{Note: Team transformation stories from Polaris Institute members are published anonymously to allow the members to share openly and honestly. This story is from “Kelvin M.”)
It sounds like a dream scenario to have a team come together that is made up of nothing but A players. But this brought challenges as we prepared for a highly critical strategic planning session. Talent and capacity were individually off the charts, but the team was struggling to effectively align and coordinate.
Some new perspectives?
I called Anna to see if a Polaris Institute session would be a good fit for the situation and we added a full day workshop to the beginning of the strategic planning retreat I needed to do with the team.
The team wanted to get to the right into the strategic planning work so as you might imagine, there were some crossed arms and resistance to spending time up front “working on ourselves.” But I have to say that the neuroscience foundation of the Polaris ProcessTM grabbed the attention of everyone right off the bat. It was a big awakening that this session was going to be different. People were now leaning in.
A team aligned
What Anna was able to do over the course of the day was turn a bunch of lone wolves into a pack. What was so glaring was when we recapped the outcomes and obstacles that Anna had elicited at the beginning of the session. Coincidentally, each and every one of the obstacles was a communication, trust, or decision-making challenge. The content of the day allowed us to unpack the insights that had been blocked by all being highly skilled in our areas of expertise.
The attitude of the team by the end of that day was completely different than when we began in the morning. The team was excited to tackle the work ahead of us together. The Polaris ProcessTM provided us with a language and toolkit to navigate differences in a permanent way.
That Polaris Institute workshop was the perfect lead in to our strategy sessions and it’s going to be a part of the plan for any leadership team I put together in the future.
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