A Bolstering Team: Different by Design
Updated: 1 hour ago
At Shift, we’ve always known our team dynamic feels a little different from our past work environments. Turns out, our synergy is different by design and backed by science.
We recently participated in the Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment to better understand how each of us works individually and, ultimately, why we work so well together.
In less than six minutes, the assessment evaluated our individual workplace preferences across areas like decision-making, communication, pace, risk, and structure. The resulting combination of our individual results revealed the defined clarity we were searching for on how we operate as a team.
According to the results shared during our assessment, Shift is a Bolstering Team. PI’s 70-year old data shares that Bolstering Teams represent just 3% of teams overall and 8% of marketing teams.
What is a Bolstering Team?
Bolstering Teams are characterized by being social, energetic, innovative, and supportive of one another’s ideas. They thrive through thoughtful discussion, and an environment where people are comfortable challenging ideas, addressing conflict directly, and building on one another’s strengths.
Our individual working styles are distinctly different, so that blend produces a unique synergy amongst us. We bring different approaches to innovation, collaboration, decision-making, structure, risk, and execution. Rather than everyone approaching a problem the same way, our team’s collective differences give us multiple lenses through which to examine it.
Brainstorm Flow State
One of the biggest themes to emerge from the assessment was something we’d already experienced during our innovative brainstorm sessions: we produce some of our best work when we’re solving problems together.
We like to explore an idea, ask questions, challenge assumptions, uncover the larger problem hiding underneath the smaller one, and then find the viable solutions. During a brainstorm session, a proposed question might indicate one root challenge and uncover three other downstream challenges. We’ll pull each apart, identify what matters, and brainstorm a tangible pathway forward.
This team assessment helped us articulate that our strength is the ability to simplify innovative solutions and turn them into actionable outcomes.
What does this mean for our partners?
Our partners can expect Shift to provide a collaborative, safe space for discussions, develop an insightful recommendation, and return with a realistic, actionable plan. At Shift, it’s important to us to partner and work alongside your team in order to support your growth.
We will naturally bring the dynamic that makes our internal team effective into our partnerships and brainstorming sessions. Our initial objective is to create an environment that fosters successful ideas.
The informal, flexible, and not-too-structured discussion allows your team, and ours, to explore the what-if’s and build on each other's thinking. As the ideas evolve, our facilitators keep the discussion grounded in your end goals by turning our open conversation into productive next steps.
These sessions are valuable for us to have with our partners as we provide:
A fresh perspective: Our insights come from outside of your day-to-day. We’re out of the weeds, so we view your challenges, ideas, and opportunities from a different lens. Our opinions and answers may be strong, but thoughtful in consideration of the context.
A sounding board: Whether it’s a half-baked thought, or a fully baked out strategy, we create a safe space for productive discussions. We’ll collaborate with you on the possibilities, and poke any holes in ideas that need clarity.
A partner: We challenge assumptions, explore alternatives, and think through solutions alongside you. We won’t validate every idea in the room, but we will emphasize the ones we think have great potential. Our prepared research involved will be done thoroughly to back your journey.
That’s where being a Bolstering Team supports our partners. We’re wired to build on ideas through collaboration and cheer on the resulting successes, so we want to extend that energy to others.
Our team dynamic is different by design and that’s what allows us to support yours.
Have a challenge your team is wanting to work through? Let’s brainstorm together.
