UXL Blog

You know it when you’re a part of it. A team with a great working relationship communicates well, respects each other, and has a great balance of creativity and strategy. This type of team has excellent rapport, and everyone feels as though they have a voice and their perspectives are respected. When you partner with a team like this, the work seems effortless and you tend to be highly productive.

How do you achieve such a “dream team”?

What can you, as a leader, do to foster the type of environment that produces great teams?

Excellent teams can be built in a number of ways, but in my experience, the very foundation of creating a great team involves getting to know your people at a deep level, and figuring out how they mesh with one another. This may seem like a daunting task, but there is actually a relatively simple tool you can use to develop this type of deep understanding of your team members: Insights® Discovery.

Insights® is a science-based program that helps people gain an intimate understanding of their personal thought patterns, behavioral tendencies, communication preferences, strengths, and more. The data gathered through assessments is analyzed and explained using a very approachable methodology: four colors. The main idea of Insights® is that we all have the capability to embrace all four colors (i.e., personality types), but we tend to prefer one or two colors over the others.

The colors are:

• Cool Blue (analytical, thoughtful, data and strategy driven)
• Sunshine Yellow (social, creative, idea and relationship driven)
• Fiery Red (confident, commanding/natural leader, to-the-point)
• Earth Green (empathetic, inclusive, pensive)

Though this is an oversimplification of the program, this gives you a general idea of the four colors and how they are associated with personalities (read more about Insights® and communication in this past blog post).

How does Insights® relate to team dynamics?

A person’s Insights® profile not only provides information and insights about how that individual functions (and their ideal environment), but also tells us how individuals relate to others. For example, we might learn that one person tends to embody many “Sunshine Yellow” qualities—they are gregarious, social, and more enthusiastic about idea generation than analytics or strategy. This person might work with someone who leans toward “Cool Blue” and is fairly quiet and reserved, likes to fully analyze the numbers, and wants to explore many options before making a decision.

If these two people do not understand A) how they, personally, tend to operate or B) how their teammate operates, they might start to clash or become frustrated with each other. On the other hand, if these individuals are fully aware of how each person tends to think, behave, and communicate, they can lean into each other’s strengths instead of clashing. Different people can be assigned different roles within the team (don’t put the Sunshine Yellow person behind a desk, crunching numbers all day; and don’t make the Cool Blue person lead a creative brainstorming session!), so everyone can shine.

I have been a Licensed Practitioner of Insights® for about a decade, and I can attest to its effectiveness. Communication and understanding improve, and suddenly teams are talking to each other using the Insights® color language (“My ‘red’ side is really anxious to get this done, but I think we should hear what the ‘blues’ have to say” or “I know this is very ‘green’ of me, but I think we should bring Becky into the conversation and see what she has to say”).

By acknowledging your own tendencies and understanding the thought patterns and preferences of others, you can begin to build a harmonious team that capitalizes on each other’s strengths and recognizes potential trouble spots. If your work team needs to improve its dynamics, consider taking a closer look at Insights®.

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY (AND DEEPER DISCOVERY) LICENSED PRACTITIONER, AND FOUNDER OF UXL. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. 
CHECK OUT MARGARET’S ONLINE LEADERSHIP COURSE. 

Tags: better team cohesion with Insights, Insights and Teamwork, insights discovery and improving teamwork, Insights Discovery and team dynamics, Margaret Smith licensed Insights practitioner, Margaret Smith Minneapolis career coach