Psychologist Dr.Roger Bretherton shares the importance of recognising each team member's unique strengths and the importance of liminal space
I’m always ready to absorb and learn when I speak with the inspiring and knowledgeable Dr. Roger Bretherton, a clinical and coaching psychologist who specialises in character strengths. I have had the pleasure of working with Roger over the years and in particular we worked together on a Randomised Control Trial study that was seeking to understand the impact of building short mental fitness exercises into individuals daily routine during a period of change and transition.
We are not great in periods of change, uncertainty is not something we deal well with as humans and the performance declines can lead to difficult periods for us all.
The findings of the RCT were remarkable, showing that this approach of micro exercises did not just prevent the natural decline of certain performance metrics observed in the control group, but we demonstrated increased performance in all metrics when the expectation was a decline.
Needless to say, I have a lot of respect for Roger and I was eager to delve into the intricacies of building high-performing teams. Our conversation quickly turned to the importance of recognising and leveraging team members' character strengths - a topic that Roger is a renowned expert in. I was fascinated to see how these insights could help to shape my research for my upcoming book on the role of rituals for managers in the workplace.
Roger, has dedicated much of his career to studying character strengths and their impact on individual and team well-being.
"Character strengths are all the beautiful qualities of character that bring us well-being," he explained, "and I study how they are defined, how we develop them, and what they do for us."
One of the key themes Roger shared was the power of character strengths in fostering high-performing teams.
"Basically, for a team to work well, for it to really, really work well, we have to recognise what are the good things that the rest of the team are bringing to the table," he said. "Most teams will have an agreement on some of the strengths that they share, some teams, they're all about honesty. The truth has to be on the table here. If you're not truthful, you just won't get on in this team. You have other teams where creativity is the thing. We're going to do loads of blue sky thinking, that’s how we operate."
This notion of aligning team members' strengths resonated with me deeply. As I reflected on my own experiences building and leading teams, I realised that the most successful ones were those where we had a shared understanding of our collective strengths and an understanding of our weaknesses and how to leverage them effectively.
"And then the other thing," Roger continued, "is that then what you'll find is that in any given team, there'll be people who hold really unique strengths that aren't necessarily shared by the rest of the team. So it's not unusual. Let's say, in a national team that does marketing, that the people out on the road will be high in things like passion and creativity and social intelligence and the people in the back office who do the risk assessments and the spreadsheets and all that kind of thing might be high in things like prudence, self-control, things like that."
I've seen how teams can sometimes become divided when they fail to recognise and appreciate the unique strengths that each member brings to the table. I would always take time to recognise project/skill fit and make that part of an ongoing job fit assessment.
"If the team isn't careful, what happens is they divide and they can complain about each other. This can happen when they don't appreciate one another's strengths and weaknesses on some level or the awareness and process has not been well defined. As a good example the self-control confines the zest and the passion of one group and the passion irritates the self-control and the prudence of the rest of the team."
However, Roger emphasised that in a truly high-performing team, members "will love each other's strengths, and they will know that they only get to be successful at what they do because there's someone else in the team who's really bombing it for their strengths."
As I listened to Roger, I couldn't help but reflect on the importance of fostering a culture of appreciation and mutual understanding within teams. We have to be prepared to let our natural reactions and bias not get the better of our judgments of others. Having a framework that is shared can help with this team awareness. This is part of the process we fold into our Team Rituals programmes.
"What we know about teams ultimately," he said, "is that if they recognise each other's strengths, welcome them, don't make them wrong, use them optimally, don't overuse them or under use them, then generally, that makes teams that are generally high performing and just really good to work in."
This notion of "using them optimally" did make me think about workload distribution and task assignment flow between colleagues being more related to strengths than to full job ownership. While it would take careful management and trust that team members are sharing and supporting equal workloads, it does make a lot of sense.
It's not enough to simply identify team members' strengths; managers must also learn how to harness those strengths in a way that benefits the team as a whole.
