Team building by the zodiac
I have been puzzling over team dynamics and the best way to improve inter-team communication. Do you have a preferred diagnosic? Myers Briggs? DISC? Belbin? The Zodiac? (Hey, in a team of 11 people with 5 Aries, this becomes critical. Make no mistake, recruitment have been told the next addition needs to be shortlisted only if an air or water sign).So seriously, how do you use personality profiling in your teams? At recruitment stage? Leadership development? Conflict resolution or team building?I heard in a workshop recently that personality archetypes are not useful as they just pidgeon hole people and stereotype the team members. They don't actually *do* anything.As an INTJ -Driver/Shaper - High D - ramzilla I bridled a bit at this - from my perspective, it's not up to the archetypal profile to *do* anything other than provide additional insight into the natural default settings we operate with :
- how we deal with change,
- how we prefer to communicate,
- how we view the world,
- and the work we prefer to do.
It's up to us to 'do' the 'doing' eg change how we communicate with some-one to be more effective, reassign roles that are not in fit, readjust our expectations...But I asked this question on my Conversations of Change Facebook page. And one of my most insightful "friends" with a HR background made the comment:
Generally I find people using MB, DISC etc really to only understand themselves in relation to the world rather than any delicate interplay between team members.
Which then had me thinking - is profiling useful or self referential narcissim at play, thinly disguised as team building.It couldn't be. That would mess with the Aries Ramzilla "I Am" mantra. Or would it?; - )