Team Discovery Assessment

Every organisation comprises a team or group of teams that serve a specific purpose or objective. Teams are
mini-organisations with their own culture, work style, objectives, leadership and composition.

The importance of leadership, team cohesion, communication, and culture are well known. However, most organisations either are not aware or lack any scientifically validated methods of using behavioural data to improve team performance
and align teams with business strategy. 

In fact, according to a study conducted by the Predictive Index, as much as 88% of teams are not aligned with their business strategy. 

Fortunately, the Team Discover assessment allows businesses to identify the work styles of every team and the teams’ relationship with its intended purpose. 

What is the team Discovery Assessment

The team Discovery Assessment allows businesses to identify the nature of the team’s unique work style and its alignment with its business objectives.  The team Discovery Assessment utilises behavioural data generated once the team members have completed the PI Behavioural Assessment. To create the PI Team Discovery Assessment, the predictive Index has conducted a scientific study with the help of 127,000 Behavioural Assessments across 22,000 teams. 

The team Discovery Assessment is split into two parts: Discovering your Team Type (Part 1) and Design for Strategic Action (Part 2).

Part 1 allows teams to discover individual work styles, the team’s collective strengths and blind spots, and how to communicate better than ever before with the help of scientifically-backed advice. The team Discovery Assessment will use the quantitative measurements of each individual’s behavioural drives to calculate two factors combinations (Proactivity and Formality). The X-axis represents Proactivity, while the Y-axis represent Formality. 

Based on the factor combinations, each team member will be plotted into one of four quadrants: 

Based on the aggregate positions on the quadrant, the Team Discovery Assessment will identify one of 9 team types. The team types were developed based on the large scale study of 127,000 behavioural assessments across 22,000 teams. As a result, the Team Discovery assessment users can get insights on the team’s work styles, behavioural strengths, potential blind spots, and scientifically backed recommendations to ensure that the specific team reaches its full potential.

The second part of the Assessment is known as Design for Strategic action. In this section, users can identify the team’s objectives, unlocking unique insights on the team type with the identified objectives and custom action plans to achieve those objectives successfully. Users will be aware of the specific strengths and potential blind spots they can expect from the team in the strategy context. Finally, the talent Optimisation software users will be able to identify areas where they can improve the team’s work styles and develop a culture aligned to the team’s goals. 

Benefits of Leveraging the Team Discovery Assessment

There are six main benefits of leveraging the Team Discovery Assessment:

1. People/HR Strategy and Business/Commercial Strategy Alignment
2. Team Cohesion
3. Increased Team Performance
4. Identifying potential blind spots before they impact performance 
5. Self Awareness and Empathy 
6. Building Cultures that make sense

 People/HR Strategy and Business/Commercial Strategy Alignment

Successful organisations normally have an overall business strategy, marketing strategy and financial plan. Some organisations may even have a well-defined Operations Plan or even an Expansion Plan. However, only the crème de la crème has a People Strategy. Even fewer companies have a people strategy that is intentionally selected to reach to match the company’s business objectives. 

This gap is because most of the tools and processes used by business organisations for Talent Strategy are nowhere as scientific or sophisticated as those used by Marketing, Sales, Finance or even Operations. The Predictive Index has created both the Talent Optimisation Platform and the Talent Optimisation Methodology. In addition, the PI Team Discovery Assessment allows HR, People Operations or Senior Leadership to use behavioural science to ensure that teams or built to achieve their desired purpose. 

The PI team Discovery Assessment will highlight the team’s strengths through the lens of business strategy, expose all the team’s potential blind spots and identify how each influences the team’s objectives.  After the Team Discovery Session, business leaders will also identify who is currently the best fit for the team, what culture needs to be cultivated, how to articulate that culture and even what type of individuals are missing from the team. 

We encourage readers not to believe in our arguments blindly simply but to give us a chance to demonstrate the power of the Team Discovery Assessment. Book a free strategy session with us to see how you can align people strategy with business strategy.

Team Cohesion

When a group works together to achieve a common purpose, they are said to be “cohesive.” Not only are group goals attained when a team is cohesive, but everyone feels like they have contributed to the group’s overall success.

The Team Discovery Assessment is a great tool to utilise behavioural data to maximise team cohesion. The Team Summary articulates the business strategy concisely with the team’s specific behavioural strengths and potential blind spots. We recommend that team members be made aware of the Team Discovery Assessment results. This way, they know their strategy and what characteristics influence the success or potential failure to attain those objectives. 

Secondly, the summary highlights what each member brings to the table and where they are positioned on the Team Discovery Quadrant. Thirdly, the Assessment articulates the team’s nature and the values associated with that team. The team type and its value give the team an identity that they can take pride in and reflect the type of culture that the team has. 

