Strengthscope: Maximising Team Effectiveness

Summary: Supporting teams to understand and utilise each other’s unique strengths, enabling effective collaboration and improved performance. 

The Challenge

Collaboration and collective problem-solving are essential parts of effective teamwork. This requires team members to build a strong shared understanding of the unique strengths and contributions of each individual and how those support the team in achieving their shared goal.

We have delivered successfully multiple Team Development Programmes for organisations in the public and private sectors. Some of our recent clients include Integrated Care Boards, Executive Boards at NHS Trusts, Locality Boards and Provider Collaborative Boards. Below, we outline the approach we have followed to promote team effectiveness and collaboration through the use of psychometric tools.

Our Approach

To support team members identify new and better ways of working together, we have designed and delivered a two-step programme, comprising of a psychometric evaluation and a face-to-face workshop.

We have used a psychometric tool called Strengthscope. This is the only strength-based assessment that has achieved a registered status with the British Psychological Society. The Strengthscope model uses a strength-based approach to development, grounded in positive psychology. It moves the focus from weaknesses and development gaps to the unique strengths that an individual possesses and how those can be utilised to achieve optimal performance.

The workshop has been delivered by 2 facilitators and has two main focus areas – self and the team. In the first part of the session, delegates explored their individual Strengthscope reports. The Strengthscope practitioner helped them understand how they use their strengths in their work and how they can manage any risk factors that could have a negative impact on their performance. The interpretation of their Strengthscope profiles was supported by facilitated discussions, helping delegates learn more about each other and the unique contributions that each of them make to the team. The second part of the workshop moved the focus from individual to collective strengths. Delegates explored their Team Strengthscope profile which highlights their combined strengths. They took part in a facilitated exercise that prompts insightful discussions that identify practical actions they can take to maximise the opportunities for the team and minimise any potential risks.

Outcome

Board members who have taken part in this programme have shared that using Strengthscope has helped them gain awareness of their natural strengths and how those link to the skills and competencies they have developed throughout their career. It has also given them powerful insights into how they could drive further professional growth by strengthening underdeveloped strengths and combining strengths in new powerful ways.

Delegates have also expressed that the intervention successfully enabled them to lay down the foundation for effective collaboration by helping them gain a shared understanding of how they could play to each other’s strengths and mitigate risks in order to increase their overall collective effectiveness.

After delivering Strengthscope to an Executive Board, the positive impact of the intervention resulted in us doing further Strengthscope work with the extended leadership team. This was done to support the organisation in adopting a common language and approach to development, leadership, and collaboration.