Super Bowl LVIII is less than a week away. Regardless of who you are cheering for, I think we can all agree that both teams are comprised of players with unique skills and talents. Those skills and talents have contributed to the success of each team.
When we facilitate, team members come with unique skills and talents also. During the session, those talents and skills emerge. Below is a list of a few talents that I’ve observed.
CREATORS: These team members impress with their interesting ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. As a facilitator, embrace those who can see past status quo and allow them to push the team to a different way of looking at a situation.
ADVANCERS: Once they hear a variety of new ideas, these team members have a knack for understanding how those creative ideas could actually work. They will advance the idea and start to put legs under it so it might stand alone.
REFINERS: Upon hearing new ideas, the refiners start to wave red flags of where challenges may occur. They poke holes in ideas and force the team to shore up the gaps in thinking.
IMPLEMENTERS: These are the team members who can’t wait to get started on whichever idea is selected. They want to run with an idea and see if it will actually work. Get out of their way.
Each member of the team has their moment of glory. Cheer them on.
However, as a facilitator you will also notice frustration. Implementers can grow impatient with creators who want to offer more ideas into the discussion. Refiners have to push back on the implementers who are ready to run with an idea before the refiners have completed their poking holes in each idea.
Celebrate the talents of each while delicately balancing the dynamics of the team. Everyone wins in that scenario!