"You know, we go to work with a sense of vocation. So anyone who has a sense of vocation in what they do, which means it has a higher purpose than just a job or climbing the greasy pole, they have a sense of the impact this has in social or, for some people, even spiritual good in the world. Then usually you'll find that's the person who's using their strengths well and they belong to a team that does that too."
The discussion had me thinking of the powerful role Team Rituals might play in cultivating this sense of purpose and alignment within teams.
"Team Rituals create what some people call a liminal space," Roger explained. "It's like a slightly different form of reality in which the imaginal world that we carry within us all for a time is allowed to be expressed externally, in that designed and protected space of the Team Ritual, really, it contains that for us."
This description of creating a "liminal space" through Team Rituals resonated with me. I have seen the power of how establishing intentional practices and routines within a team can help foster a sense of shared purpose and collective focus. The science behind rituals supports this sense of removing us from business as usual and putting us in a space where we can pause, think clearly and act confidently towards a higher purpose. This pause time is so hard to foster in normal working environments as the constant flow of information, busyness and urgency effect can restrict our ability to think forwards and sharpen our tools.
"And that's why quite often you will find that various religions and spiritualities will have designs for creating this ‘liminal space’, but you'll also find that that's why some families will default to different kinds of rituals for dealing with different things that come up."
I relate to this from my own family experience and creating a ritual with my two boys when they were young to allow us all to find psychological confidence in admitting mishaps. This story was really pivotal to the relationship I have built with my sons, and it became a foundation for lots of my work with teams in the workplace. I plan to share this story and the associated ritual in the first chapter of my Ritual Playbook for managers. Maintaining the interpersonal relations with your team out of work is a real pillar of strength for managers when times get tough at work.
As our conversation continued, Roger shared insights into his own personal rituals, which he described as
"Probably the most important thing I do, that sets up absolutely everything else. Every morning, I wake up at 5 am, light a candle, and spend 1-2 hours journaling and meditating on spiritual classics. So at the moment, I'm meditating my way through the 14th century English classic the Cloud of Unknowing, which has had some lovely modern translations in recent years that really help understand contemplation and mindfulness and that side of life."
I have lots of respect for the intentionality and discipline behind Roger's morning ritual, and I couldn't help but wonder how a similar practice could be adapted for a team setting. In my work with teams I regularly use ‘alone together’ time. Where teams write individually in silence but in a group setting. It’s a great way to ensure every voice is heard and avoids confirmation bias and the loud voices - of which I am normally one - so I understand that bias well.
"And then I usually take 20 minutes at the end of that, and maybe later in the day as well. If I'm not too tired, where I will sit and contemplate in silence, just lift my heart up in love and sit in that and put aside anything else that comes to mind. No distractions. Phones are off. You're just there aligned to giving yourself that early time to calibrate yourself to get ready for the day."
"That's why I feel the need to get up so early to do it. And of course, that knocks on to later, because when you're going to get up and do that, then you have to go to bed early as well. So it hits a ritual on the other end of the day as well."
The idea of creating ritual programmes that span the entire day, from start to finish, would be a really powerful way to cultivate a sense of purpose, alignment, and collective focus within a team.
"And I'm very, very slowly, deliberately thinking my way through some of these classic texts that have inspired people for generations. I get a deep sense of insight from it. It feels like those are the most real moments of my life. It feels like that's the reality, and everything else just flattens out."
I reflected on what Roger shared. The importance of recognising and leveraging team members' character strengths and the transformative power of intentional rituals – these are simple themes that resonated deeply with me and my own experiences in leading high-performing teams.
To end with some specifics from our discussion: Point number 2 was a great discussion I had with Roger and I haven't covered in this interview, but I will in a future oost as it is well worth a good focus on it’s own.
I want to finish off this article with the words of positive psychologist Chris Peterson, who once said that "other people matter." This sentiment lies at the heart of building high-performing teams. We have to put time and process into recognising the inherent worth and value of each team member, and finding ways to leverage their unique strengths for the greater good.
Other people matter! Let’s keep that thought with us.
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