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Learn from each other, value discussion, creativity, newideas
Good final product (strategic plan)
Respect personality types - get to know other types, check in with each other, playing devil's advocate
Listening to each other, safe environment
Responsible and responsive to each other, disciplined



  
 !   "


Universalism Benevolence Universalism Self-Direction


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"
 

Self-Direction Security Self-Direction Universalism

Benevolence Tradition Tradition Benevolence

Social Social Social Investigative

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Investigative Conventional Artistic Conventional

Artistic Enterprising Conventional Artistic

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Research Helping others Communication Embrace challenges



Bridging Communities/
Collaborating Communication Creativity Curious
Open to new ideas/
Flexible Organizing/ planning Relationship-building Uncover meaning
! ' 
(

E- Extrovert I- Introvert I- Introvert I- Introvert

  )

N- Intuition N- Intuition N- Intuition N- Intuition

F- Feeling F- Feeling F- Feeling F- Feeling

P- Perceiving J- Judging J- Judging P- Perceiving

Our team͛s profiles show a remarkable degree of similarity on a number of measures, pointing to some

measure of smooth sailing in terms of our working styles, but also the potential to miss opportunities or

analysis that might be spotted by someone with a dissimilar profile.


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As might be expected in a program devoted to nonprofit leadership, we all included at least one and

sometimes both of the Self-Transcendence values, Universalism and Benevolence. Three of us also

included Self-Direction, indicating an openness to change. One trended the other direction, toward the

Conservation values.

Our general agreement on the Self-Transcendence values may help us quickly come to a trusting and

functional group dynamic, as we agree on our fundamental motivations. Susann͛s Conservation values

could serve as an important balance to our team͛s general excitement over new ideas and innovation.

The team should plan to use Susann͛s Conservation focus to check out new ideas and possibly serve to

temper our unbridled enthusiasm.

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Our team as a whole highly identifies with the Social, Conventional and Artistic interests; most of us

choose at least two of these interests, although in different places. This could indicate that we will

approach our work together using similar strategies and tools, and could broaden our own ability to

work within these interests by seeing how other team members use them practically. In a nonprofit

program it͛s hardly surprising that Social turned up so often.

Only two other interests were represented: Investigative (Rachel and Christena), and Enterprising

(Susann). The Investigative interests might be a nice balance with the Artistic and Conventional

interests, helping us dig in to understand new ideas or systems. Susann͛s uniqueEnterprising interest

might help her be effective in the group as a ͞persuader.͟ This interest might also keep her from feeling

like the odd woman out.

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Our transferable skill assessment includes a number of externally-focused skills that may help us create

and preserve smooth working relationships, including: communication, collaboration, helping others

and relationship-building. Our team also has skills that will help us find areas of agreement, including:

bridging communities, flexible, curiosity and uncovering meaning. Finally, a couple of people mentioned

research and organization as strong skills that will help our group keep on track in a practical way.

The danger in this skill set might be, in fact, too much flexibility, or too much emphasis on preserving

relationships as opposed to finding the best solution. We will need to be vigilant about voicing concerns

and conflicting ideas. Having someone play the role of devil͛s advocate might be a smart strategy as we

examine new ideas. Disciplining ourselves to talk through new ideas in a very practical way might also

help us evaluate our work instead of focusing on our process.

! ' 
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Again, we show remarkable congruence in our personality types, including all four of us scoring Intuition

and Feeling. From this, we can assume the group may approach analysis and decision-making in similar

ways, by looking for patterns and connecting with values. With three Introverts, we͛ll need to build in

plenty of time for reflection but prompt ourselves to speak up when meeting together. We are evenly

balanced between Judging and Perceiving; we have talked about how to ensure we keep a framework

and end goal in mind while allowing opportunity for ͞messy͟ process.

We all seek harmony and points of agreement in our work, which might lead us to ignore conflict or

sweep it under the table ʹ either interpersonal conflict, or conflicting ideas. We also all look more to

patterns, innovation and meaning than to tasks and data. There will be a danger that we will overlook

or underestimate the practical problems with our ideas.

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In terms of Thomas &Kilmann͛s operating principles, our group will tend to value concern for

relationships higher than concern for outcome ʹ or perhaps simply not recognize when one is trumping

the other. Our team members will be eager to offer creative and innovative ideas, but we might trend

toward Accomodation when deciding how to move forward, reluctant to be seen as challenging

someone else. Our task will be to find respectful and safe ways to explore our different ideas, especially

in a short timeframe, without Withdrawing. Setting some ground rules for dialogue, and holding

ourselves and each other to high expectations for performance, may help.

With so much similarity, understanding our underlying mental models and how they influence our work

together might be difficult. Luckily, our team assignment is Senge͛s The Fifth Discipline, which deals

explicitly with how to surface and influence mental models in a work environment. Understanding how

our profiles might lead us to ignore differences is a good foundation for this work. I look forward to

applying the learnings directly to our team process.