Team leaders and members often ask the question, “Is it better to be more alike or to be more different as a team to get maximum results?” Examining how the three social styles (assertive, withdrawn, earn their way) and the three ways of coping when we don’t get what we want (positive reframing, reactive, competency approach) that humans, and thus work teams, share, provides interesting implications for this question.
Mapping a team’s social styles and coping styles helps us to understand the potential gifts they may be missing, and where they may have an over-abundance of automatic patterns in play. A team map also helps to understand potential recurring conflict areas and points to areas in which to engage alternative strategies to ensure more complete and useful solutions. While it may seem that similar work styles will make getting things done streamlined, an abundance of any one style can bring clashes and more importantly, result in a lack of useful perspectives.
Below is an example team map based on the three primary social styles and coping styles. This team is weighted in recurrent perspectives, and we will explore why they may find it useful to incorporate additional ways of viewing their work and issues, and where resistance and narrow thinking may occur.
To learn more about these personality and work styles, review this link http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/QuestTest.pdf to the Enneagram assessment based on the Enneagram Institute’s Quest test. This test helps us to assess our Enneagram type based on the Hornevian (social styles, based on Karen Horney’s work) and Harmonic groups (our primary coping tendency when we don’t get what we want).
| Strategy Social Needs (across) Coping Style (down) | Assertive (A) | Withdrawn (B) | Earn Your Way (C) |
| Positive Outlook (X) | Sevens: X | Nines: X | Twos: X, X |
| Reactive (Y) | Eights: X | Fours: | Sixes: |
| Competency Approach (Z) | Threes: X | Fives: | Ones: X, X, X, X, X |
Within this team of eleven, the type One manager, has hired or inherited an abundance of his personal social style and actual type. Thus, over half the team members have a social style of earning their way, and may spend too much time trying to determine the “right” thing to do, or in making things perfect vs. good enough. They may also have a lot of “chatter box” thinking and deny the need to allow inner knowing to arise out of a “quiet” mind.
The team only has one withdrawn type (type Nine) that has easy access to the inner rich world of their imagination where new ideas and ways of doing things can arise. They will want to invite the type Nine to participate and contribute to the work of the team to ensure many ideas or ways of working can be surfaced and heard instead of moving to the task without considering relationships and inner guidance.
The team has three assertive types, and will want to ensure that the majority of those who try to earn their way do not ignore or write off the assertive types, as the others may sense that the assertives are always “pushing” against them when the assertives are just trying to be active and direct and move things forward quickly.
The single reactive (or emotionally real in the moment) coping style of the Type Eight may be viewed as a “loose cannon” or emotionally immature by the competency approach folks. The competency folks dislike any display of anger and just want to get down to work, move things forward in the direction they believe is correct, as they believe emotions get in the way of solving problems. Meanwhile, the type Eight is really just trying to avoid feeling vulnerable, and is trying to ascertain who is with them and who is against them while they try to move things forward quickly so they feel more in control, and can probe to get to what is really true. The competency folks may also believe that the type Eight is all about their own agenda versus doing the right thing as they view it which can cause friction and resentment to build. The rest of the team will most likely avoid noticing or dealing with their real feelings, which may result in unskillful conversations with judgmental or critical undertones, or overly positive avoidance tactics, and they may miss what is really going on with individual motives which may result in skewed results.
The four positive outlook folks (Type Seven, Nine, Twos) may be viewed by the Type Eight, Three, and Ones as “too Pollyanna” and unrealistic, and out of touch with reality if there are negative portions of a situation that need to be addressed. And, the positive outlook folks may believe the competency folks and the reactive type are overly focused on the negative parts of the situation, as they prefer to see only what is positive and uplifting to avoid feeling any personal distress.
With just these few examples, we are illustrating that trying to find a one-size-fits-all solution for our initial question ignores the complexity of working within teams. The weighting of the same type of responses will mean the team members will want to become more aware of their tendencies to respond and interact with each other, and find ways to compensate or tone down in order to contribute at their best as a team. There are strengths and perspectives they will be missing if the majority views the world in the narrow lens of their own limited views.
Additionally, the individual emotional intelligence (ability to manage self and others) of each team member will influence how much the personality tendencies inhibit or get in the way of the team’s ability to function well and deliver results over time.
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| Jenny Yoder brings a wealth of life and work experience to each client coaching relationship. Coaching clients benefit from Jenny’s broad experience in sales, marketing, services/product management, operations, small-business ownership, and change and transition employee communications consulting within the high-tech industry. Her previous roles in multiple leadership capacities provide context and a reality-based foundation for her coaching relationships. See More> |
