Last week, the Kansas City Royals won their first World Series game in 30 years, and it got me thinking about teamwork. To have a top-notch team like the Royals, you have to have great pitchers, hitters, fielders and base runners. You need a diverse set of talents and excellent communication between all players.
Not so different from a work team, is it?
When you’re part of a professional team, you need a lot of the same attributes as the KC Royals—diversity of skills, great communication, discipline, motivation—but work teams are not hand-selected like professional baseball teams. You might encounter clashing personalities, a lack of understanding, poor communication, or misaligned goals.
How can you work with a team when not everyone is on the same page? Insights® Discovery can help.
Insights® is a science-based program that helps you gain a better understanding of yourself and others by using a simple, four-color model to articulate aspects of your personality. We are all capable of tapping into each of the four colors on the wheel, but the average person typically “leads” with one or two of the four color energies (more on Insights® Discovery HERE).
By giving you and your co-workers the language to talk about and explore your differences and similarities, Insights® helps create understanding and empathy among teammates. It may help explain why Joe is always quiet (he might lead with blue energy and is therefore highly analytical and likes to think over all the data before he speaks) and why Lucy seems abrasive at times (she may lead with red energy and likes to see immediate action).
Insights® also helps teammates appreciate their differences and better understand what roles might be suitable for certain people and unsuitable for others (i.e. those that lead with yellow energy enjoy planning and brainstorming ideas, but usually do not like sitting down with data and analyzing it).
The best teams are diverse groups of people that have an excellent understanding of one another and know how to leverage each other’s talents. You wouldn’t want a catcher playing center field, would you? The same applies to your team.
How can you get started with Insights® Discovery? As an Insights® Licensed Practitioner, I can guide you. Contact me today and let’s talk about making a positive change for you and your entire team.