The Four Working Styles of Business Chemistry

Business Chemistry categorizes people by thinking styles and behaviour.

A tool for developing emotional Intelligence within teams, so that co-workers can recognize one another’s preferences and working styles and understand and adapt their own behaviours accordingly. It can also enable managers to foster better relationships and reduce conflict in their teams. Business Chemistry concentrates on observing the way that people work, rather than on their personalities or thinking types.

So, why Business Chemistry?

Business Chemistry draws upon the latest analytics technologies to reveal four scientifically based patterns of behaviour within business. Developed by scientists, the system is designed to provide insights about individuals and teams based on observable traits and preferences. By understanding these differences, you may improve the effectiveness of your interactions with other types of individuals, as well as combinations of types in team environments.

You can use the link provided to answer the 20 questions to identify the category you fall within.

https://bc20questions.deloitte.com/#/

Pioneer

Pioneers are open to possibilities, and they revel in taking risks. They tend to dislike thinking through the finer details or doing things “by the book.”

Pioneers offer imagination, “big-picture” thinking, creativity, spontaneity, and the ability to think on their feet. The downside is that they may not spare the feelings of those who they believe are holding them back.

Driver

Drivers relish challenge, taking ideas forward, and making decisions. They think logically and quantitatively and demand clear data to inspect before deciding on a course of action, though they try to make decisions quickly.

Drivers don’t like to be held back by rules and regulations, and they may lack empathy.

There are two “sub-types” of Drivers: “Commanders,” who specialize in getting things done; and “Scientists,” who value exploration, experiment and deduction.

Guardian

Guardians seek stability and thrive on order and structure. They tend to be methodical, meticulous, and keenly aware of the practical requirements of any job.

Guardians may be reserved, but they also tend to be loyal. They are often good at handling data, quality assurance, and planning, although they may not always be the strongest communicators.

Integrator

Integrators value their connections. They enjoy team building and forging strong relationships, and they bring empathy and mediation skills to their groups. Integrators are less likely “driven by numbers,” and they prefer leaving decision-making to others.

Integrators also fall into two sub-types: “Teamers” and “Dreamers.” Teamers tend to be outgoing, and proactive about bringing others together. Dreamers are more inward-looking. They dislike confrontation, but they are good at analysing the feelings of those around them.

 Interacting with other styles

1. Assess Your Team Members’ Working Styles

Observe your colleagues’ behaviour at work and ask yourself the sequence of 20 questions as provided in the link above.

2. Assess your own working style.

Apply the same 20 questions to yourself – Answer them honestly. This will enable you to analyse the way you interact with other styles.

3.Explore how your team works.

This step is to develop your understanding of your team dynamics, and of how they could improve. To do this, keep your hunches about your team members in mind, and ask yourself the following questions:

What is your current team environment like? Are your roles clearly defined, for example, and do you work together effectively? Are there any “flashpoints” where conflict arises? A SWOT Analysis may help here.

What is your team’s role, and what are its goals? For example, are you involved in change management, or product development, or planning? Which working styles are best suited to take the lead?

Who are your main stakeholders, and how do they view your team? Are your stakeholders freewheeling creatives or data-driven finishers? Which working styles would each one prefers to deal with?

What is the current composition of your team? Do you have more people with one style than another, or is there an even split? Are all the different working styles effectively deployed?

As you work through these questions, you’ll gain insights into how to utilize your team’s blend of styles more effectively.

4. Learn to “Flex” your own working style.

Business Chemistry emphasizes the importance of “flexing” your working style when you engage with people who have a different style. Flexing your style doesn’t mean changing it completely – that would be tricky, as it’s part of your personality. But you can adapt your working style to fit the situation.

For example, it’s important for Drivers to understand the value of patience when they work with Guardians. Guardians like to set the context for discussions, so they don’t always “get to the punchline” as quickly as Drivers like. But both styles tend to be interested in data, so focusing on that can be a good starting point for a discussion.

5. Apply Business Chemistry to your team.

The final step is to discuss what you’ve learned. Encourage your co-workers to consider how they could flex their own styles to improve teamwork.

You could begin by highlighting specific situations in which flexing would be valuable. For example, if team meetings are dominated by one or two Pioneers or Drivers, your team could be at risk of groupthink. Challenge these individuals to consider their co-workers’ points of view and urge the team’s Integrators and Guardians to stand their ground.

Chances are, some people will need to flex more than others. For example, a team with a strong Pioneer component may need to pay greater attention to their Guardian colleagues when it comes to planning and scheduling.

