The Power of Self Awareness

I did some work recently with the national sales team of an international manfuacturing company. I called the manager yesterday to get some feedback on how the team are doing, and what they are applying, and was just overwhelmed by her enthusiasm for the changes she's seen in her team.

One of the things she mentioned was their changed behaviour in team meetings; previously only "the usual suspects" ever spoke up, conversations tended to be circular, the manager's requests for ideas and contributions were met with embarrasing silence. (Think wind and tumbleweeds!)

During the sessions we used a personality model http://www.insights.com to raise their self-awareness and give them a non-judgmental language to describe behaviour.

Now she's seeing enthusiastic, creative discussions, everyone contributing, team members not flinching when confronted with their "difficult" customers, and a significant increase in sales figures.

The team building effect of raising people's self awareness through an accredited personality theory such as Insights Discovery or MBTI is amazing. People seem naturally fascinated with this stuff - which makes it easier to teach - and can actually apply the model to themselves, to colleagues, to customers, the moment they walk out of the seminar room.

Getting a new team working together effectively doesn't need to be black magic - it could easily be Blue, Green, Yellow and Red magic! (Go the the Insights website if you don't know what I mean!)

All the best,

Dave Bull
Team Coaching Network Ltd
http://www.teamcoachingnetwork.com