Finally, the team discovery assessment gives actionable, scientifically driven takeaways that enable the team to reach its objectives and foster an environment that strengthens its relationships. Ultimately, collective goal attainment and a good relationship between team members lead to Team Cohesion.  Ask us about the PI Inspire and PI Diagnose solutions to further strengthen team cohesion.  

Increased Team Performance

Teams that are cohesive and have been strategically designed to reach a relevant business objective will be far more successful than those that lack the resources to do so. The takeaways generated by the Team Discovery Assessment are based on the intended business objectives. So naturally, implementing those suggestions will positively impact the ability of the team to maximise performance.

The takeaways are also a huge ingredient in the team’s future increase in performance because they are built around the team member’s core behavioural drives. Suggestions based on our behavioural drives result in actions far more natural and more relevant to the individual involved in executing those suggestions. Therefore, they are far more likely to be motivated to utilise their strengths and take care of any blind spots.

Identifying potential blind spots before they impact performance 

Many HR, Leadership and Business Strategy enthusiasts may be familiar with the four phases of a team’s cohesiveness by Bruce Tuckman. These are Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. It would be naïve to suggest that Storming can somehow be avoided completely. However, Storming does not have to be as painful, and teams should never have to enter any of these stages blindly. 

The PI team Discovery assessment identifies potential blind spots for both the team type generically and the team type in the context of Business Strategy. Team leaders, people managers and individual contributors will be far more prepared for any challenges when their organisations utilise the Team Discovery Assessment. Whether the organisation is a large multinational organisation or an SME utilises Agile methodologies or waterfall methods, it is far more beneficial to be aware of potential pitfalls than to be unaware. 

Self Awareness and Empathy 

As Certified partners of the predictive Index, we always suggest that a summary of the Talent Discovery Assessment is given to those in the team. We also encourage companies to help employees become aware of their behavioural drives and the behavioural drives of their colleagues. 

A commonly spread principle preached by parents, teachers or other influential people in our lives is to treat people how we would like to be treated ourselves. However, this is a non-optimal approach to interacting with colleagues or direct reports because not all people behave the same way or have the same desires. The predictive Index enables co-workers to treat others how they want to be treated and be self-aware of their own behavioural needs and how our behaviours impact others. 

Building Cultures that make sense

A game-changing feature of the Team Discovery Assessment is to identify the culture needed to attain the team’s business objectives and what actions need to be taken to build that culture. 

Some companies attempt to position themselves with certain values or adjectives that may be great for employer branding but don’t connect with the specific business objectives being pursued. The team discovery assessment will combine information based on the team type and the business objective to establish what the team’s cultural characteristics are. 

This way, employers are in a fantastic position to set expectations for potential new employees, establish what practices need to be encouraged or discouraged to maintain that culture, and what cultural fit looks like with the help of behavioural science. 

Team Discovery Workshops

We offer three workshops to current and prospective clients of the Predictive Index Design Module:

1. One-to-One Talent Strategy Session
2. High-Performance Series: Discovering your team type
3. High Performance Series: Designing for Strategic Action

1:1 Talent Strategy Session (Free) 

As Certified Partners of the Predictive Index, we can provide a 1:1 Talent Strategy Session for senior leaders looking to understand better the connection between themselves, their teams, and their business objectives. Our 1 to 1 strategy sessions are conducted by one of Progressica’s Certified Talent Optimisation Consultants. The session is free of charge and typically lasts 90 minutes. To get started, all you have to do is select the ‘book Talent Strategy Session’ button, fill in your details, and a member of our team will get in touch with you!

The High-Performance Series Workshops

For those organisations who would like assistance in getting the most out of the Team Discovery Assessment, we offer two Predictive Index Accredited workshops as part of the High-Performance Series.

High-Performance Series: Discovering your team type

The Discovering your team session involves a member of our team helping you create cohesive teams that value collaboration and conflict resolution. The High-Performance Series: Discovering your team type workshop is a two-hour session.  For pricing information and whether or not the workshop will address the challenges, you are trying to tackle, click on the ‘contact us’ button and fill in the form. A member of our team will reach out to schedule a call.

High Performance Series: Designing for Strategic Action

The Designing for Strategic Action session involves a Progressica team member guiding you on leveraging strengths and recognising your team’s risks to execute on business strategy. 

The High-Performance Series: Designing for Strategic Action workshop has two hours. For pricing information and whether or not the workshop will address the challenges, you are trying to tackle, click on the ‘contact us’ button and fill in the form. A member of our team will reach out to schedule a call.

Please note that the High-Performance Series: Discovering your team type workshop is a pre-requisite for this workshop. 

Team Discovery Assessment Demo 

The best way to get started on your journey to optimise your Talent Strategy, create cohesive teams, and align those teams to business strategy is to book a free 1:1 session with us.  However, if you prefer to have a software demo, we can organise that. All you have to do is press’ book demo’, fill in the form, and a team member will get in touch with you!

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