“Great rivalries don’t have to be built on hatred. They’re built on respect, on a respect for excellence.” Mike Krzyzewski
‘Opposites attract,’ used to explain the phenomenon of dissimilar people taking a strong or romantic interest in each other is normally used when talking about marriage. It applies to leadership as well. The best teams I served with had vastly different people joined behind a common cause.
In my group coaching the first thing I look for is the profile of each person. The Forté Institute’s® Communication Intelligence Survey and Assessment helps me gain clarity on personality traits, logic style, stamina, and resiliency or better – elasticity. It measures dominance/non-dominance, introversion/extraversion, patience/impatience, and conformity/non-conformity. Placing profiles next to each other brings instant clarity on whether a team is diverse or not.
Non-dominant people balance dominant people. Patience is often needed when navigating a tough problem or looking for a result. Impatience may work just as well in that scenario or – to the point of this blog, a mix of both! Conformists want to see details. They want every ‘i’ dotted and ‘t’ crossed. They are a great counterbalance to those who don’t conform, who operate off intuition instead of data and facts.
Amidst differences, teams must function. Sebastian Bailey, a Forbes contributor offered “6 Ways to Make A Team Of Rivals Work.” While I’m not entirely comfortable with rivals and team in the same sentence, opposites do attract! Here are 4 of the 6…
Read the rest here.
