How To Use The Strength of Different Team Styles In A Meeting

Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 9:35 pm by Denise O'Berry

Our team has four members including myself the manager. Problem: We have one member who likes to get straight to the point at hand. She has great ideas and always offers great input, but she likes to just get straight to the point. Then we have a member who likes to tell all his stories and experiences on the subject, he can go on and on and on. This at times disrupts our meeting and sometimes we run out of time to cover all subjects. He also has to input how important his job is and all the committees he chairs and all the important people he knows. I am somewhere in the middle, at times I like to get straight to the point, but sometimes I share stories from my experience. We have a great team and have made great changes and improvements to our department.

The Team Doc Says…

You are very lucky to have such a diverse team. And you are one smart manager to recognize the style and uniqueness of each team member. I can understand how frustrating this can be at times though.

What you need to do is match the task to the strength. When you need something done, make sure you match the task to the person with the appropriate strength. For something that needs a direct approach, utilize the team member who gets straight to the point. For a task which requires a little more schmoozy approach, use the team member who is your story teller to help move the team through the task.

This will apply to your meetings also. First make sure that your meeting agendas aren’t packed too tight. Here’s a good meeting rule to use — Pack Light and Go Deep. Set up your agenda with the bare minimum of items and make sure you cover each issue with the appropriate amount of depth. Assign each meeting item to the person whose strength matches the best.

It would be a good idea to talk as a team about the different styles of each team member and what your plans are to make the team even more effective going forward. A good tool to help you with this discussion would be the I-Opt Strategic Style assessment. I’ve used this tool for quite some time with groups and it helps with the discussion.

One other tool to help you manage these team members’ different styles in the best way, is the book First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.

Anyone else have additional suggestions? Please leave a comment.