You have a team full of potential. Maybe you're currently crushing your goals. Maybe you’re falling short. Maybe you want to improve relationships. Maybe you want to improve performance or help your team work better together to solve problems.
Facilitating a team-building session using the Cloverleaf TEAM Dashboard can help.
Below is a step-by-step guide to help you lead this conversation with your clients.
Step 1: Prepare For The Meeting
Schedule The Session
We recommend at least 90 minutes. It sometimes takes a bit to get these conversations going, and 60 minutes often cut it too short. If the team is larger than 7, we recommend at least 2 hours.
Set Outcome Goals
Is there a specific problem prompting you to have this team session? Be specific in defining it - the more clearly you and the team understand the 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?
Three months later?
Prep The Team Dashboard
Personalize the assessments you want the team to take by clicking the toggle button on the right side of the TEAM Dashboard.
Set Up And Organize The Teams
We recommend team sizes don’t exceed seven people. If you’re doing this with a larger team, consider what subteams you can set up - break people down by their role, location, department, or by the people who most often work together.
Step 2: Review The TEAM 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.
You can learn more here if any of these assessments are new to you.
Tips For Reviewing The Dashboard:
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?
How To Make The Most Of The Insights You Discover:
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 daily, perhaps for their performance or 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 a dead-on or positively playful insight is a great icebreaker for your team session.
Step 3: Form Discussion-Based Questions:
Review your notes, and 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?”
Step 4: Leading The Session For Optimum Results
The big day has come. You got this!
Set The Stage For The Meeting
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 are prescriptive. We’re all unique, not to be put in a box.
From your prep work, share your goal for this session.
Follow Your Outline For The Meeting
Pro Tip: Find ways to use yourself as an example. If you’ve increased your awareness and openness, it will show the team that it’s safe to do the same. Give them the 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 a conversation.
If the conversation is slow, reference 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 speaking 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?
Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to call out those who readily answer and point back to the dashboard why that might be. This can be a good transition into allowing others to share.
If you notice 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 investigate their specific results or insights.
Utilize The TEAM Dashboard Features During The Meeting
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.
Closing The Meeting
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.
There's more to learn about applying what you've learned, so check out our blog or other articles about the TEAM Dashboard.
For more help with Cloverleaf, view related help articles: