This article is a follow-up to four other articles posted on the Incline Insights, LLC website. All the articles listed below, including this one, are focused on leadership.
1. REVEALING THE COMMON GROUND Leaders prepare themselves, their team, and the organization for the future. Revealing the common ground creates a state of tension to achieve a mutually beneficial desire future state.
2. EXERTING YOUR POWER (exerting your will) AND REVEALING UNITY: This article provides an overview of the benefits that may be realized by managing the chronic tension between exerting your power, while revealing the unity that already exists in the common ground.
3. INEFFECTIVE LEADERS TELL THEMSELVES A BIG LIE ABOUT PREPARING PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE? WHAT IS IT .... "I DON'T HAVE THE TIME"
4. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT This article provides an overview for how to develop an individual life plan. Preparing people for the future starts with preparing yourself. However, if you neglect preparing yourself for the future you will more than likely neglect preparing your team and the organization for the future. https://www.inclineinsights.com/post/leadership-development-neglect-preparing-yourself-and-you-will-neglect-preparing-the-organization
PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR THE FUTURE – Leaders should consider encouraging the individuals on their team to prepare themselves for the future as discussed in the fourth article. Now, I realize that a leader should not expect to require their direct reports to prepare a personal life plan. But what they can do is to provide their team with an overview of what a life plan is, how it’s done, and why they might consider developing one.
Here’s a story that relates to sharing something that I learned, applied, and realized some significant benefits as a result. It is about my experience with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I can remember the first time I completed a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and read through the report that outlined my preferences in four key areas. After reading the report and reflecting on its’ contents I gained some valuable insights about myself and the interactions I had with my team. If you are not familiar with the MBTI here is a quick overview. You complete a questionnaire that contains 75 rapid-response questions. Then, based on your responses to the questions you are provided a report that identifies and explains your preferences in four key areas: (1) where you prefer to get your energy; (2) how you prefer to take in information about yourself and the world around you; (3) how you prefer to make decisions; and (4) how you prefer to interact with the outside world.
I took the MBTI as part of a day-long leadership development workshop. After finishing the workshop and reflecting on what I learned I began to look forward to meeting with my team to share with them what I learned. I decided to offer them the opportunity to complete a MBTI questionnaire and to receive their own MBTI report – but, only if they were interested in doing so. To my surprise, after I shared my experience with them, they all wanted to complete a questionnaire and receive an analysis of their preferences. Had I not shared my experience with them this would not have happened. After they all completed the questionnaire and read the analysis that outlined their preferences they began to talk with one another. After a while, one of the members on the team spoke up and said they now realize why two members of the team were regularly in conflict with one another. The conflict was related to the differences in how they take in information – one of them was very detailed and the other one was ‘big picture’ oriented.
I’ve learned over time to internalize a quote from the book, Type Talk at Work (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Type_Talk_at_Work_Revised/3c7EKBW3vTYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) , “In fact we maintain that the key to managing others effectively is to manage yourself first. The more you know about yourself, the more you can relate to others from a position of confidence, self-assurance, and strengths.” Now the reason why I shared the experience above is to suggest that you can do the same thing with the development of an individual life plan – you can create an “eager want” among members of your team to want to develop one if you are willing to share your positive experiences with them.
WHAT IS A TEAM DEVELOPMENT PLAN? A team development plan is a tool that helps teams prioritize what is important to them. It helps them make important decisions based on their priorities and it moves them toward the kind of environment they want to create. A team development plan should not only provide a clear path for how the team choses to develop their values over time, but it should also be flexible. As the environment changes, their values and priorities may also need to change. A team development plan is a living, breathing document that requires periodic attention to ensure it accurately reflects the team's intentions.
WHY IS A TEAM DEVELOPMENT PLAN IMPORTANT? It provides a guide for what the team believes is necessary for them to continuously improve their combined effectiveness as the leaders / managers of the organization.
SO HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A TEAM DEVELOPMENT PLAN?
STEP 1 BELIEFS It starts with assuring that the team has a clear understanding of their beliefs and the associated implication for each of them. Team beliefs are the internal assumptions the team makes about how the world works. Their beliefs may be unproven or irrational and therefore the team should remain open to critically assess and be willing to change them over time. An associated implication is the effect that a belief may have on the team’s behavior. An example of a belief and the associated implications might be: “We believe it is important to regularly engage in discussions of each team member’s strengths in the context of the team and it’s goals – we believe it is critical for us to invest in the development of both our individual and our overall team strengths. The implication of this belief is that “we will leverage our individual and team strengths to improve our overall performance on high impact projects.”
