Back in 2003, we started a new process with executive teams who had just been through debriefs on their behavioral assessments focusing on both their  leadership, interpersonal and personal effectiveness behaviors and how effective they are in initiating, motivating, implementing and maintaining in each area.  We found that even after positive even emotional experiences improving their self-awareness and better understanding their causal factors underlying their behavior,  a few weeks later,  many reverted back to previous behaviors  with little benefit.   We hypothesized that if they had to share their perceptions of others and then share their actual behavioral tendencies (assessment scores), they would internalize it more.

The first test was on a small company with 35 employees. We began focused on the executive team, then 3 weeks later, the operations team and then 5 weeks later, the sales and marketing team. We then did the process with a larger 220 person company- their executive team.  Then, we completed the process with  a larger 900 employee company's executive team (all 17 of them). The results in each case far exceeded our expectations.  In each case, the teams wanted to process the results so we added team data analytics and a facilitated process to develop a team SWOT and then an action program as a result.  As time went on, it was clear, not only did it greatly improve long term self-awareness in team members, it also, more than anything I've seen in the marketplace, improved team member awareness while providing motivation and energy to collaborate and tackle problems and opportunities that were just sitting there waiting … Over the years, we've added to and fine-tuned the process.

This month, as the last installment on our 4 part team series, we leave you with an overview of the process with a focus on the WHY.  Please let us know if you have any comments to share!