Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Hillarie Zimmermann -
Number of replies: 7

According to a 2013 Forbes article, "By knowing your workplace strengths, the strengths of others, and the big picture of how these strengths fit together, people can much more easily work in their sweet spot and not be dragged into areas where they can’t add a lot of value."

Imagine that you have started at a new job and you have been asked to work as part of a team to complete a project.  Your manager has asked your team to go through a strength's finding exercise before starting to work on your project to ensure that each of you are bringing your strongest skills to the project. 

What process might you go through to find out each other's strengths?

What are your strengths as it relates to the project (for the purposes of this discussion we are going to use the COMM100 learning outcomes as "the project").

Your task:

  1.  In your assigned group, discuss the process you will use to find out each other's strengths.  Brainstorm your ideas (you might want to set up a shared Google document for your brainstorm) and then share your process in the discussion forum.
  2. Individually, identify your strengths as they relate to the course outcomes and post these strengths on the discussion forum.  As we move through this course, we will know who has strengths in certain areas and we will be able to call on each other for this expertise!
Groups:

Group 1 - Alice, Andrew, Beth, Colleen, Hillarie
Group 2 - Emma, Faith, Gina, Jeff, Sylvia
Group 3 - Joerdis, Junko, Karen, Khairunnisa, Timothy
Group 4 - Leonne, Melissa, Sanjay, Susan
In reply to Hillarie Zimmermann

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Alice Macpherson -
I relate to this one and the suggested process.

Will we define 'workplace strengths'? Is there a reference to materials taught or experience? Can I wing it? <*smile>
AliceMac

In reply to Alice Macpherson

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Hillarie Zimmermann -

Hi Alice,  I was thinking that student would "wing it" as a way to access prior knowledge and then we might cover some specific processes and frameworks after the activity.  I guess it could be done either way.  I could also provide some resources to help guide students in this activity.  Thanks for this question!

In reply to Hillarie Zimmermann

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Beth Cougler Blom -

Hillarie I like where you're going with the team process activity to talk about strengths.

I wonder if the second part of the task might lead to more "individual posts of reply" rather than "discussion". Would you like to ignite discussion in Part 2 as well? Others might have some ideas to assist in reframing this, if that's where you're heading.

In reply to Beth Cougler Blom

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Hillarie Zimmermann -

I agree that it would be more useful to do something specific in the second part.  That could be a discussion or I could, as the instructor, take everyone's stated strengths and develop a bit of an inventory of "experts" in the class that could be called on throughout the year to share their expertise. 

In reply to Hillarie Zimmermann

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Faith Whiting -

Great activity Hillarie!

As a student, I'm wondering about this: "What process might you go through to find out each other's strengths?"

Should I be doing a bit of research around various ways this can be done? Will there be examples of how to do this in class? Are there resources I can refer to?

As someone with a bit of a background in career exploration and career counseling, I feel like finding strengths within a team might potentially be a tough thing to figure out how to do without guidance of some sort (especially given that the person in the scenario is new to the job and likely doesn't have a relationship with their colleagues yet). As a student, I can do some searching and find a way to do this, I feel like I just might need to be guided to do so..

Perhaps,

Use this week's readings and your own research to help you determine a process your team could use to find each other's strengths.

What do you think?

In reply to Faith Whiting

Re: Finding your strengths in a team - Business Communications

by Hillarie Zimmermann -

Thanks, Faith, for your points and suggestions.  They are very helpful.  I do think that students might need a bit of help to guide their thinking and discussions.