The meaning of strength here is “when a person is producing consistent positive outcomes in a task and feels strong doing it”. Whenever you feel strong doing a task, it is a clue that your unique and dominant talents are being fire up in your brain. That is one of the important reasons, you would ask about how you are feeling about a task they have at hand! As a coach and team leader, this skill of open ended questions extends to effectively coaching your clients and teams.

To produce consistent positive outcomes in any task the best mindset is to focus on those dominant talents. This maximizes the return on your time and energy and you have the best chance to reaching excellence. While you are focusing on your talents, the intention is to develop them. To develop them you continuously invest in them and learn knowledge and skills that support your development in that task.

In sports it’s often called chemistry: that blend of talent that makes a team able to accomplish the impossible. It’s a balance that all managers want, whether they’re coaching a football team, or leading a business initiative.

Here are some strengths-based strategies for putting together a team that’s more than the sum of its parts. In a strength-based team, there’s no dominant player to point to, the team relies on a balance of solid experienced and gifted athletes. And it has an experienced manager with a good sense of how all the players work best together. Ironically, it’s been noted that the departure of their superstars allowed some teams to elevate their level of play as a team.

The example can be extended to any workgroup. Team members who understand one another’s abilities trust one another more. They also easily distinguish the areas in which their time and talents are most effectively applied. They partner with teammates to fill the gap. It’s easy to see how this improves the team’s efficiency.

I have experienced how the dialogue between individuals with different dominant strengths improves the quality of the decision-making process. Aside from key decision-making points, a balance of strengths facilitates the smooth day-to-day operation of the team.

That’s not to say great teams are always in agreement. Teams with individuals that have similar strength tend to be “imbalanced”. This tends to generate dynamics that cut into the team’s productivity. The whole is actually less than the sum of the parts.

Consider the scenario that your team is meeting weekly to hash out the issues surrounding your project.  Have you ever noticed situations where despite seemingly endless discussion, resolutions and hard decisions are not forth coming?

What about the scenario when you have teamed up with someone who just doesn’t seem to grasp the concept?

Sometimes “teams” are teams in name only, and on closer inspection bear more resemblance to individuals sitting in a room together, separately focusing on a common topic.

A great manager will take the time to deconstruct the daily operation of his or her team. This includes identifying where it bogs down and where it over-accelerates. Examining those areas from a strength perspective can offer the manager insights about how to achieve a more complementary balance. Those insights can then be used as a basis for dialogue within the team This allows each member to better understand their ideal role relative to the other team members. In this way, the manager can ensure that the team operates as more than the sum of its parts.

What are the best strategies for building a highly effective, strengths-based team?  Here are a few basic principles that may help provide guidance:

Team leaders are encouraged to carefully consider the image that comes to mind when using the word “team” to their direct reports.

Ask yourself:

Do they share a common goal?

A common set of measures that determine success?

Are collective achievements possible? Or, is this really an assortment of individuals working independently with separate measurement and goals?

Even when individuals do much of the team’s work independently, members can share in the responsibilities associated with a great place to work. Think about how the elements that increase individual and team engagement can be leveraged – more on this on future articles.

A shared goal must be shared in both vision and delivery. Sometimes too little time is spent defining the team’s goal and what it means to each member. Invest in a process that has each team member describe the goal from their own perspective. Ask them about their perceived contribution toward the achievement of the goal.

As you listen to each member, note the language being used and the unique views. Reflect as a group on the diversity or similarity of the descriptions.

List the team functions and allocate responsibility based on strength of each member.

Many teams move from defining the challenge to working toward the solution. There is little or no thought to the most appropriate functions or roles. You’ll improve efficiency by building those considerations into the planning process.

This can be done for specific tasks. For example, the manager could draw up a specific action plan to get from point A to point B. They can also do the same for the general day-to-day operation of the team.

The team leader might start by listing the common functions you feel the team must allocate in order to operate smoothly. Invite team members to share in defining the process and their contribution. Define the process in terms of steps.

You may use the RRTS acronym to highlight the Role, Responsible, Talent and Strength:

Example 1:

Role: Aligning objectives and measurements of success

Responsible Person: Joe Smith

Talents: Focus and Arranger

Strength: Set goals, timelines and priorities

Example 2:

Role: Holding everyone accountable

Responsible Person: Andrew Jones

Talent: Responsibility and Consistency

Strength: Follow-up at every meeting and track results

A strength perspective recognizes that not all team members are alike and that the ideal role is unique for each. Now that you have the functions or process, consider each person’s best contribution. Ask each person to share two of their strengths, and identify two areas within the process that are a “best fit” for them. Also keep in mind that individuals can not only contribute their talents, but also their knowledge or skills, or their interests. Ask each person to distinguish among these personal resources to better clarify their contribution.

Once you’ve allocated functions, ask the person whose name is next to each individual function to “own” that aspect of the team’s operation. This is a time to share leadership responsibility. It shifts with the strengths of the participating team members. Then note whether there are any parts of the team’s overall operation with which no team members have associated strengths. Ask yourself:

Will you need to bring in outside help for this area?

Whose help will you need?

Make this a regular part of your team’s work. To consider not only the issues, problems or challenges, but also the ways you work together in solving or achieving them. To help ensure consistency, make sure that someone in the group is accountable for follow up. Also, that someone is responsible for reminding the team to begin its next meeting with a short dialogue on team members’ strengths.

Taymour Miri is an ICF master coach and a Gallup certified strengths coach and more recently one of the first 136 coach’s worldwide to be awarded an Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching. He has 30 years’ experience in leadership roles and 20 years of experience in coaching. Taymour has trained over 1,500 coaches across five continents and is the founder of International Coaching Education (ICE).