Use Spotlight Challenges to make Team Commitments

Following a values session, it can be a really tricky thing to channel and integrate this big thinking through into our nitty-gritty normal working world. But Spotlight can give each team member and focused and personalised challenge to move from broad concepts into a single individual commitment.

This idea came from our own recent and ongoing team development.

We spent some time collectively and in small groups, digging into creating some core team values. What do we expect and happily sign up for when we come to work?

If you work with teams, then you know getting clear and shared values up on the wall is not quick or easy. And then comes the personal challenge. What is something I can individually commit to, to live out one of these values more in my day-to-day work with others?

How can I translate a value into something small enough that to pick up, hold in my awareness and show through in my behaviour?

For many people this takes quite a big shift in mindset. To move from busy roles and a practical task-list, into values and commitments that can feel conceptual, soft and intangible. Or to find something that is a genuine individual commitment, more than a one-time action.

I struggled with this too. Then, during my daily dog walk, the thought dropped into my head that my Spotlight might help with exactly this kind of thinking. To find a meeting point between a core value and a personal stretch.

Holding a value in mind and clicking through my Spotlight within myFacet5, it didn’t take long for one of my challenges to pop out.

One value I wanted to focus on was around Goals - how we all play a part in creating these, keeping them alive and the fierce prioritisation to make them happen.

And the challenge I picked was…

learn to think more independently and rely less on input from others

For me, this spoke to how I wanted to take a more deliberate and leading approach within my role, instead of waiting for direction and goals to be set by others around me. The coaching notes helped me take this thinking deeper, and I soon found an opportunity to do this more in the following weeks.

When I mentioned how I’d found this helpful to a colleague, it turned out she’d had the same idea too.

Helping people approach values and development with a strong understanding of their personal style,  creates commitments that are both focused and individual. And because Spotlight doesn’t require a debrief, it can be used on its own for a more cost-effective team introduction to self-awareness, or as a practical addition to their personal profile.

Click for see how Spotlight looks in myFacet5