrative solution or "same page". Views of different members of a team as to what to do, how to do it, and the measures that constitute success are unlikely to prove identical. (These variations are actually a sign of health in a team or organization!) Therefore, teams that seek to be more effective must deal with their differences. These differences in perspectives among the members of a work team can fuel either synergy or dissension. A team’s ability to recognize, understand, and negotiate those differences determines in part which of those conditions results. An understanding of the different preferences and styles of team members is a first step. Such understanding is achieved not in the service of trying to make everyone the same but rather to make their differences effectively fit together.

Frameworks

Differences start with the frameworks that each of us owns either from ‘nature or nurture’. Frameworks are those internal apparatuses that individuals develop that allow them to see a situation. Everybody has frameworks for making sense of the world. There is no way around it. You cannot physically pay attention to all of the data available at once; you consciously, subconsciously, and preconsciously choose. You move from percept ¾ what you can sense ¾ to construct ¾ a frame that allows you to make sense of it. Frameworks are to a unit of one what culture is to a group in that they explain the most essential presuppositions someone brings to any moment of decision.

Frameworks explain why one person sees a situation as a threat and another as an opportunity, why one person looks for certain facts and another ignores them. Prior or preparatory experiences tend to prime the decision-maker to deal with some issues and not others. So people see deciding in models of competition or cooperation, the ‘system side’ or the ‘people side’, scarcity or abundance, individuality or collectivism, thought or emotion. Where trouble may emerge for a team is when its members fail to realize that their preferences have narrowed to biases, that their models have hardened into stereotypes.

Our frameworks are so complex that getting our hands around them to better understand them is difficult. One practical way of doing this, however, is to look at our preferences, styles, and temperaments through certain assessments. These assessments can only tell part of the story of our frameworks but they can show us how our quest for valid information may, at the least, be swayed and, in the extreme, derailed by the way in which we ‘see’ the world. These assessments can supply members of a team with useful shorthand for describing the variance in how they define problems, generate alternative responses, and select solutions. The Effective Team Practices ‘Frameworks’ session allows leadership or other management teams to gain this valuable awareness while solving real world, real time problems.

Session and Tools Descriptions

Styles from the Keirsey Temperament Sorter are explored in this segment. The room will be arranged so that participants initially can see information on the sixteen types from Myers Briggs and Keirsey; each type will have an exhibit with the information about that type.

Since participants will have taken the test beforehand and self-scored it, they can check out aspects of their own profile and the profiles of their colleagues. Ask people to guess how many folks on the team are under each 'type'. No names will be solicited at that point, just guesses as to numbers.

Then ask participants to arrange themselves according to the type they discovered through the self-scored test. (If they scored on a border between two types, they can note that in some manner!) While still in these groups, participants are asked to note any surprises or ‘instant insights’ they derive from viewing the configuration. This will be followed by some more information about the types delivered in an informal lecture style format with ample opportunity for participant questions.

Participants are then asked to briefly respond to some general situations (e.g., how would you recruit someone from the department, what is your idea of a perfect meeting, etc.) Their answers are used as a further illustration of how their preferences affect their choices.

The team is presented with the salient facts of the pre-selected dilemma. How they proceed is completely up to them as a group. Neither the consultant nor the team leader should dictate the approach other than to state the goal is to reach some sort of resolution.

While the group works in whatever fashion they choose (in breakouts or as one unit, brainstorming or solving, etc.), the consultant observes and ties behavior and approaches to the Model for Company scale. In that way, participants will learn whether their ‘default’ perspective in terms of business interventions falls in the area of communication, thinking, resources, or organization. (See related article on the Model for Company.)

The participants review their work so far. They make observations to each other about the possible ways on which their preferences made for differences in approaches. The consultant using the Model for Company illustrates for the group the ways in which their interventions occur. Further discussion among the participants centers on the implications of their unique amalgam of perspectives: assets? conflicts? elements missing?

With this awareness, the group returns to the dilemma. If they solved that one to their mutual satisfaction, then they simply begin work on another dilemma the team or company faces. The important thing is to be focused on their real work during this time.

The group comes together to talk about what they have learned about themselves and each other. They also talk about any agreements that might help them to recognize and to make the most of their differences and similarities in perspectives. The consultant offers another take on what he has seen within their work. Finally, the team talks about what kinds of additional learning they would undertake to further improve their practices.

Debrief with consultant the process and products of the session. Determine other ways in which the team might promote or investigate effective practices.