How Can Our Team Best Utilize Our Top Character Strengths? - with Michael Balchan on Optimize Coach

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So I knew I found my tribe because you're talking via language and positivity. So I just sent this out to my entire team of six or seven people with the company that I do consulting with for them to all take their via assessment. And what I want to find out is what is a good way to start using this as a team to help support everyone as they start living into their via assessment.

I Love it. Welcome, Dr. Lisa. Were you on for the first person today? Okay, perfect.

No, no, no. I got on just. You were my first thing today.

Okay, perfect. So we. The first question was related to via. So there will be some nuggets there but we can go deeper into it.

I'm sorry, Michael. The first person I thought I had missed the speaking thing. The very first person who spoke today. Yes, I was.

Okay, perfect.

What made me think of this?

So we'll go then deeper into the teams and gosh, these bookshelves. You have got color coordination too. That's next level. That is like home edit.

Home edit.

Can't I. I mean, I'm just like. And love that you got the six year and they changed, didn't they, from six years ago to.

Yes. So three of my top five are the same. Two of them have changed. So now it's love, humor, curiosity, zest and love of learning.

And what were they? Do you have that?

Let me keep talking. I'll find it because it's here on my desk.

That's okay.

Sometimes I'm organized. No, it's literally organized. They were humor, love of learning, kindness, bravery and zest. So kindness and bravery were replaced by curiosity and love.

And do you when you think back on the past six years, is that a good reflection of what has been prioritized for you?

I really think it's accurate. Humor was number one. Now it's number two. And that makes sense for me. It'll probably be in the top two forever because I just come from kind of a zany family anyway. But I just think it's a pressure release. I use it in coaching, I use it in facilitating and this helped me so much because I work with a partner who doesn't use humor. And so when we're doing groups and he wants everyone to sit in silence and have this moment. And I see people starting to sweat because the silence is now making them nauseous. I break it with humor to get them back engaged. And he would say, you shouldn't do that. It's okay for people to sit in silence. I was like, it's not. If they're ready to vomit, then it's not good. If they're looking like they're gonna pass out, it's not good. And so I went back to my virtues and realized that's what I use it for, and that's why it works for me. And it might not work for him. He's gotta find his thing, right?

So that is absolutely perfect. My guess is you don't know his virtues.

No, but I will today. Cause he took it this morning when I sent it. He was the first one to take them.

Oh, love it. If you. Do you have a list of, like, the 25. I don't actually remember the 25 top of head, but I bet there is one that some degree of, like, stillness, silence, like presence, whatever. Whatever. The. The quality that he's trying to create in that. Let's be quiet, whatever, is going to be one of his top ones. And Shannon spoke to this. She's like, look, my partners. One of my partner's top virtues is like orderliness or timeliness or something. And so she's like, he's doing his thing. And I started to get angry because I'm over here, say, wait a minute, this is actually him demonstrating this virtue that's important to him. And I'm having a reaction that's we've got our relationship, whatever it is. But it's almost like saying that thing that you do so well that is such a strength for you. I don't like it. It's like, well, no one wants to hear that.

Nobody wants to hear that.

So when we. Particularly in our teams, when we can see the values, the virtues that are important to them, it can both help us view their behavior, particularly the things that we don't enjoy or think might be open for optimizations. But see, oh, they're doing that because that's such a strength of theirs. And I'm not going to get mad at this guy for not running meetings with humor, because that's the thing that he. I'm going to see. Can there be a way for both of us to. Or can I find another strength of his, the second, third, or fourth strength that, like tango, is really well, with humor and celebrate that one. So knowing their strength can help us get a sense of their behaviors. And then again being able to see and celebrate when they're doing something, particularly those strengths that you want to see them cultivate more of, I'm sure. You know, but quickest way to help other people change their behavior is just to celebrate the bliss out of the thing that they do that you want them to do more of.

And like, actually, like, celebrate the bliss. Celebrate the bis will work too.

And it's like even like above and beyond, where if, let's say somebody does something, they do a report in a certain kind of way, or they, they show up and have a conversation to a person, that's. Wow, that was so, so, so good. I'm so impressed. I love that you did this. I love that you brought this virtue or brought the strength or you're willing to do this report. Gosh, the title is great. Whatever. However you want to celebrate that thing that they did. And then the next day. Oh, man, I was just thinking this morning about how great you did with that thing. That was such a good. I'm so proud. Like, I'm so grateful that you did that.

And.

And then one week later, hey, remember last week when you did that? That was so good. I love it when we get that kind of feedback, that celebration multiple times. It's like, oh, you're darn sure I'm going to try and do more of that in the future. Because that was like, she talked about it a week later. That was amazing. So in the context of virtues, and maybe someone's got a number one, you don't want them to actually bring as powerfully to the workforce or different engagements, but their number two, three, four things. You're like, if my whole team was doing this a ton, that'd be amazing. I'm going to look for opportunities to see them demonstrating that. I'm going to celebrate it, and then I'm going to celebrate it again and I'm going to celebrate it again. And just when they do, those behaviors that you want to see more of that are alignment with the virtues that you want to cultivate as an organization? And maybe it's. You're bringing all your virtues together. One, here's our virtues that we have as a team. Doesn't it make more sense now that Charlie is always quiet over there and Clarice is always doing her thing with whatever and then coming up with a cult? Like, what do we think are our top five organizationally that we want to strive to embody on a more and more consistent basis? Those are a couple ways that you might play with it. I love that you sent the test already to the team.

