How one of our clients, a scaling business, improved internal communication (and more) by utilising our application.
Are there conflicts within your team?
Over the last decade, more than 250 organisations have utilised our application so that they can start building perfect, motivated teams that will take their business to the next level.
To build the foundations of a perfect team, you must first identify the key challenges that may be holding you back from scaling with the best team.
A key challenge that many of our clients and contacts mention to us is conflicts between team members.
One of the first clients to use the Perfect Teams application soon after our launch in 2014, a scaling technology and streaming business, was experiencing this very issue internally.
In this article, we will identify how we took them from conflict to conversation – in other words, how their internal communication improved. We will also identify an additional benefit they received by working with us and, importantly, what your organisation could learn from their situation.
Conflicts between team members
When we initially spoke to the client, they mentioned a regular conflict between the head of the sales department and the head of delivery.
It was a similar story to another of our clients, where there was friction between a compliance officer and the team of traders. In that article, we highlighted that we all have three brains – three ways of processing information- and that one of those is dominant.
Start with individuals, then bring people together
Thinking back to our conflict between sales and delivery, by working closely with each of the teams we were able to start the process of moving from conflict to conversation.
Below we outline the two staged-approach we took with this client:
1. Focusing on team members as individuals:
Each member of a team is an individual, and everyone will have different motivations. The same was true within this client’s organisation.
The first thing we sought to do was ensure that each team member understood the way they process information – in other words, the way they prefer to communicate. We did this by asking them to fill out our short online questionnaire.
The results showed that the head of sales was very similar to the traders within our previous example– he was interested in headline information and was focused (unsurprisingly) on selling.
The head of delivery was more focused on the detail of delivery, in much the same way as the compliance officer in our previous example.
2. Bringing the teams together:
Once each individual had an understanding of their preferred communication style, we brought each of the teams together in workshops to show them the different styles that each of their colleagues have.
Over the last decade we have worked with more than 250 organisations, and during each of the internal workshops there are usually many actionable takeaways.
During our work with this client, there were two headline ones.
From conflict to better communication:
Firstly, the workshops allowed the heads of sales and delivery, who were previously clashing, to understand the way that the other processed information.
It helped them identify that they both had different communication styles, which was one of the root causes of the conflicts, and this then led to a conversation about how they could better communicate with each other and improve the situation.
A second takeaway was a team member who decided to print a summary of her preferred communication style and stuck it on the wall near her desk.
She told us that because she was a direct person, and needed logical information when people communicate with her, she would point towards the summary when a potential conflict was about to arise, so that her colleagues could communicate with her better.
An additional benefit of our work:
While a key focus of our work with this client, as identified above, was about dealing with the internal conflicts, this client did receive an additional benefit by working with us.
As founders and CEOs grow and scale their companies, those looking towards retirement or exiting the business naturally start to look for those who can succeed them.
This client was no different, and the leadership team were having conversations about who would be the best person to take over the role of Managing Director, when the time came.
Utilising the two stages outlined above, we identified a suitable candidate for the role based on the strengths of each of the team members and the requirements for the role.
Crucially though, our approach also identified areas this candidate could improve their leadership style and other skills in preparation for their promotion.
As we highlighted in a previous article, which looks at how our approach works for businesses that are succession planning, the more understanding you have of someone’s potential leadership style early on, the more likely you are to pre-empt potential issues.
Are you looking to scale your business?
Our founder Neil, and the team, have over thirty years of experience in executive development, and have worked with more than 6,760 business owners to unlock the potential within their teams.
What hidden talents are there within your organisation, and how are you building perfect, motivated teams to support your scaling ambitions?
To identify those hidden talents, and to build those world-class teams, book into our next complimentary workshop by clicking here.
Among other things, we will identify how to get your team to love the office again.
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