WEBINAR OUTLINE
This guide is suitable for teams and organizations of all sizes. Whether you're an internal learning and development leader, people strategist, external coach, or consultant, these best practices, activities, and discussions can help individuals and teams thrive by enhancing self and team awareness throughout the Employee Life Cycle.
Best Practices
Embedding Cloverleaf best practices into stages of the Employee Life Cycle can help integrate the value of Cloverleaf beyond a “one and done” assessment.
By getting maximum mileage from leveraging Cloverleaf insights, individuals, teams, and organizations can reap the benefits of this important investment in…PEOPLE!
ATTRACTION + RECRUITMENT:
Share in job descriptions that your company provides automated coaching to all employees as a source of ongoing development.
PURPOSE: Employer Branding
ATTRACTION + RECRUITMENT:
In an interview, share the Cloverleaf dashboards with candidates to promote the way your organization invests in ongoing people development.
PURPOSE: Employer Branding
ONBOARDING:
From day one, embed daily interaction with the Daily Coaching feature of the ME dashboard as a best practice. Invite employees to start each day with “5 minutes of Development.”
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team-Awareness
ONBOARDING:
Within the first 30 days of employment, invite new hires to connect their calendar integration and schedule time to prepare for meetings prior to start times by reviewing their calendar digest email.
PURPOSE: Effective Communication, Team Awareness, People Process Integration
DEVELOPMENT:
As a best practice, encourage managers and teams to leverage their daily coaching on their ME Dashboard. Managers can leverage this by kicking off weekly meetings by asking people to bring the coaching tip that resonated with them the most about themselves or others.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team Awareness)
DEVELOPMENT:
Embed the following into your performance process: Invite managers to review an individual’s dashboard and coaching insights to craft feedback and powerful questions to enhance the value of formal performance conversations.
PURPOSE: Improve Manager/Employee Relationships, People Process Integration
RETENTION:
To fuel information recognition, use Cloverleaf Hot Seat to create instances of informal recognition. This can be 5-10 minutes as part of a monthly or Quarterly Meeting.
PURPOSE: Recognition, Self-Awareness, Team-Awareness
15 Minutes or Less
The following activities can be used as part of 1-1 or team meetings and even integrated as small icebreaker exercises at longer events.
While some preparation may be required, it's quick and easy! You can also manage some of these in real time by having each person present and engaging with their Cloverleaf dashboard.
ONBOARDING: Within the first 30 days of employment, invite new hires to use the comparison feature on the team dashboard to compare their work styles to people on their team from the perspective of multiple assessments.
Invite them to debrief their insights in a 1-1 conversation with their manager. For more on integrating Cloverleaf into the onboarding process, click here.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team Awareness, People Process Integration
ONBOARDING After 60 days of employment, create a “level setting meeting” where new hires can assess where they are at in their role. This is a great opportunity for the new employee to GET and GIVE feedback.
In preparation for this, ask the new hire to browse their coaching insights and bring to a 1-1 meeting three strengths they are currently using and three they COULD be using.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Role Development, People Process Integration
DEVELOPMENT: When preparing to encounter change, play “Change Coaching Tip Round Table.” Invite all team members to review their “change” category coaching insights prior to a team meeting.
Ask them to come to the meeting with a tip that reflects a strength that will support them through change and a tip that shows a gap where they might need support through the upcoming change. Facilitate a casual forum to explore people’s insights.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team-Awareness, Change Management
DEVELOPMENT: When seeking to improve team communication, play “Communication Coaching Tip Round Table.” Invite all team members to review their “communication” category coaching insights prior to a team meeting.
Ask them to come to the meeting with a tip that reflects a communication strength they are using right now in the team and share an example AND a tip that reflects an opportunity for growth they are working on. Facilitate a casual forum to explore people’s insights.
VARIATION: Use this as part of a DEBRIEF after a project or initiative and switch up the question: What communication strength do you think HELPED during this project and why, and which presented an obstacle and why?
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team Awareness, Process Improvement
DEVELOPMENT Before a project kickoff, ask each member of the team to review the team dashboard (you may want to ask them to focus on a specific assessment like DISC or Enneagram).
Ask each team member to come prepared with two insights: One strength we have on our team for this specific project and one gap. You can also do this scan of the team dashboard in real-time.
PURPOSE: Team Awareness, Project Management, Process Improvement
Example:
This project is related to developing employee appreciation strategies and we have 40% of our team in the heart triad in Enneagram. We can lean into their natural awareness of the needs of others to help design solutions.
We have no high “D” on DISC, so we need to make sure we have best practices in place to keep us action-oriented
DEVELOPMENT: When mitigating conflict between two people, assign them to use the comparison feature and come to a conflict resolution meeting with at least one insight they learned about the other person. You can use this for conducting a 1-1 meeting or facilitating a mediation meeting.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Conflict Resolution
DEVELOPMENT: (This activity features Culture Pulse) As part of a 1-1 leadership coaching conversation or a meeting made up of people leaders, ask each person to identify themselves on the Management Philosophy spectrum. People who manage via Support will work alongside and inspire their team.
People who manage via Performance will set benchmarks and measurable performance goals and let the person get to it. Who on their team does this style work for, and why? Who on their team might need a different approach and why? What is a tangible next step, given this insight?