They should be coming back. Our meeting is in 30 minutes and I'm expecting to have more coming back, but I'm so excited about this. And just quickly, one of the things that I love about how Optymyze operates and how you and Brian operate. I do work sometimes in diversity, inclusion and engagement. And we hear a term cultural competency, and we don't use the word competency because it's like threatening and it's like, who is really competent when it comes to something that's ever changing, like culture? So we use cultural. We want people to be culturally responsive. And that's kind of the vibe I get from Optymyze. It's being responsive. It's being willing to kind of take a risk and be wrong about something. Ask so you can get it right for the person you're dealing with. Because people say, are you black, African American? What are you? And I'm like, that's a very good question today. You have to ask to kind of know what's working now. And if we stay in a curious mindset of being responsive, that's possible. And that's one of the things that I love about this tribe. It's that desire to be so curious that we're okay risking it's safe enough and courageous enough for us to be wrong here because we're willing to learn what's going to work.

Oh, full body. Goosebumps. Thank you. And I love that responsiveness. And it's another full body, the willingness to. It's almost like whatever currently is present moment, zero control over, like, not only zero control over, like, can't change it. It is what it is. But am I willing to care more about that next moment and care less about who I was and how I showed up and the thing that I thought that I knew and the way that whatever. And care more about what do I want? What kind of relationship do I want going forward? How do I want relation, just connections to go going forward. And can I let go of any sort of shame or guilt or misconceptions, whatever it is, and care so much about the future that I'm willing to say, okay, let me respond. There's new information coming in here. I didn't even know that was a thing. And now that I know and, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to update this, this, this, and I'm not going to do it perfectly, but I'm willing to have the conversation to be in that process, the co creative process. So I love that, love that language around responsiveness and thank you for the feedback and hereby commit to continuing to do that to the best of our ability indefinitely. So thank you.

Can I jump in on this one really quick?

You're like a culture nerd. This is your thing.

Yeah, I am. And for those of you that don't know me, I'm Jana. I'm with Team Optimize. I look after our impact and culture. And so Lisa, I'm like super geeking out with you and everybody else on this particular thing and wanted to share also two ways in which I've used this in team environments. So at Optimize, we track everybody's via virtues. It's like we know each other, we celebrate each other when we have a new team member. Sorry. Doing that assessment and then sharing it with the team is like literally how we introduce people, which is really fun. Like this is, you know, so and so here's their values and it's kind of a thing we all geek out on. But in previous teams, I've used that and had people exactly like you're doing take it, share it, and actually sit down together and kind of share their top five. And have had other members of the team reflect back how they see those virtues, which has been a really powerful like, yeah, I see that in action here. And just giving kind of a roundtable thing like that. And similarly, I've used those lesser strengths, as I believe they're called the lower ones, from an HR perspective, just in sort of helping mentor people also. So you can often look at those lower strengths and do exactly what Michael had said about combining them with a higher strength when you're doing like the professional development, mentorship type things too. So.

Got it. Thank you. I love that.

Thank you. Good luck in your meeting.

I absolutely love that because I did a love circle with a group once where they put their. It was their coach of a basketball team. They put her in the center of the circle because she was having a really bad time. She had made some decisions that weren't good. So she was feeling awful. But I had her entire team circle her and they had to go around telling her one thing that they loved about her, one thing they admired about her, and it just broke her down in a good way and lifted her up at the same time. So I love that because it basically creates that circle to do the virtues in a circle. So thank you. I'm going to do that.

Yeah. Tell us how it goes. That's awesome.

Yana, you got to find a time on team optimized calendar for our virtuous circle table. Whatever you call it, I love that. And also the, you know, even thinking about the lower, the lesser expressed virtues and I'm just as convinced of like this person's demonstrating their virtue that I actually don't love how it's changing the energy of the mean, like, wow, why is this person never doing this? Oh my goodness. That is not a virtue that comes after them. Cool. This isn't because they're ignoring this or they're willfully doing it and probably that is a skill that we could spend some time cultivating. So using the virtues for a development. By the way, anyone with a coaching client, great idea to have them take the via character strengths test and share the results with you so you can see when they are doing those things that are natural to them, they're putting their virtues in action. Celebrate them the same way we're talking about as a team. And when they've got things that aren't as strong, you can help them cultivate those to the extent that they're holding them back. So I love that.

We hope you enjoyed that. Part of a live coaching session from the optimize Coach program. For more info, head to optimize Me coach.