Together we really do achieve more: supervising teams (Supervision Series: Part 2)
- Anthony Betori
- Jun 8
- 5 min read
Remember these memes? This one is permanently stored in my mind. And the sentiment rings true still to this day for some teams I’ve been a part of.
What are groups so hard? Why can it be so difficult to convene people on the same terms, then point them in a common direction to get work done?
In last week’s blog, I talked about supervision, mentoring, and management from the perspective of individuals working with individuals. Today, we’ll explore more about how to support and manage teams.
Here’s the main idea: teams are each distinct, not only because of their members, but because of their power structures, maturities, purposes, and contexts. There are many, many tools out there for you to develop your team, but learning how to use them effectively and at the right moment is how you can gain real finesse when managing teams.
My fascination with teams comes from an ancient love of mine: the Enneagram. Introduced to me in college by a good friend (a million years ago!), I fell in love with the way that it accommodated so much of life. There are books and books about the Enneagram, and a million ways it can be used. The basic description of it is that there are 9 types, and everyone is one of the 9 types. Your type is determined by how you were raised, and it never changes. Big claims! But over the years I’ve found this to be true. I even invented some workplace trainings on the Enneagram.
From my initial journey with the Enneagram, I started exploring other options. We’ve got Myer-Briggs (aka MBTI), which has been used in a million ways (but most notably in my life as a way to engage with your favorite K-pop idols). There’s the CliftonStrengths (fka StrengthsFinder) test, which is “designed to help any person discover what they are great at and to apply this knowledge towards goals.” There’s True Colors, DISC, the Big Five,
These tools are great, but used at the wrong time, they can be blunt where precision is needed. Today, let's explore the ways these can be effectively used. Think about the teams you lead and participate in - what do they need now? And what can you bring using these tools? Then we'll sum it up with some overall thoughts.
Early development, low trust teams: True Colors and Big Five
With just four or five domains people can be sorted into, based largely on being extroverted or introverted, these are very easy ways to get the conversation about working together as a team started. There’s low risk for getting too much into people’s histories, and they give safe territory for people who are still learning to trust each other to explore. Really, we’re just building very basic infrastructure here, and introducing the idea that we’re all different and need different things from the other people on the team. At this stage, tbh, you might even find it safer to just do a “what animal are you similar to and why” because you’ll get the same results.
Middle development, mid trust teams: DISC, Myers-Briggs and CliftonStrengths
These are more delicate tools than the first group because they get into some more complex territory. DISC explores how fearful, dominant, etc. people are, and that can obviously bring up areas of discussion that can be challenging without some basic trust built up and usually a strong facilitator (that’s you, the leader). Myers-Briggs and CliftonStrengths are great, but they require a higher level of infrastructure to implement, and they take longer to understand. Remembering the difference between an INTJ and an ENFP takes time. And CliftonStrengths has more than 30 possible strengths at play. This is just too much for a team that doesn’t know each other well yet. It’s also important to consider with all three of these - what are you actually going to change after doing this? Are there action-oriented conclusions you could make? Specific asks that teammates could make to their coworkers? I love seeing people’s CliftonStrengths in their email signatures, but if that’s as far as it goes, then I don’t think it’s gone very far at all.
Highly developed and high trust teams: the Enneagram
I love the Enneagram. For me, it brings immense clarity to how people act, what drives them, and what success means to them. It also elucidates the fears people have, and connects their childhood trauma to their personality today. Obviously that’s not for the faint of heart. Using this inventory with a low or middle trust team is generally disastrous. Instead, this is for teams that are deeply committed to learning and growing together, and usually also made of people with some agency over their work. People need to be able to make changes, reassign tasks, and reorganize the hierarchy of their workplace, in order to use the Enneagram effectively. But done right, and with the right team, this can be magical. It can launch people to heights never possible before, and create not just career but life pathways that are rewarding and fruitful.
The most important factor for all these inventories is you. You’re the facilitator, the leader, the conflict resolver, and the advocate of those without the power, institutional or otherwise, to make change on their own.
Being a strong leader of teams means owning every dynamic of the team, being in the mix all the time. It means that when one person is mad at another person, you coach them on fixing the breach and hold them accountable if they don’t. It means you don’t let relationships sour and rot in suspicion, disagreement, and enmity. It means you consistently conduct the various instruments of the team towards a harmony they couldn’t achieve without you. There's a poetry to it; a harmony.
And everyone has the capacity to build harmony! If you are a leader, it is not only your job - it is necessary. You steward the work lives of your team, and work lives can affect everything about a person. This is no small thing.
So take some time to think - is now a good time for an inventory or personality test? Is there some deeper thing to uncover? What does my team need from me now?
And whatever the answers are, give yourself time. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Start at the level that makes sense given how much you trust each other, then build from there. It’s ok if it takes time - just as long as you’re taking the time.
Thanks for coming on this little team journey with me. Together, we can achieve more. As for the next blog, I’m not sure! This is the planned end of my tiny experiment, so we’ll see what people thought of this! Let me know! Thanks for being a part of my little LinkedIn blog journey. I’ve had a lot of fun.
P.S. This blog is certified AI-free, and partly inspired by Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. Thank you to that book and author for helping me get my butt off the couch and into my office chair to write these ideas I’ve had for ages.
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