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Leadership Development
RETENTION: As part of preparing for a career development conversation, invite individuals to review their coaching insights and ask them to identify at least two skills or strengths that they are currently not using.
Invite them to come to the meeting with suggestions on how they can leverage these skills in their existing role. You can invite them to review their Development tips to identify areas that create opportunities for growth.
PURPOSE: Career Development, Leadership Development, Role Development, Self-Awareness
RETENTION: For those that are expressing desire or potential to move up in leadership roles, ask the individual to review all of the Leadership Coaching insights on their ME dashboard. Ask them to come to a 1-1 meeting with three strengths and three opportunities for growth that would support them moving forward to take on or be elevated to the next leadership role.
PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Leadership Development, Career Development
VARIATION: As part of a leadership development program, consider a team approach to this activity and use it as a breakout group exercise; ask tables to share some of their discussion in a larger group feedback session.
RETENTION: To increase engagement and growth, invite leaders to assign team members to set stretch goals each quarter to increase engagement and motivation. To prepare for this, invite individuals to review their Development Coaching Tips on their ME dashboard to design a stretch goal.
This goal should help enhance their existing role. Invite team members to bring and share their stretch goals to a team meeting. (PURPOSE: Career Development, Leadership Development, Self-Awareness, Team Awareness, Role Development)
When You Have More Time
These activities can be used as part of team offsites, all-hands type meetings, team building meetings, and other dedicated training times. Remember, you do not need to be an expert in every assessment to lead these!
ASSESSMENT SPECIFIC BREAKOUT SESSIONS
If you have an elongated period to work with a team, consider leveraging team data to create mixed breakout groups based on certain assessment results. You can use these groups for brainstorming ideas, solving problems, or discussing topics.
SMALL GROUP ENNEAGRAM Breakouts (PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team Awareness, Team Development, Process Improvement)
Before the session, identify CURRENT challenges the team faces that they would like to create a NEW best practice around and design-related discussion questions. You can crowd-source these prior to using this exercise.
Before conducting the breakouts, designate small "mixed" groups of approximately four individuals. As much as possible, try to evenly distribute the triads into groups so there is representation from Head, Heart, and Gut.
Each small group will then go to work brainstorming solutions to the challenge in the form of a best practice. Below are several examples. TASK: Brainstorm ONE best practice to help advance each challenge toward a solution, and be prepared to share. (You can customize this section and pick any three areas and questions for each group to focus on - these are SAMPLES). Give each group 20 minutes to discuss.
Facilitate a larger group discussion about the viability of each practice. Where a practice resonates, support the team in creating a tangible short-term goal that can help establish the best practice amongst the team. Create accountability around that goal. This could be in the form of appointing someone on the team to report back at a future meeting or checking in with the team about progress later.
Group 1: Accountability: How do we hold each other accountable to our clients? How do we meet client-driven deliverables with the same tenacity as our internal metrics/accountabilities?
Group 2: Communication: How do we understand the needs of the market and clients? Do we make space to ensure multiple voices and perspectives are heard and considered to ensure client satisfaction?
Group 3: Conflict: How do we effectively handle difficult conversations and disagreements?
NOTE: IF YOU HAVE MORE GROUPS, it's ok to assign a topic to more than one group
NOTE: If using DISC, try to put a high D, I, S, and C in each group
DISC Round Table (PURPOSE: Self-Awareness, Team-Awareness, Work Style Appreciation)
Present a BRIEF high-level overview of the DISC types. The activity is more effective than just a review of a report; it will help you display the differences in how each of the types approach work) For more support, click here.
Ask people to go into four corners of the room based on their HIGHEST DISC Score and direct each group to the appropriate place in the room.
If you have a lot of people, you can make multiple groups of Is, Cs, etc.
Ask them to discuss the top three things you would do in the following situations:
Your team is behind on a project
You have two people who seem to always butt heads on your team
Ask them to discuss for about 5-7 minutes.
When they are done, facilitate a large group discussion asking each group to report back what they discussed.
As you hear the different perspectives, ask the group what they notice between what the D would do vs. the I vs. the S, C, and so on.
Close with a reflection on the different yet valid ways to attack a problem and ask the group their top takeaway from this session.
INTERACTIVE TEAM SESSION (PURPOSE: Team-Awareness, Collaboration, Communication Improvement)
If you have a person in your organization or an external service provider, prepare and conduct a team session after reviewing their team dashboard.
Ask people to complete required assessments at least one week prior to your meeting or session.
Consider selecting at least three assessments to generate enough data for you to analyze.
Once everyone is complete with their assessments, review the team dashboard. For background on each assessment, click on the gray question mark next to the assessment name on the ME or TEAM dashboard.
Review content in the Cloverleaf application to also help you understand the dynamics of each team.
Note some current strengths you can see the team possesses and some possible areas for growth.
At the actual team session (this can be 60 minutes or more, depending on the group size), discuss your findings and consider the following questions and/or tailor your own based on the specific team situation:
How does this strength or opportunity for growth…
Support our team productivity?
Support our team communication?
Create an obstacle for us in getting results?
Create an obstacle for us in strategic planning?
Given their team insights, coach the team on some tangible next steps they can take.
Conclude with a round (or 2 or 3!) of Cloverleaf Hot Seat.