Personal and Group Effectiveness

Using the Birkman Method with a wide range of people over the past 20 years, we have found significant variation in the profiles of individuals. These variations are present regardless of industry, role, cultural background and gender. Helping individuals to become more aware of their uniqueness can have major impact on helping them improve their personal and group effectiveness.

Many organizations look to find common ground between team members, or seek the common character traits of individuals. However understanding and utilizing the variations and differences between individuals can lead to better results.  This holds true whether supporting a student’s decision on study choices, assisting a senior executive to be a more effective leader through to working with teams and business units.

Becoming aware of your own unique needs and motivations as well as those of other people  is a first step in increasing personal effectiveness.  Acknowledging and embracing your own uniqueness and the differences in those around you will allow you to more effectively harness your own capabilities and of those around you both at work and socially.

 

Cornerstones

 

There are several cornerstones which provide insights as to how, why and when individual differences show themselves and how they can be harnessed for success.

These cornerstones remain true across culture and gender and can be summarised as follows:

  • Individual differences are vital for personal effectiveness and organisational effectiveness
  • Individual differences relate to personal, social and occupational behaviour making us all unique
  • Individuals have behavioural strengths and weaknesses that are dependent on the environment and context in which they are operating
  • Increased personal effectiveness can be achieved by leveraging the behavioural strengths of individuals
  • Individuals can manage (change) their behaviour if they really believe in the importance of doing so
  • Alignment of one’s motivations with expectations of others within a given environment, provides an greater opportunity for personal effectiveness, team effectiveness and organisational growth
  • Awareness of the impact of your behaviour (effective and ineffective) within a given context and choosing the appropriate behaviour can significantly increase your personal effectiveness and potential.

Organisational Culture

 

As every organisation has its distinctive culture that underpins the environment that it’s employees must work. Therefore, it is important that your career choice is made taking into consideration how well your values align with this culture.

To increase personal effectiveness within an organisation, you must address your relationship to others within the organisation and the organisation culture as a whole.

It is important that you:

  • Understand yourself in terms of your strengths and needs and be aware that your strengths are situational
  • Learn to work with the strengths and differences of others

The most successful individuals understand their own style and know how to modify their style in a variety of situations and personalities.