You have a team full of potential. Whether you're exceeding expectations or falling short, improving relationships and performance can help your team work better together to overcome challenges.
Having a session around your Cloverleaf Team Dashboard can help. Here’s a guide to help you lead this conversation with your team.
Prep Work
Schedule your Session
We recommend at least 90 minutes. It sometimes takes a bit to get these conversations going, and 60 minutes often cuts it too short. If your team is larger than 7, we recommend at least 2 hours.
Set your Goal
Is there a specific problem that is prompting you to have this team session? Be very specific in defining it - the clearer you are on your problem, the more impactful you can be with the solution.
What is your goal with this session?
What does success look like at the end of the session? One week later? 3 months later?
Prep your Dashboard
Personalize the assessments you want your team to take by clicking the toggle button on the right side of the Team Dashboard.
Set up your Team(s)
We recommend team sizes don’t exceed 7. If you’re doing this with a larger team, consider what sub-teams you can set up - break people down by their role, location, department, or by the people who most often work together.
REVIEW THE DASHBOARD
Pull up your team dashboard. There’s a lot here! It’s so fascinating that it’s easy to lose track of time. Try not to overthink it. Spend at least 20 minutes clicking around, noting any big aha’s.
If any of these assessments are new to you, you can learn more here.
At a Glance:
Are there clear outliers on any of the graphs?* How have you seen these play out on the team? How can these outliers benefit the team?
*Differences can actually be a really important strength in a team. Read more on that here.
Are there any clear clusters where multiple people have similarities? How do these similarities make the team stronger? How could these similarities allow for blind spots?
If you set up subteams, are there any clear patterns you notice? Are there major differences or similarities between any of the subteams? What factors (role, geography, projects, etc) correlate with these patterns?
On the Team Role Grid, where is the team strong, and where does the team lack a fit?
Going Deeper:
Pair people up in the relationship map. What surprises you? What opportunities are there to pair people together more effectively?
Think about people on your team who stand out in the day to day, perhaps for their performance or their importance to your goal. Click on their avatar, and view their full profile. Click through their insights, and note any important talking points for the group discussion.
Pro Tip: Finding an insight that is dead on or positively playful is a great ice breaker for your team session.
Form questions:
Looking back over your notes, write out specific questions that command more than a yes/no answer. Here are some examples:
“You’ll notice XYZ pattern. How have you seen this play out on the team?”
“Tell me about a time when you noticed this strength help the team.”
“Where in our process are we currently experiencing an issue? What (person/strength/behavior) can help solve this issue?”
(To a person who is an outlier) “How do you experience this difference of yours from the team?”
“What (strength, behavioral type) could we leverage to make a difference in an area of focus our team has?”
THE SESSION ITSELF
The big day has come! You got this.
Set the stage
Open by setting expectations for time, and that you’re here to have a conversation where all participate.
There is no right or wrong “type” on any of these assessments, and none of them are prescriptive. We’re all unique snowflakes not to be put in a box.
From your prep work, share your goal for this session.
Dive in
Pro Tip: Find ways to use yourself as an example. If you’ve increased your own awareness and openness, it will model to the team that it’s safe to do the same. Give them freedom to call out observations of your own tendencies.
Start with the assessments, going through one box at a time.
Open with some general observations, such as patterns or the team average.
Ask a question to open conversation.
If the conversation is slow to start, reference back to the specific questions you had prepared. This may be a new type of conversation for many people, which is OK, so model openness and space for reflection, so that people will feel safer to speak up as the meeting goes on.
Be observant of those who have no trouble speaking up. What are their results? Is this common in meetings? Don't be afraid to call out those who readily answer and point back to the dashboard as to why that might be. This can be a good transition into allowing others to share.
If you notice any folks who haven’t spoken up much, ask them a specific question. These quiet folks usually have keen insights to share.
When helpful, click on someone’s avatar to go deeper into their specific results or insights.
Where does the team have roles really well covered?
What roles are unfilled? How does the team experience this?
Pull back up specific pairings that stood out to you in your prep.
Ask everyone to share their biggest learning and one action step they now want to take after this session.
Write down the action steps and be sure to follow up with each of them in your normal rhythm of one on one’s or team meetings. This follow-up is key to taking your team’s performance to the next level.