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i'm sorry to "canoe" you: cohesive teams with style differences

11/7/2014

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or vs. and

Last week I had the great pleasure of participating in a strategic planning meeting with a local nonprofit.  While I am accustomed to facilitating these sessions, it was a great opportunity to be a participant.  Debra England of HRExpertiseBP did a great job leading the event.  Like any strong facilitator she challenged the teams’ thinking, kept us on track and set the stage for the day by raising awareness of our style differences.  
The exercise:  stand by the boat that most reflects your work style

Canoe

Speed Boat

Ocean liner


We were then tasked with the following:

Identify characteristics of your boat

Identify the characteristics of the other boats

What do they need from us?

What do we need from them?


Being a member of the speed boat group (big surprise!) we quickly identified our strengths (decisive, creative, focused) and had decent awareness of our limitations (narrowly focused, forget to bring people along, etc.)  Then we spent about 10 minutes waiting for the ocean liners and canoes to finish up.  OK, the canoes never actually “finished” as they like to explore at a more leisurely place.

When we broke into our subgroups for another assignment the speed boats quickly began our assignment.  While rapidly moving along, a fellow speed boat raised a question.  He said, “I’m sorry to canoe us, but…..”  It was brilliant!  He stepped outside of his natural type, acknowledged the value of other types and brought good humor to the style differences among the board members.

If you don’t have the time or resources for a Myers-Briggs type assessment, think about using the boats exercise.  In 20 minutes or less you can get your team more aware of, and develop and appreciation for, style differences.  
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