You could also consider redefining certain roles based on your team members’ individual strengths. You could make Drivers responsible for hitting milestones, for example, or charge Integrators with running better meetings.

Enabling each person to concentrate on what they are best can increase productivity, job satisfaction and cohesion in your team.

Using S.W.O.T Analysis

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and so a SWOT Analysis is a technique for assessing these four aspects of your business or Team.

You can use SWOT Analysis to make the most of what you have got, to your teams best advantage. And you can reduce the chances of failure, by understanding what you’re lacking, and eliminating hazards that would otherwise catch you unaware.

Using a SWOT analysis to help your team improve on weak areas by exploring your strengths, opportunities, and threats.

Using the quadrants below lets breakdown how this process will work, and what questions should you ask to get the most out of this exercise.

By completing the above template when considering each member in your team you are more likely to gain understanding into their strengths and weakness and should be able to then plan more effectively for transitioning planning.

When weighing out the STRENGTHS – consider the following:

• Strengths are things that your team does particularly well, or in a way that distinguishes you from your competitors. Think about the advantages your organization has over other organizations. These might be the motivation of your staff, access to certain materials, or a strong set of manufacturing processes. Or Breaking China for the client.
• What can your team do better than anyone else? What values drive this team and is it aligned to our business core values?
• Then turn your perspective around and ask yourself what your competitors might see as your strengths. Does it give you the cutting-edge advantage?

Now it’s time to consider your teams WEAKNESSES. Be honest! A SWOT Analysis will only be valuable if you gather all the information you need. So, it’s best to be realistic now, and face any unpleasant truths as soon as possible.

• Weaknesses, like strengths, are inherent features of your organization, so focus on your people, resources, systems, and procedures. Think about what you could improve, and the sorts of practices you should avoid.
• Once again, imagine (or find out) how other people in your company see you. Do they notice weaknesses that you tend to be blind to? Take time to examine how and why other departments may be performing better than you. What are you lacking?
• Once those weaknesses have been collectively identified then you would need to structure a plan of action which you can monitor month of month to see if you are gaining an advantage in weak areas identified.

OPPORTUNITIES are openings or chances for something positive to happen, but you’ll need to claim them for yourself!

• They usually arise from situations outside your organization and require an eye to what might happen in the future. They might arise as developments in the market you serve, or in the technology you use. Being able to spot and exploit opportunities can make a huge difference to your organization’s ability to compete and take the lead in your market.
• By maintaining open communication between yourself and clients, you might be in a better position to offer a different service offering that the client desperately needs.

• Think about good opportunities you can spot immediately. These don’t need to be game changers: even small advantages can increase your organization’s competitiveness. What interesting market trends are you aware of, large or small, which could have an impact?
• You should also watch out for changes in government policy related to your field. And changes in social patterns, population profiles, and lifestyles can all throw up interesting opportunities.

THREATS include anything that can negatively affect your business from the outside, such as COVID-19 which has drastically changed the way of life, shifts in the client’s requirements, or a shortage of recruits. It’s vital to anticipate threats and to take action against them before you become a victim of them and your growth stalls or your service value drops.

• Think about the obstacles you face in getting your payrolls out in time. You may notice that quality standards or specifications within you teams are changing, and that you’ll need to change the way in which you work if you’re to stay in the lead. Evolving technology is an ever-present threat, as well as an opportunity! Example – recent changes to Payspace new UI – Bulk uploading and other functionalities that increased productivity or frustrated the processes in place?
• Always consider what your competitors are doing, and whether you should be changing your organization’s emphasis to meet the challenge. But remember that what they’re doing might not be the right thing for you to do and avoid copying them without knowing how it will improve your position.

Lastly:

How to improve team dynamics

What are team dynamics?

Imagine that you’ve brought together the brightest people in your department to solve a problem.  You have high hopes for the group, so you feel frustrated when people can’t come to a decision.

Several factors are holding the group back. To start with, one person is very critical of colleagues’ ideas. You suspect that her fault-finding is discouraging others from speaking up. Another has hardly contributed to the sessions at all: when asked for his opinion, he simply agrees with a more dominant colleague. Finally, one group member makes humorous comments at unhelpful times, which upsets the momentum of the discussion.

These are classic examples of poor group dynamics, and they can undermine the success of a project, as well as people’s morale and engagement.

Kurt Lewin, a social psychologist and change management expert, is credited with coining the term “group dynamics” in the early 1940s. He noted that people often take on distinct roles and behaviours when they work in a group. “Group dynamics” describes the effects of these roles and behaviour’s on other group members, and on the group as a whole.

