No matter what kind of business you run, if you want to have a profitable organization, you’re going to need to build and maintain a functioning team.
Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done.
Especially today, with everything going on in the world, and things being so divisive and politicized, it’s becoming more difficult than ever to build a high-performing team.
More and more, I’m hearing from business owners who spend most of their time babysitting their staff and playing the role of referee, rather than doing what they should be doing, which is growing their business.
But without a firm grasp of psychology and the ability to understand things like your needs, strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and those of your colleagues, any attempt to mitigate conflict in the workplace or build that solid team can end up dead in the water.
However, there’s a technique known as The Birkman Method, which can allow you to access these insights about yourself and your co-workers, and use that understanding to build a more cohesive, cooperative team.
If you’re dealing with conflict in the workplace and looking to learn more effective communication skills so you can build the team of your dreams, this method might be exactly what you need.
The Benefits of The Birkman Method
Not too long ago, I worked with a client – let’s call him Fred – that was just completely burned out.
Fred is a business owner, and he’s the kind of guy who demands order, structure, and a planned approach. But at the time, when it came to his team, everything seemed to be going wrong.
Much of his staff was sick, people were taking leaves of absence left and right, when they did show up they weren’t getting along, and there was nothing predictable about his work environment anymore.
Things were devolving into a sort of chaos – far from the structure Fred so desperately needed.
With his stress levels going through the roof, he started to overthink everything, focus on minute details that really didn’t matter, and his productivity was suffering. Things weren’t getting done, and Fred started to feel guilty and ashamed, which just compounded everything.
So, I went through The Birkman Method with Fred and his team, which allowed us to get to the bottom of why these things were happening, understand why he felt the way he did, and give him the clarity he needed to overcome these issues and restore order to his organization.
This was made possible by allowing him to see his behaviours – and those of his staff – for what they were, and helping him to learn how to recognize and correct them.
Fred’s situation is just one example, but I’ve used this method to help countless business owners deal with all kinds of different issues.
At any rate, this method offers a long list of benefits, including:
- Recognizing important opportunities for employees, managers, and people in leadership positions that you might otherwise not have considered
- Building more effective communication skills
- Creating a more unified team of people who have a better grasp of conflict resolution and are more willing to work together and take responsibility for their behaviours
- Understanding why people aren’t happy in their current positions, and identifying opportunities to promote people or transition them into more suitable positions
- Being able to build a solid team of people who love what they do and excel in their respective roles
- Learning to look at things in terms of why they’re happening and resolving the issues at hand, instead of rushing to fire someone or discipline them
- Helping the members of your team better understand themselves and their coworkers by encouraging self-awareness and empathy
How The Birkman Method Creates a More Functional Team
If you don’t understand what makes you and your colleagues tick, it can be practically impossible to work through these problems and learn how to communicate with each other in a way that fosters a fruitful, functioning team.
So, in order to get down to the core of these issues, The Birkman Method uses a series of impartial assessments to identify the underlying needs, interests, motivations and behaviours that are causing these problems and consider the kinds of behavioural changes that will be necessary to lead your team in the right direction.
Now, let’s go over the five steps of the assessment process so you can have a better idea of how this works.
How The Birkman Method Works
Using a blend of regression and factor analysis, this method works to identify the interpersonal style of each member of your team.
It takes all those variables into consideration, which then allows everyone to reflect on how their actions, and those of their coworkers, could be having an effect on relationships within the workplace.
In order to do this, this technique looks at five major perspectives, including:
1) Normal Behaviours
This perspective looks at how every member of your team handles workplace relationships and the work each person has to do in their respective roles. This section of the assessment focuses on your strengths and looks at the way you act when you’re performing at your best.
2) Underlying Needs
By analyzing each individual’s expectations, and what they need to stand in their strengths, this part of the assessment looks at how every member of your team thinks social situations and workplace relationships should be governed when it comes to the issues or conflicts in question.
Typically, your coworkers won’t have intimate knowledge of each other’s needs and desires, so this can really help level the playing field and clear up a lot of confusion and misconceptions.
3) Stress Behaviours
At this stage of the assessment, we look at each individual’s ineffective style of handling workplace relationships and tasks, which is basically how they act when their underlying needs are not met. The goal here is to help people learn how to deal with these stress behaviours and get them under control.
These kinds of behaviours include everything from being passive-aggressive to being too sensitive to criticism, too inclined to focus on minute details, finding it hard to be decisive, feeling a sense of personal worthlessness, being overly critical, constantly complaining, or even becoming violent.
4) Interests
This perspective measures ten different kinds of interests, including numerical, scientific, social service, technical, outdoor, artistic, literary, musical, persuasive, and administrative. Examining every team member’s level of interest in these ten categories helps to determine what kinds of activities each person gravitates towards and enjoys.
This makes you more aware of what kinds of tasks people prefer, which can encourage them to find greater work-life balance by engaging in these interests outside of the workplace and revealing what they like to do when they are at work. This information can allow you to make more informed decisions, which can then help to increase the productivity and success of everyone on your team.
5) Organizational Focus
After considering all the information from the first four aspects, this last perspective helps to determine how each member of your team thinks about the solutions and problems in your workplace, and how they relate to your organizational goals.
By comparing all the traits discovered in the other perspectives to the various elements of your organization and the occupational categories of your business, this step offers invaluable insight into what type of person is going to thrive within each position. For instance, you might find someone working in a lower-level position is better suited for a leadership role or vice versa.
Are you struggling to resolve disputes between the members of your team? The Birkman Method can allow you to put these issues to rest permanently.
Contact me today for your free 15-minute discovery call, to help determine how this incredible method can make a huge difference in your workplace environment.