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A leader team’s Strategy Style has a direct and significant impact on its effectiveness: proven. The strategically effective leader team is Whole Minded – it successfully combines and integrates the four different Strategy Styles to create solutions that work from every angle.
Leader teams with a Whole Minded style are up to 85% more effective than any of the other four alternative Styles. The bad news: Whole Minded teams are in the minority. The good news: with the right support and tolls any team can plan Whole-Mindedly.
A. Whole minded strategic processes blend rational analysis with collaboration and creativity satisfaction and 15-20% higher confidence/performance.
B. While only 19% of leader teams adopt a whole-minded approach, those that do are rated for mare effective than teams using left-brain approached alone. In fact, Whole-Minded teams rate higher on every dimension of strategic effectiveness.
Is yours a Whole Minded team? If not and you want to learn how you can inject the necessary intuition, emotion, creativity or collaboration, please get in touch edge@cognosis.co.uk
Right-brain combinations are rated far more strategically effective than left-brain.
Any Whole Mindedness dramatically improves effectiveness.
Leaders must beware the ‘mirror’ effect – the natural temptation to assemble teams in their own image. First they should understand their own Strategy Style so they’re alert to their likely strategic biases and blindsides.
Next they must understand the Strategy Styles of both their individual team members and their team as a whole. Clarifying their ‘centre of gravity’ will help identify their effectiveness blind spots.
Then the leader and his/her team can begin to mindfully boost Whole-Mindedness. This doesn’t mean radical team surgery! It’s about finding ways to encourage and challenge the existing team to think differently about their strategy and strategy-making using a combination of different styles, tools and approaches.
In most cases this will mean dialling up creativity and collaboration; finding ways to release ‘right-brain’ thinking and intuition – whilst containing and maintaining the team’s familiar rational, analytical and practical approaches. Even typically left-brain activities, such as analysis and planning will benefit from a more Whole-Minded approach.
The role of the leader is first and foremost about assembling and empowering the ultimate leader team– one that is Whole-Minded, United, Active and Collaborative.
Is yours a Whole Minded team? If not and you want to learn how you can inject the necessary intuition, emotion, creativity or collaboration, please get in touch edge@cognosis.co.uk
Each of the four Strategy Styles lend themselves to a particular type of challenge. By identifying and combining these,
the Challenge Cycle increase of conflict being functional and ensuring that the solutions emerging from challenge.
When addressing challenge leaders should run through the Challenge Cycle systematically:
