Neuro-Linguistic Enneagram (NLE) in Action: NLE Team Profile for Team Development (Part 2)

In the post-pandemic period, an MNC in the retail sector was experiencing rapid growth through brand acquisitions and store expansions.

Their regional Sales Operations (Sales Ops) team (15 people), covering the Southeast Asia (SEA) region, had seen a headcount increase, accompanied by staff attrition of approximately 25% in the preceding eight months.

They engaged Mind Transformations Consulting to conduct a team workshop to enhance team awareness and team understanding so that team members can work more effectively with one another and respond efficiently to change.

In Part 1, we revealed the information contained in the NLE Team Map©, the first tool in the NLE Team Profile©.

Read Part 1 again here

We continue the case study with the second tool in the NLE Team Profile©, the Four Pivotal Points (4PP).

Four Pivotal Points (4PP)© - Zeroing in on the Team Dynamic at Key Work Activities

Teams come together for many reasons - planning, discussing, debating, brainstorming, decision-making, checking progress, problem-solving, etc. 

These activities can be grouped into these four categories (pivotal points):

These four “touch points” express how a team functions and they also reflect the team dynamic. They have the potential to become “choke points” - stuck points that hinder team performance, or “leveraging points” - gateways towards a better team dynamic and performance. 

When interpreting the team dynamic through the 4PP©, it is important to perceive it from the personalities and tendencies, as teams are made up of individuals. For example, when we look at Dealing with Challenges (one of the pivotal points), we are not analysing “problem-solving” as a topic or in a technical way but referring to how the team members would approach “problem-solving” or dealing with issues faced by the team given their personalities and tendencies. 

Comparing the 4PP© profile of the Leader and the Team allows us to further unpack the interactions within a team.

Observations:

• The Leader’s tendency to solve problems is to tackle issues directly and with a stronger sense to put closure on matters (i.e. stronger sense of urgency to get things done). 

• The team’s tendency is flexible (near the middle of the spectrum for both Style and Resolution) – it can mean they have the flexibility to operate across the two spectrums, or they may be inconsistent in how they solve problems. 

Implications:

Key recommendations:

Observations:

• The Leader values tangible, measurable data and takes on a logical, rational approach toward decision-making. He also prefers a more structured approach regarding the decision-making process. 

• The team’s tendency is again near the middle of the spectrum. This suggests that they may have the flexibility to operate across the two spectrums, or the team could be made up of individuals with strong preferences on the two poles – some prefer a structured and rational approach, while the others prefer a less structured and intuitive, gut-feel approach.

Implications:

Key recommendations:

Observations:

• The Leader is a lot more task-oriented in communication and interaction, while the team has both task and relations focus. This was highlighted earlier in the Team Profile© (radar map).
• Both parties skew toward “Details” – this may mean there can be many discussions and meetings, and a lot of information exchange. However, the level of understanding still needs to be validated. The job nature of sales operations requires the team to be detail-oriented, so this is good.

Implications:

Key recommendations:

Every team spends time and energy – for the organisation, it is crucial that they achieve the results the organisation seeks.

Observations:

• The Leader and the team’s approaches are quite similar – both are proactive in asserting their efforts towards something and their engagement focus has a good balance of “doing well” (stability-driven) and “doing more” (opportunity-driven). 

• The Leader profile is more assertive toward driving performance (expansion) while the team skews toward continuous improvement (incremental). 

Implications:

Key recommendations:

The workshop opened up some honest conversations. Through the workshop, the team chose to adopt some of the recommendations from the 4PP©. They opted to stop the side conversations and raise their concerns and  issues to the Leader directly.  This deepened the trust within the team.

Through the conversation, the Leader understood his impact on the team, and the team also realised that they could not depend on the Leader alone to build the desired team culture. They grasped the message of "installing leadership within the team”.

After implementing their choice of approach from the “Rules of Engagement” workshop, the team members also included the rules of engagement when onboarding new hires to ensure they were assimilated into the team culture. 

The result? Team saw zero attrition in the following year. Their score in the staff engagement survey was the best in the company. Everyone saw progress in both their personal and team development.

The two tools in the NLE Team Profile© - the NLE Team Map© and Four Pivotal Points (4PP)© - reliably predict how a team shows up, providing insights into a team’s potential strengths and possible tension points in the team dynamic. 

This creates the opportunity for meaningful dialogue among the Leader and the team, to choose their approach towards optimal team performance.

At Mind Transformations, we have used it for over a decade in our consulting and team facilitation work to facilitate deep conversations with teams and their leaders and empower them to propel themselves to the next level.

It is not practical or realistic to hire and deploy the “best team”, because the most outstanding players (individually) may not enable the team to win the tournament. When we are able to optimise every team dynamic to bring out the best chance of winning, that’s when the magic happens.

Read Part 1 again here