More recent researchers have built on Lewin’s ideas, and this work has become central to good management practice.

A group with a positive dynamic is easy to spot. Team members trust one another, they work towards a collective decision, and they hold one another accountable for making things happen. As well as this, researchers have found that when a team has a positive dynamic, its members are nearly twice as creative as an average group.

In a group with poor group dynamics, people’s behaviour disrupts work. As a result, the group may not come to any decision, or it may make the wrong choice, because group members could not explore options effectively.

What causes poor group dynamics?

Group leaders and team members can contribute to a negative group dynamic. Let’s look at some of the most common problems that can occur:

Weak leadership: when a team lacks a strong leader, a more dominant member of the group can often take charge. This can lead to a lack of direction, infighting, or a focus on the wrong priorities.

Excessive deference to authority: this can happen when people want to be seen to agree with a leader, and therefore hold back from expressing their own opinions.

Blocking: this happens when team members behave in a way that disrupts the flow of information in the group. People can adopt blocking roles such as:

• The aggressor: this person often disagrees with others or is inappropriately outspoken.
• The negator: this group member is often critical of others’ ideas.
• The withdrawer: this person doesn’t participate in the discussion.
• The recognition seeker: this group member is boastful or dominates the session.
• The joker: this person introduces humour at inappropriate times.
• Groupthink: this happens when people place a desire for consensus above their desire to reach the right decision. This prevents people from fully exploring alternative solutions.
• Free riding: here, some group members take it easy, and leave their colleagues to do all the work. Free riders may work hard on their own but limit their contributions in group situations; this is known as “social loafing.”
• Evaluation apprehension: team members’ perceptions can also create a negative group dynamic. Evaluation apprehension happens when people feel that they are being judged excessively harshly by other group members, and they hold back their opinions as a result.

Take a moment to think about this, can you identify any of these issues within your current team?  As a team member you would expect to take this to your manager to resolve right?  But now YOU’RE the manager, so before moving onto the next chapter, joint done some points that you think would improve the team dynamics.

Strategies for Improving Team Dynamics

Know Your Team

As a leader, you need to guide the development of your group. So, start by learning about the phases that a group goes through as it develops. When you understand these, you’ll be able to pre-empt problems that could arise, including issues with poor group dynamics.

Next, use the SWOT theory to identify positive and negative group roles, and to understand how they could affect the group as a whole. This will also help you plan how to deal with potential problems.

Tackle Problems Quickly

If you notice that one member of your team has adopted a behaviour that’s affecting the group unhelpfully, act quickly to challenge it.

Provide feedback that shows your team member the impact of her actions, and encourage her to reflect on how she can change her behaviour.

Define Roles and Responsibilities

Teams that lack focus or direction can quickly develop poor dynamics, as people struggle to understand their role in the group.

Create a team charter – defining the group’s mission and objective, and everyone’s responsibilities – as soon as you form the team. Make sure that everyone has a copy of the document and remind people of it regularly.

Break Down Barriers

Use team-building exercises to help everyone get to know one another, particularly when new members join the group. These exercises ease new colleagues into the group gently, and also help to combat the “black sheep effect,” which happens when group members turn against people, they consider different.

Lead by example: share what you hope the group will achieve, along with “safe” personal information about yourself, such as valuable lessons that you’ve learned. Remember a Manager or Leader you don’t want your personal business out there for your team to question your judgment.

Focus on Communication.

Open communication is central to good team dynamics, so make sure that everyone is communicating clearly.

Include all of the forms of communication that your group uses – emails, meetings, and shared documents, for example – to avoid any ambiguity.

If the status of a project changes, or if you have an announcement to make, let people know as soon as possible (Morning workflows). That way, you can ensure that everyone has the same information.

Opinionated team members can overwhelm their quieter colleagues in meetings. Where this happens, use techniques such as Crawford’s Slip Writing Method (The method simply involves collating input from people on slips of paper nowadays often on sticky notes) , and make sure that you develop strong facilitation.

Pay Attention

Watch out for the warning signs of poor group dynamics.

Pay particular attention to frequent unanimous decisions, as these can be a sign of groupthink, bullying, or free riding. If there are frequent unanimous decisions in your group, consider exploring new ways to encourage people to discuss their views, or to share them anonymously.

Finally, keep in mind that observing how your group interacts is an important part of your role as a leader. Many of the behaviours that lead to poor dynamics can be overcome if you catch them early.

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