Q: How I can support a team over a long term development – towards their strategy/vision and business development. What techniques can I use?
A: Our idea of “energy balance” in using the FEBI is not that a team or an individual uses every pattern equally. But rather that they use their strengths to be what they’re great at, and bring out enough of their weaker patterns to stay out of trouble. That’s the same principle I’d offer to this excellent question about how to help teams over the long run. Notice the team’s strengths and how they can play to them; listen for what’s missing or where they get stuck and what energy pattern would help. Good strategy, vision and business development calls for all 4 energies, but teams may favor the big picture aspect of vision and strategy, without the blocking and tackling that leads to execution. Or they may be all about action steps and what we do with this client or that, and miss the larger picture of where are we going or what is our unique value add? Or they may be all about task, and miss the bonding foundation of trust that lets team members be real with and rely upon one another. Simply listening for which patterns are in full force and which are weaker will give us insight about where we need to shift energy. We can then turn to resources like the FEBI Certification Manual or the tables in Chapter 9 of Move to Greatness to stimulate ideas for how to build that kind of energy on a team - what techniques to try. Once a team knows the patterns, sometimes all we need to do as a consultant is to ask them what’s missing, or highlight what we see, and have them brainstorm ways to add it. The more we can engage the team itself in conversations like these, the more they will own the solutions that come out of them, and the deeper they will understand their effectiveness in the various energy patterns.
“Ki-ai before Ma-ai” is a basic principle from Zen and martial art training, which roughly translates as: “energy is more important than technique.” That is, our intent and the underlying energy we use trumps our cleverness or clumsiness in what we actually do. I think the same is true for supporting the long term development of a team. If our intent is to add value and bring out the right kind of energy, any number of techniques will do.
