Follow-up resources for the Five Behaviors

Keep developing your teams

Every training benefits from a few reminders and a chance to practice or extend the lessons learned. Here we offer a few suggestions for ways to reinforce learning and help build more cohesive teams. These could be shared with teams, team leaders, or used during another workshop.

When reviewing assessment results or discussion notes, consider how to deliver this content in various ways to meet different learning styles. Perhaps a visual would be helpful or a related video.

“Diverse team members may need information presented in different ways, or they may ask different questions. Respecting those diverse needs allows the group to then see the subject from all angles—a hallmark of better decision making.”

—Hiltrud Werner on how diversity affects resilience in “How Volkswagen board member Hiltrud Werner finds resilience”

We have free content available at The Five Behaviors® downloadable assets. These resources supplement those.

Team review
Trust
Conflict
Commitment
Accountability
Results

Team review

These questions, suggested by Julia Rozovsky at Google, can be a great review of progress. We also recommend using the Five Behaviors Progress Report.

  1. Can we, as a team, take a risk without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
  2. Can we count on each other to deliver high-quality results on time?
  3. Are our goals, roles, and execution plans clear?
  4. Are we working on something that is personally meaningful to each of us?
  5. Do we fundamentally believe that the work that we’re doing matters?

 

The Table Group suggests this activity: Team Effectiveness Exercise.

Trust

Results for Trust scores on The Five Behaviors Team Development assessment

Ask the team leader to select a few ice breaker or trust-building questions to ask at the beginning of their next few meetings. Examples:

  • Do you have a passion project or hobby you look forward to doing in your time off? What is it? Can you share a photo?
  • What’s one skill you always have wanted to learn or improve upon?
  • What was your favorite childhood toy? Or one you really wanted to get, but never did.
  • What would a perfect day at work look like for you?

 

Ask each team member to answer these questions and and record their answers. Then, ask that person to share only wildly incorrect answers with the team. Ask team members if the assumptions were correct in any way and what their actual motivators are and goals are. If they want, colleagues can share what they wrote down and how close they were to being correct.

  • What do you think motivates each of your team members?
  • What are their short- and long-term goals for themselves on this team?

As an example, Sharon might say that Larry is motivated only by sugar cubes and starlight. His goals on the team are to make connections necessary to get into a race to Mars. Larry responds that he does actually do some of his best work after dark, but that he's motivated by seeing progress made and his goal is to get sign-off on a new project.

 

We also offer a Team activity to build trust.

 

Share:

Building trust on virtual or remote teams, discprofiles.com learning hub

Be a better teammate: Trust, discprofiles.com learning hub

How to build (and rebuild) trust, TED video

Conflict

Run the Five Behaviors Comparison Reports for members in conflict. See Making the Most of Comparison Reports. Offer to facilitate their discussion around the report.

 

Deliver the Everything DiSC Productive Conflict assessment, based on the models of DiSC and cognitive behavioral therapy. It offers specific tips and strategies for improving one's response to conflict situations.

 

Post The Five Behaviors Conflict Map where it's easily seen or found.

 

Share:

7 Things to Say When a Conversation Turns Negative, HBR

The conflict continuum: Where does your team fall? discprofiles.com learning hub

Commitment


During the Five Behaviors Team Development workshop, each team member probably wrote down a change they were committed to making and one change they wanted the team to make. Remind members of these commitments and discuss progress made on them.

Ask the team to consider cross-training programs to give members more flexibility in how they can contribute. Or create a task map to see if members' skills and interests are best aligned with team tasks.

 

Fill out the Team alignment canvas, by Strategy Field Guide. Ask all members if they can commit to the values and goals included in the document.

 

Share:

Achieving commitment on your team, discprofiles.com learning hub

Be a better teammate: Commitment, discprofiles.com learning hub

Accountability

Accountability is often the area in which teams struggle most. There are many strategies a team can employ to improve. We offer a few resources below, based on common challenges. Teams can review one of these and discuss, making commitments to make specific changes based on what they've learned.

 

How to Balance Care and Accountability When Leading Remotely, Coaching for Leaders Podcast

 

Review the five steps of the Accountability Dial:

  1. The Mention
  2. The Invitation
  3. The Conversation
  4. The Boundary
  5. The Limit

 

Unfocused or unproductive meetings

Effective Meetings: Level 10 Meeting for Entrepreneurial Leadership Teams, video, EOS Worldwide
Tips good for more than just entrepreneurs or leadership teams.

Better Meetings Are Possible. Here's How
A list of tips assembled by NPR staffers.

Use DiSC for better meetings, discprofiles.com learning hub

 

Difficulty giving feedback

The secret to giving great feedback, video, The Way We Work, a TED series

How to Actually Encourage Employee Accountability, Harvard Business Review

 

Lack of clear priorities and shared goals

Simple S.M.A.R.T. goals template for teams, Samewave
Article also discusses promise-based management to help with accountability

Set objectives and develop key results, re:Work

How to Develop Key Performance Indicators, video by OnStrategy

 

No dashboards or tracking tools

We can't be held accountable for anything we're not tracking. There are numerous tools and even free templates available to make tracking easier. Choose one and review it regularly.

Best KPI Dashboard Excel Templates for All Your Needs, Geek Dashboard

 

Communication tool confusion

There can easily be a discrepancy between the communication tools that people find most effective and the ones they regularly use. Discuss which tools will be used, how, and when.

How to Set Communication Guidelines With Your Team, The Effective CMO

Results

Results scores for The Five Behaviors Team Development assessment

Discussion questions:

  • Do you think the scores we had would be higher if we took the team assessment today?
  • What does success look like? What counts as a positive result?
  • How is the team recognized or rewarded for its work and outcomes?
  • Are individual rewards distracting from team results?
  • How can we reward each other? How are results announced and celebrated?
  • If your team disbanded and had an obituary, what would it say?