Love them or hate them – team-bonding activities will always be met with mixed responses. At their best they can be fun, engaging and effective at bringing your team together. At their worst, you get total disengagement and awkward silences.
The problem? Team-bonding ideas often don’t take into account the different personality types on your team. It’s important to find inclusive activities that don’t work against an Introvert’s hardwiring or that otherwise feel forced or tough.
All teams can face challenges, especially when you have diverse personality types within the same group. The good news? As a leader, there are tools available to help you identify and address the root causes behind these common team problems and thus increase the effectiveness of your team.
You get your energy by recuperating at home and thrive on plenty of alone time. You like socializing in small groups, not huge gatherings. Team-oriented offices make you feel drained.
What are you? An Introvert.
Most Introverts prefer a career that allows them to have autonomy and space from others, and that can make “extraverted” careers more challenging for them. But what exactly is an “extraverted” career? And is it ever possible for Introverts to succeed in one? Let's take a look.
You spend a huge amount of time and energy on your job. Finding one, learning one, keeping one, commuting to one.
So you shouldn’t settle for just any job, right?
At the very least, a job will teach you about yourself if you are paying attention. At its best, a job can boost you on your path to personal and professional growth, teaching you lessons that will last a lifetime – a stepping stone to your best life.
Happy employees are productive employees. As a manager, anything you can do to keep your employees motivated and happy is going to pay dividends for the health of your business. This is one of the reasons why you should be administering the DISC assessment to your team. DISC can provide some fascinating insights into what makes your people tick, including what motivates, frustrates, challenges and delights them as they go about their work and interact with co-workers.
It can be tempting to try to make sure your test results come out the way you want them. Maybe you have preconceived ideas about a certain DISC type and want to be that type, or you think your boss is looking for a certain type to put on an exciting new project that you’d love to be part of. So you may try to achieve the results you desire, even if they aren't strictly accurate.
Introverts are gaining more appreciation in recent years but they may still be misunderstood and undervalued, especially in the workplace. Yet, in their quiet way they’re probably making meaningful efforts which aid in their own success, that of the company, and even of their coworkers.
For many Introverts, networking is a dirty word. It evokes visions of organized networking events; introducing oneself to stranger after stranger; public speaking; and any number of unnatural, nightmarish tasks that would almost make visiting the dentist seem like a pleasure trip.
The average worker in the US spends 1801 hours at work per year. When you’re spending so much time in the company of your colleagues, it’s pretty important that you get along well.
But sometimes that’s easier said than done.
If you want to help your team build closer relationships and create a more collaborative, supportive work environment, then you need to know what makes every individual tick.
THE FINE PRINT:
Myers-Briggs® and MBTI® are registered trademarks of the MBTI Trust, Inc., which has no affiliation with this site. Truity offers a free personality test based on Myers and Briggs' types, but does not offer the official MBTI® assessment. For more information on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® assessment, please go here.
The Five Love Languages® is a registered trademark of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, which has no affiliation with this site. You can find more information about the five love languages here.
