Would your team say they need more Curiosity, Courage, or Care at this moment?
Team Blind Spots
One of our coaches recently ran a three-month engagement with technology leaders at a large organization. The leaders were successful, sharp, deeply technical, well respected, and the business was going well.
However, they had created a particular blind spot for themselves: they weren’t aware of much happening outside their own work.
While they could explain their systems in meticulous detail, few could say much about consumer trends in other markets, or how shifting economies and geopolitics were already shaping the products they were building.
From a 3C Adaptivity perspective, this team needed more Curiosity, especially looking externally. Identifying the Curiosity gap was one of the most valuable outcomes for the team.
The 3C Team Map Activity
Here’s something you can do with your team today.
Materials
- A whiteboard or flip chart
- A marker
Instructions
- Facilitator writes three words on the board: Curiosity, Courage, Care.
- Round 1: “Everyone come up and put a tick mark under our team’s strongest C. What are we best at?”
- Round 2: “Everyone come pick the second-best one for our team. You can’t pick the same one you chose in round 1.”
- Tally the marks. See which C, or C’s, comes out weakest.
You can, of course, just ask people to come up and give a single mark “Which one does this team need more of right now?” but people are often more eager to praise something about their own team rather than feel critical. Up to you which way you do it.
Debrief
The result of the 3C Team Map is important from two perspectives:
- Don’t neglect the strengths. Ask people to share examples of why they chose the two strong ones. Celebrate success and how far you’ve come.
- Help the team choose one area for improvement (do a tie break if you need to). Focus the discussion on concrete actions the team can take to improve the C that’s weakest.
Run the exercise again in a few months. Watch how the pattern shifts.
The Adaptive Journey: Episode 009
This activity came up in Episode 009 of The Adaptive Journey podcast when Aditi Malik, Adaptive Leaders’ Managing Director for India also talked about why leaders and their teams so often drive each other up the wall, especially across generational lines.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
The Tricky 3C Side of Running this Activity
Ironically, there are 3C reasons that you might read this article and still not run this activity with your team. Here are some questions to help you think through that.
Curiosity
- What do you most want to do with the result?
- Why do you think this would be a good/bad activity for your team?
- What are you assuming about your team by running/not running this activity?
Courage
- What are you risking by running this activity?
- What are you risking by not running it?
- How do you need to show humility when running this activity?
- Which team besides yours needs to run this activity and how can you encourage them to do so?
Care
- Which people on your team would benefit most from this activity?
- How can you run this activity in the most inclusive way possible?
Although it seems simple on the surface, doing a 3C Team Map can be the start of some meaningful adaptive work. Go for it!
Adaptive Leader Studio™
This is exactly the sort of exciting, deep work we do with leaders in our Adaptive Leader Studio™. If you’d like to make a fast and lasting change to flex your adaptivity, join us online or in person near you.
