The application of WBI-Work Behavior Questionnaire in building high-performance teams

Some time ago, I heard a teacher ask in an online course: "There are three types of people: 1. "naughty" ones, 2. "expert" ones, and 3. "obedient" ones. Who is the most difficult? Management?" Your answer? ...

The teacher’s answer is: Expert people are the most difficult to manage because it is difficult for expert people to “turn around.” In other words, they have strong personalities and are self-centered and "logical".

I understand, but I am not saying that expert people must be like that. It is said that people who are limited by self-beliefs and lack self-awareness cannot see greater and more possibilities and options. In this way, in today's world of rapid development, fierce competition, and full of uncertainty, if you cannot adapt quickly, you, your team, and even the entire company will fall into the dilemma of rigid management, low morale, loss of people, and...

When I coach and build high-performance teams, I often use WBI-the Big Five-based Work Behavior Questionnaire to help individuals and teams gain insight into themselves and grow quickly.

Mr. Lencioni, the famous management guru, pointed out: Team collaboration requires mastering a specific set of behavioral patterns; only those teams that overcome the excessive human behavior of team members can achieve success. If each member becomes too self-centered, it will harm the entire team and make teamwork dysfunctional.

In fact, since teams are composed of people with various shortcomings, teams inevitably have their inherent flaws.

Do I really need a team? Is teamwork important? How do I usually do it?

All successful teams must have very good teamwork; all failed teams must have terrible teamwork.

Since team collaboration is so important, how much time, energy, and resources have we, especially as leaders, invested in team collaboration?

The first of the four principles identified by Mr. Lencioni in his book "Strength" in which "organizational health trumps all else" is: Build a cohesive executive team; the remaining three are: Build Clarity, continuously convey clarity, reinforce clarity. Only in this way can everyone in the organization work together, act in a unified manner, and work hard towards the same goal.

The application of the WBI-Work Behavior Questionnaire based on the Big Five in building highly cohesive team workshops and coaching can effectively help individuals and teams recognize and discover the strengths and weaknesses of their own and others’ personalities/behaviors , understand others well, enhance team trust, and control conflicts.

WBI is an assessment tool based on the Big Five personality model. Currently, the internationally recognized personality assessment is based on the “Big Five” personality theory model. Dr. Liang Kaiguang of Xidian Consulting was the first to introduce WBI from the United States to mainland China in 2002. WBI has been used in China for nearly 20 years, serving a large number of local companies and individuals and accumulating a lot of experience.

The WBI test includes five dimensions and 21 indicators.

There is a large amount of practical evidence and cases for the application of WBI in recruitment and selection, talent development, career planning, team building, etc.

The company is a large state-owned construction enterprise. The leader is a graduate of the Central Party School. The leadership team consists of ten people, most of whom are project managers, as well as HR and financial managers. WBI played an important role before, during and after the workshop.

On the whole, the characteristics of this team are: extroversion, high innovative thinking and plan execution, relatively scattered in terms of collaboration/affiliation and emotional management.

Take the four indicators of extroversion as examples:

Most people are outgoing, talkative, and particularly like to promote their own opinions and persuade others to accept them; at the same time, most people also dominate .

Before the workshop, based on the daily behavior of team members and the challenges faced by the team, and using WBI as a reference, as a facilitator and team leader, I had a basic understanding of the team’s collaboration issues and quickly understood them. team, making the workshop more targeted.

Previously, each leadership team member had a one-on-one interpretation of the WBI personality assessment report and provided individual coaching.

In the workshop, following the guidance process and experience of the Overcoming Five Barriers to Teamwork (FDT) workshop, as well as understanding of the team, and using the information provided by WBI as clues, everyone candidly analyzed their own personality characteristics. Recognized and shared, for example, the personality traits that contribute most to team collaboration and have the most impact.

For example: Regarding the extroversion dimension index, everyone realized: "We usually quarrel and refuse to give in to each other", "no one accepts the other"..., through personality recognition and sharing, opened up myself, and at the same time deepened my understanding of my colleagues. This creates an atmosphere for the team to be honest with each other and not afraid to expose their shortcomings.

