Excellence comes in many different forms. Often, it comes as a result of creating synergistic partnerships. Take this example of a Human Resource manager, I'll call her Joan, and one of the managers she serves in her organization, I'll call him Tom.

Joan planned a meeting with Tom's team after he had worked with the team for about a year. She had used the New Leader & Team Assimilation when he was hired the previous year and thought this might be a good time to re-evaluate.

"This profile provides a leader with the ability to understand and identify strengths and potential "problems" as well as how to leverage strengths and address problems."

In the Team Assimilation Meeting, the team communicated that they thought Tom needed to do less decision-making alone, be more visible to his direct reports and that the team needed to "connect" with Tom more on an informal basis so they would have more opportunities to talk.

Joan saw an opportunity to strive for excellence by taking this process to the next level. She asked Tom if he would meet with an outside consultant to do the CDR 3-D Suite of Instruments. This profile provides a leader with the ability to understand and identify strengths and potential "problems" as well as how to leverage strengths and address problems.

From Tom's point-of-view, his 3-D Suite showed he rated a 10 out of a possible 100 on the Sociability Scale. Tom clearly did not enjoy social interactions. Conversely, he rated a perfect 100 on the scale that measures "Detachment" which means Tom has a tendency to withdraw, preferring to think things through on his own.

Joan's contribution-bringing these two tools together with this team-were significant. Joan looked at this team and "invented" a new process. She then partnered with a consultant. This combined set of data allowed Tom and his team to truly understand their issues and work toward change.

Over my career I have noted that when leaders know themselves, their team(s) and the resources they have available they are able to leverage partnerships that maximize their impact and demonstrate excellence. Joan demonstrated this capability and her customers felt the impact.

• Sociability - Measures the degree to which one is outgoing, enjoys social interation.
  
  
• Interpersonal Sensitivity - Measures extent to which a leader is warm, caring, sensitive towards the needs of others, interpersonally skilled and perceptive vs. being task focused, hard nosed and apathetic towards the needs of others.
  
  
• Detached - which is defined as: A tendency to withdraw, fade away, fail to communicate, avoid confrontation, be aloof, tune others out and be reticent about interfacing with other people.

Donna Dennis
Telephone: 609-333-0144
donna@leadership-solutions.info