Superpower Mapping

What “superpowers” does your team have?

Story

At a recent offsite retreat, a team was asked the same question. They didn’t know how to answer for two reasons:

1. Definition of “superpower”
2. Hadn’t discussed this as a group

So, one of our coaches led them through this very simple activity that yielded huge payoffs in trust building, deepening relationships, and collaboration.

We’re sharing this now because it’s almost too simple NOT to do with your team ASAP.

Setup

Materials needed:

• Sticky notes
• A4 paper

Instructions:

1. Everyone write your own name at the top of your own A4 paper and put it on a big central table. This is the place where we stick our notes about each person’s superpower.
   • Optional: stick these papers to the wall for a “gallery walk” before going to step 2
2. Everyone write 1 sticky note for each person listing 1-3 “superpowers” they have.
   • Definition: these are things this person seems especially (maybe even scarily) good at.
   • Anything goes, but in general we’re not looking for “functional” abilities, but special things. For example, don’t write “making reports” as one of Bobby’s superpowers. But if you feel like he’s especially good at drawing insight from reports you could write something like “finding actionable insight in the numbers” or something like that.
   • Don’t worry if you don’t see a use for the superpower. One possible result of this activity is identifying a superpower that’s underused!
3. Stick the notes to the person’s paper
4. Debrief

Our team at Adaptive Leaders does this activity every so often. Here’s one team member’s resulting paper just to show a concrete example.

Debrief

Don’t miss the main point: sittingaround and talking about each person one-by-one.

1. Have each person hold up or stand by their paper full of sticky notes and read them out one by one.
2. Let everyone in the room react to the listed superpowers.
3. Let the person react to the room and the paper full of sticky notes about them.

Benefits of knowing your team’s superpowers

There are basically no downsides to knowing your team’s unique superpower making. Yes, it’s somewhat subjective but that’s half the fun. The benefits include (but are not limited to):

1. Increased trust and deeper relationships (it’s fun and funny)
2. Insight about how to structure jobs (give work to people who excel at it)
3. Recognition of contributions (people feel affirmed and encouraged)
4. Shared vocabulary (teams can continue to reference these in the future)
5. Opportunity for innovation (underused superpowers could be deliberately engaged)
6. And more!

Whatever happened…

Remember that offsite where the team did the superpower mapping? One of them actually got a promotion within one month of that retreat. “That superpower activity” was specifically mentioned in the announcement from his boss!

While we can’t promise results THAT big for everyone who does this, we highly recommend it at your next team meeting or offsite.

Next Steps?

Are you planning your next offsite or teambuilding activity? We’d love to partner with you to bring activities as powerful as this one to meet your unique context and needs.

Book a free 20-minute call with one of our coaches to discuss how we can support you at making your next big breakthrough (even if it feels impossible right now).

Looking forward to talking to you soon!