In other dimensions of WBI, everyone made candid reflections on themselves & the team. Finally, with everyone's enthusiastic participation and active discussion, the commitment to "personal behavior improvement actions" was clarified, and a "team conflict contract" for the development of constructive conflict was reached.

After the workshop, everyone will review improvement behaviors regularly and make continuous improvements. Under the leadership of the general manager, everyone in this leadership team spoke freely and worked together to exceed the 2019 targets. This year, we mustered up all our energy to get back the construction schedule that was delayed due to the epidemic.

At that time, the performance of this private enterprise continued to grow and it was likely to be listed soon. However, the board of directors found that the current leadership team does not look like a team, has no unity and collaboration, and cannot adapt to the rapid expansion of the organization & business after listing. This team not only has team members with very different work backgrounds, it can be said that they are an "Eight-Nation Alliance" because 80% of the members come from different foreign companies, but also the team members have very different personalities.

Before the workshop, WBI assessment and report interpretation were conducted for each team member. The CEO and I analyzed the personality status of the team and its members, discussed the requirements and possible difficulties during the workshop, and clarified the results to be achieved. Take extroversion as an example. This team likes fast pace and complements each other socially. A comparison between CEO and HRD found that they sometimes complement each other and sometimes are similar. For example, in terms of persuasion influence, HRD prefers to promote his own ideas and opinions to slower people. Hot & reserved CEO.

In the workshop, although the CEO wanted to control himself and criticize others less, especially HRD, he still couldn't help it. Fortunately, I was prepared in advance and provided timely guidance, such as: self-reflection first, and then pointing out other people’s problems.

While recognizing and sharing about oneself and the team, everyone also conducted "pairing" recognition, sharing and reflection. For example, in the dimension of conscientiousness, that is, plan execution, it was found that CEOamp; There are differences in personality among HRDs but not that big (except following rules). HRD's initiative, reliability, and attention to details are low, and there is no complementarity with the CEO. There is a big difference between HRD and the CEO in compliance with the rules. Neither of them pays attention to details, and the CEO often fills in the gaps for HRD.

HRD said: We should think more about our own problems in the future...; the CEO also expressed that he could understand and accept HRD...With the help of WBI and the facilitator, everyone opened up and talked about their strengths in team collaboration. shortcomings, deepening self-awareness and understanding of colleagues.

At the end of the workshop, everyone made a commitment to strengthen team trust, formulated a team conflict contract, clarified the team's theme goals - the most important thing, and determined the continued promotion of team collaboration behaviors methods and measures. At the beginning of last year, the company was successfully listed, and its stock price increased by more than 1.5 times that year.

After talking with the team leader of a law firm that enjoys high professional prestige, I admire the courage and determination of the leader of the law firm to build a team, because generally law firms use a certain lawyer vs. a certain case. In the eyes of everyone, lawyers are "cold", "arrogant" and "solo entrepreneurs". Operating as a team in the legal profession is unprecedented.

Previously, Mr. Lencioni’s team collaboration theory has been used in practical team collaboration under the leadership of the team leader.

Before the workshop, a one-on-one WBI report interpretation was conducted for team leaders and team members; the personality distribution of team members was shown to everyone. The day before the workshop, everyone is asked to carefully read and understand the important potential warnings in the WBI report again.

In the workshop, everyone used WBI as a clue to understand and share the contribution and impact of their own personality characteristics on team collaboration.

Everyone saw the similarities and differences in the personalities of team members, reflected on and shared their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses. We analyzed the overall strengths and weaknesses of the team, such as: in terms of affinity, most people prefer to work alone and do not care enough about others; we analyzed complex issues and their individual characteristics in innovation.

In the workshop, based on observations and feelings at work, everyone candidly exchanged mutual understanding and the real thoughts behind their personalities and behaviors. The team made personal behavioral improvements to promote team trust & develop healthy conflicts; everyone expressed their opinions enthusiastically and reached a team conflict contract; all team members clearly & clearly defined the team's "top priority" goal-theme by the end of the year goals and made a commitment.

After that, individual people were counseled and began to make very big changes in their thoughts and behaviors.

WBI has many cases of successful application in building high-performance team workshops

For example: the leadership team of a security equipment company. Originally, they wanted to ask me to provide training on "strengthening horizontal cooperation" for their leadership team. After analysis, it was found that the fundamental reason was that this leadership team lacked cohesion and did not have the same goals and code of conduct. So, in early October last year, the leadership team held a workshop on “Building High-Performance Teams.” After candid discussions, reflection on their own personality behaviors and other activities, they promised to improve their behavior and reached a team conflict contract. On the spot, everyone decided to challenge the year-end sales target, that is, add another 10 as the team's theme target. In the next ten weeks (until the end of the year), we held weekly company meetings to review and take actions to achieve this goal, and collectively and efficiently solved problems. In the end, we achieved a goal that we had not dared to think of before. At the same time, members of the company's leadership team not only learned how to build team trust, control team conflicts, formulate the team's top priority theme goals, and conduct efficient weekly meetings, but also made the company's horizontal cooperation unprecedentedly smooth.

Before the workshop

1) WBI helps team leaders and facilitators understand the personality characteristics of each member, the similarities, differences and characteristics of the team as a whole, and understand possible collective and individual conflicts and their consequences Possible sources of the problem;

2) Interpret the WBI report. As a facilitator, you can understand the participants through the WBI personal report, talk to and understand the workshop participants, and enhance trust.

3) For team members, help them understand themselves and their strengths and weaknesses, especially potential strengths and potential warnings. Corresponding behavior improvement actions and/or IDP (Individual Development/Improvement Plan) can be made.

I currently use WBI in more than a dozen teams and have interpreted more than 200 participants. The vast majority of participants agreed with the WBI test results, and only a few raised some objections. The reasons for these objections are mostly related to their own state during the test (answering the phone, not taking it seriously) or being too conceited and covering up.

In the workshop

1) Using the five-dimension distribution map of the team as a clue, it triggers everyone’s understanding, discussion, reflection and exchange of the overall characteristics of the team (identical, complementary, etc.)

2) With the help of the five dimensions and specific indicators of WBI, it triggers thinking about the similarities and differences of individuals vs. teams, individuals vs. individuals, promotes the development of team collaboration behaviors and the formation of agreements to control conflicts; everyone can actively participate in clarifying and Commit to actions such as achieving team goals.

3) Through WBI, we can look at the team and ourselves in the mirror, so that everyone can understand the impact of their own personality behaviors on the team; help everyone be self-aware, treat their own weaknesses honestly and openly, and adjust their behavior.

After the workshop

1) Conduct regular reviews of the behavioral improvements you have committed to, and implement the IDP (Individual Development Plan)

2) Conflicts reached by the team Conduct regular reviews of contracts, theme goals, etc.

3) Use WBI& colleague feedback as a clue to continuously improve self-behavior. Provide individual counseling when necessary.

There are countless application examples of WBI in personal development. For example, a member of my team successfully used WBI as a "mirror", so that this "technical expert" type, particularly "confident", and always "reasonable" professional training manager quickly grew into a recognized professional in Asia. Capability Development Leader.

As Mr. Lencioni pointed out: The most fundamental competitive advantage of an enterprise does not come from capital strength, development strategy, or technology, but from teamwork; teamwork is very powerful and precious ; Teamwork does not require superb skills and master-like wisdom, only courage and persistence.

Use WBI as a mirror before, during and after the workshop to improve team performance and team cohesion, and measure the five dimensions of extroversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness and emotional stability. The indicators reveal the potential strengths and weaknesses of the team and individuals, combined with the characteristics of the team's work and the challenges encountered, so that the team and individuals can "advantage their strengths and overcome their weaknesses", promote unity and collaboration, improve team performance, and move towards excellence.