How do you find out what you're missing in your team?
The 6 professional forces of Lencioni
You have a good plan, a seriously good manager and a team that is committed 100%. Still, the project is not a success, the team members do not become a team or the output is lower than expected. Do you ever wonder how that is possible? We did too. During the Corona crisis, Patrick Lencioni and his Table Group formulated 6 professional forces (working geniuses) that a team needs to be structurally successful, to complete projects well or to get anything done at all.
At Soople, we were already big fans of Patrick Lencioni, pioneer of the global organizational health movement and author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage . But this is the approach we call revolutionary. Brace yourself.
Everyone excels in 2 of the 6 professional strengths
If you get a lot of energy from specific tasks, enjoy them to the fullest and feel that you excel, you are using your 2 professional strengths . You want to keep investing in them and can spend a lot of time on them without getting tired of them. Do you get stressed by certain tasks, do you prefer to run away from them or do you postpone them endlessly? Those are your 2 professional frustrations . The remaining 2 strengths are your professional competence : they are fine with you, but you are not overjoyed by them. If you were to work exclusively on these tasks, you would slowly wither away. The trick is of course that all strengths are represented in a team and that each team member is deployed to his or her strengths as much as possible.
What are the 6 professional forces?
1 The Genius of Wondering: The natural gift of thinking about the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation; 2 The Genius of Invention: The natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions; 3 The Genius of Discerning: The natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations; 4 The Genius of Galvanizing: The natural gift of gathering, inspiring, and organizing others to take action; 5 The Genius of Enablement: The natural gift of encouraging and facilitating team members in what they need to make the maximum contribution to the team;
6 The Genius of Tenacity: The natural gift of persevering and finishing something and thus achieving results.
Source: Table Group, www.workinggenius.com
Redistribute the roles
I recently spoke to an entrepreneur who was unhappy with an overpaid project manager he had hired. Projects were running way overdue and there was no clear answer to the question of when they would be finished. The Project Manager was experienced with these types of projects at other companies and had a good team around him. The creative part seemed to be going well, but finding out concrete things like delivery times from suppliers and creating and following a tight project schedule went completely wrong. The professional strengths of the manager in question were Invention (he could come up with great creative solutions) and Enablement (facilitating others), but Tenacity (the perseverance to complete something) and Discernment (intuitive decision-making) were his pitfalls. That had never been a problem at his previous employer, because he had a pitbull of a buyer (Tenacity), who maintained contact with suppliers and a director who made a number of decisive decisions for him at the crucial moment (Discernment).
The team determined who did have the missing professional forces. Then the responsibilities were redistributed and transferred to those people who had the right professional force in-house. From that moment on you saw the change occur and improvement arose. Just think about where things always go well with you or not.
