Articles Tagged with: Problem Solving
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October 1, 2019

Let teams be the change makers

One indisputable fact for almost all of us is that change is hard.  It can be even harder for teams composed of people with many different problem-solving styles and diverse backgrounds. So how do you drive change with teams? 

One sure way is to find really important problems that are really vital to the organization.  Before you even contemplate making change a priority, here are three vital steps that need to be checked off before getting started:

  1. Get your best people on it, then engage your teams right from the start with a pre-consult: What are we really trying to do? How does it align with organizational goals? Who are the real owners of the problem – How do we make
    sure they are accountable? 
  2. Equip the team with a collaborative process for solving complex problems and teach them the skills, including the training that is needed.  Make sure the “super owners” are there and responsible for the outcome.  You can’t delegate important stuff, you can let the team get going but if you are the super owner then they have to report to you – how are we doing? 
  3. And finally, you can’t purchase innovative collaboration at the top by hiring a high priced external consulting firm.  A good leader is going to figure out how to engage people and teams working and aligned with the goals and mission at the top, not hoping magic will happen by some formula.

Large change projects are hard because what usually happens is there are people at high levels in the company who are willing to spend money to bring in outside “experts”.   Too often nothing happens because change has to come from within, down below – where the “real experts” do the heavy lifting. To be a real leader you can’t just hire a firm like McKinsey to come in and tell you what to do – that approach doesn’t work because people naturally resist top down changes.

If you really want to succeed, develop your people down below to drive change. Equip them with a strong business case for why it’s so important; provide a robust infrastructure to support those “super owners” responsible for change; and train people in the skills, tools and a creative process (we call this the “secret sauce”) to ensure everyone has ownership and knows they are an integral part of the team’s success. 

Last but not least, make sure you can measure the changes, before and after.  Use realistic, agreed upon metrics to give people achievable goals. 

April 11, 2019

How does the Basadur Profile correlate or not correlate to Myers-Briggs?

It all comes down to “states” vs. “traits”.

We often get this question about how the Basadur Profile correlates to Myers-Briggs (MBTI). Both the MBTI and the Profile enable people to understand themselves better, but only the Profile is directly linked to a innovation process that ensures the focus is on getting problems and opportunities defined, solved, and solutions implemented. 

In addition, the Profile synchronizes everyone’s thinking to specific problem solving stages. By no means do we sell short the benefits of personality measurements to companies who use assessments like the MBTI and DISC – these are widely used, well-respected instruments that serve their designated purpose.

In fact, our research shows us there are different process style preferences for people but everyone is a blend. 

We call these “states”, not “traits”.    Very importantly, states are very different from traits.  The Profile is not a personality measure.  MBTI and DISC are both different personality tests. 

Your Basadur Profile is your cognitive thinking style that blends right on differences between how we as individuals think. Personality has nothing to do with it – it’s how we think.  Depending on your context, a state is changeable.   A state can change within a day if you need it.  People can flow through the process, changing as they go.  As an individual, you might change your preferred state over a period of time, based on different experiences or different jobs you have.

Most importantly, the Basadur Profile is a measure of how people think and listen to other people, being in tune with them and blending one’s own style with others when problem solving.  Linking the four Profile innovation styles to the four MBTI personality trait scales for example, we do know that there are combinations that do correlate.  Extroverts (E) and introverts (I) correlate quite well with Generators who are more extroverted, and Optimizers are more introverted.  People who are P’s (Perception) are generally going to be generators and conceptualizers; J’s (Judgment) are going to be optimizers and implementers.  The folks who are N’s  (Intuition) are likely to be conceptualizers while those who are  S’s (Sensing) are likely to be implementers.

The one personality trait that doesn’t correlate at all is TF. Thinking versus Feeling in making decisions.  In the Simplexity process, people make decisions all the way through.  We have not had any correlation between, “I do it by thinking” or “I do it by feeling”.   People can do it either way and still be very good at using the Simplexity process.

Depending on what you’re doing, your dominant Basadur orientation is less important than your ability to shift among quadrants to be effective.  We have research that shows teams composed of different styles most often are going to perform more innovatively.  The negative is they may not enjoy working together as much as being with similar styled people. Since we are talking about preferences, being skilled at all four quadrants is really important.  The good news is that people can be trained at any part of an organization to be highly skilled in all the quadrants while building empathy towards those who are not so skilled.

Last but not least, here are two tidbits of research – 1) we find that generators are in shorter supply in corporations and 2) different jobs and functions can be more suitable to different styles.

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