STEP 2 VALUES: Next the team identifies what they value most and aligns on why each of them is so important to them. Team values are the things the team believe are important in the way they work. Their values should determine the team’s priorities, be used as the basis for their decision-making, and deep down they are the measures they use to tell them if things are working out the way they intended. Some examples of the values some teams consider to be most significant are to: (1) identify, develop, and leverage their team’s individual and combined team strengths; (2) improve their ability to identify and solve problems utilizing formal problem solving techniques; (3) optimize and maximize their employees strengths and worth, while assimilating their strengths into a collective whole; (4) achieve our cost, quality, and customer service targets; (5) engage our employees in the planning and operation of our business; (6) culture improvement; (7) optimize our involvement in the community; (7) ability to influence. You should identify your team values, define them, prioritize them, and then make sure the team clearly understands why each is so important to them.
STEP 3 – VALUES - THE CURRENT STATE SITUATION Next, the team documents what they perceive to be their current state situation for each of the values selected. For example, you might have identified that your most important value is to identify, develop, and leverage the team’s individual and combined team strengths and they understand clearly why this value is so important to them. An example current situation statement might be that only 6 of 8 team members have completed a Strengths-finder questionnaire (https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx) to identify their five most significant strengths within the four domains of: (1) execution; (2) influencing; (3) relationship building; (4) strategic thinking. As you document your current state for each value you may want to complete the current state situation for only one of your values, then go through step 4 for that value. Then after step 4 is completed for that value go to your next most important value and follow the same process until you’ve addressed all of the team values identified.
STEP 4 – VISION STATEMENTS FOR YEARS 1, 2, AND 3: Pick your team's most significant value. Your team just developed five prioritized statements that reflect your current state in step 3. Now the team asks themselves where they want to be in 1-year associated with that value. Write down five statements that reflect your vision for that value. Then look ahead 3-years and ask yourselves where you want to be in 3-years. Write five statements that reflect where you want to be. Finally, bridge the gap between year 1 and year 3 by completing the vision statements for year-2. At the end of this step the team will have identified their vision for each of their values looking out 1, 2, and 3-years.
STEP 5 – STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES AND HOW YOU LEARN: “Cultivate a deep understanding of yourself – not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others … and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.” (Peter Drucker, management consultant, educator, and author).
Now focus on the teams 1-year vision statements. Identify and describe the teams five most significant strengths that will enable you to achieve your desired result for each of your values. The team will also want to identify and describe their most significant weaknesses and along with capturing how the team learns, both individually and as a combined team.
STEP 6 – MEASUREMENTS FOR SUCCESS Focus on your 1-year vision. How will the team measure whether they are making progress and / or achieving success on their 1-year vision statements? The team will want to identify both leading and lagging measurements of success for each of your values.
STEP 7 – ACTIONS TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS: Pick the team’s priority value. Take a look at your current state performance vs. your 1st-year vision statements. Start to identify actions the team will need to take to achieve their 1st-year vision statements. Identify and prioritize your actions then establish start dates (when you’ll start the action) and due dates (when you will complete the action). You will need to insert your start and completed due dates in your planners along with your other regular daily activities. This means you will need to reserve personal capacity to achieve your future state 1-year vision.
STEP 8 – AUTHENTIC SELF-EXAMINATION: Everyone knows that rapid change is all around us. That is why it is important to apply a growth mindset to reflect on the team’s beliefs, values, and actions. The team will want to identify what they need to stop doing, start doing, accelerate doing and just plain accept some things that they are doing.
SUMMARY: I am sure it might seem to some that putting together a team improvement plan is a lot of work – well, it is a lot work. But, if you don’t identify what the future looks like and what actions it will take to achieve it, how is it possible to adequately prepare for the team to prepare for the future?
Up next: How to prepare an organization for the future via the development of a strategic and tactical plan.
Tailored. Focused. Solutions. If you, or an executive that you know, would be interested in meeting with one of our representatives to discuss how we can help you realize the benefits of our results-based and tailored proven approach, contact Incline Insights, LLC.
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