To help you get started on finding a more substantive understanding of who your team is and how they work together, Kevin McDaniel (WindRiver Strategies) delivers the Emergenetics Team Audit.
The Emergenetics Team Audit is designed to serve two primary purposes:
1. Give team members a voice to express their viewpoints and generate new understandings
2. Provide team leads and management with a roadmap targeting specific elements to take their teams to new levels.
The Emergenetics Team Audit
Background: The Team Audit helps teams identify their collective strengths and challenges. It’s a starting point to understand how the team is functioning, where it is successful and where improvements can be made.
Questions for Participants: Although there are not specific questions that every team must use, it is important to ask positive questions to facilitate greater inquiry throughout the team on how it can meet challenges, or as to why it excels in certain arenas.
We’ve found that the following questions stimulate discussion, encourage team participation and ownership and most importantly, provide a diagnostic measure on how each team member is viewing his/her collective work.
Team Strengths:
– What is working well for our team?
– What overall qualities does our team possess that drives our successes?
Team Challenges:
– What are the challenges the team faces on a regular basis?
– What overall deficiencies exist within the team thatcontributes to poor performance?
– What are my own personal challenges in relation to the team?
Team Work Styles:
– As a team member – how do you specifically prefer to receive communication?
(e.g. Face-to-face, via email, in team meetings, etc.)
– As a team member – what is your go-to form of communication?
(e.g. Face-to-face, via email, in team meetings, etc.)
– How would you describe your style within the team?
o Direct/Driving
o In the middle
o Peacekeeping/Amiable
– How would you describe your role on the team in one word?
Overall Team Performance:
– What words come to mind when you think about the team and the team’s performance?
Overall Team Vision:
– What is your take on the team’s vision?
– Is the team’s vision clear?
Desired Outcomes: This exercise gets people thinking about the value of each team member. It provides a snapshot of where the team is as a whole—how clear is the team’s direction, and where the team is excelling and struggling.
The Emergenetics Team Audit allows you and your teams to collaboratively brainstorm about how to handle any areas attributes that are underrepresented or overrepresented.
Great dialogue can emerge from this small group discussion, as it is done in a safe environment. Facilitating this process in a strengths-based manner is crucial.