Introduction
Imagine a team composed of successful individuals from various fields such as sports and business. How would this team look and work together? Who would be its leader? Who would be the thinkers and who would be the doers? These types of questions will be answered in this case study about Team Profile Analyzer (TPA), which presents the analysis of the personality profiles of 16 extraordinary and successful figures from British public life, prepared by Saville Consulting.
Our longtime and deep-rooted experience with teamwork proves that the most crucial factor in teamwork is the appropriate selection and allocation of team positions to the best and most suitable individuals. Along these lines, some of the most crucial factors are the personal and professional characteristics of each team member. Also, teams composed of only the best and most successful individuals are exposed to the same risks regarding team organization and collaboration as any other team. It is necessary to adapt team roles to the personality profiles, or any other necessary characteristics, of team members as well as of subteams. This setting enables teams to be developed and led towards high-quality and effective collaboration.
Team description
Saville Consulting asked 16 extraordinary figures from various fields of British public life to cooperate within a unique project named Talent; for example football player Ray Wilkins, Stanley Bowles and Ron Harris, runner Sonia O´Sullivan, entrepreneurs Meredith Belbin and Ajaz Ahmed, scientist Ronald Stouffer and many others.
Main issues and approach
First, 16 figures of British public life completed Saville Wave personality questionnaires, which focus on management and leadership qualities of individuals in business contexts. In the next step, these 16 personality profiles were analyzed by Team Profile Analyzer. A unique feature of this software is its compatibility with any type of psychological or organizational data.
Results
The sociomap of profile similarity shows that analyzed individuals have formed 2 groups: one consists of figures, whose profiles are unique and they are not close to others (the blue area) and the second group consists of individuals, whose profiles are similar to each other, which is also illustrated by mutual proximity (right bottom corner). Among individuals with unique profiles are Meredith Belbin and Ajaz Ahmed, who are both close to each other in part to their entrepreneurship. Also grouped close together are meteorologist Ronald Stouffer and olympian Sonia O´Sullivan and athletes Stan Bowles and Mark Ramprakash, as shown by the white delimited clusters illustrating mutual coherences.
Entrepreneurs Ajaz Ahmed and Meredith Belbin don´t show particularly high performance, but in return they have enormous influence and are intellectual and innovative, as any good manager and business leader should be. Meteorologist Ronald Stouffer is a very intelligent person, but as a scientist with a particular specialization, attitudes and methodology, he is not very adaptable. On the other hand top athletes Gareth Edwards and Ron Harris are not particularly intellectual, but their performance is excellent.
Another unique feature of Team Profile Analyzer is its ability to statistically compare variously defined subgroups and subteams and find among them significant differences within the analyzed characteristics. In our analysis, figures of British public life were divided and analyzed in relation to branches of their activities (athletes and entrepreneurs) and also according to leadership characteristics, which are typical for them (intellectual and business leaders).
Comparison of entrepreneurs (A) and athletes (B) shows differences in two characteristics. As shown in the colorful column in the field Significance, or P-Value close to zero, these characteristics are Thought and Delivery. The average values of both groups, displayed in fields Average A and B, shows that while athletes are better than entrepreneurs in performance and delivering results, entrepreneurs are significantly better in intellect.
The group of business leaders Ajaz Ahmed, Jeremy Snape and Cary Cooper is compared to others characterized by high intellect and influence, which illustrates the importance of innovations and influence in enterprise and business.
Conclusion
The case study shows that in the group of successful individuals, it is possible to explore the specific personality and social patterns that made them extraordinary persons. For this purpose Team Profile Analyzer offers a number of useful and comprehensible tools, which enable you to analyze teams as well as personality profiles and to work with them effectively.
TPA can visualize relations and similarities among personality and team profiles in the form of an interactive graphic model, known as a sociomap. Sociomaps enable you to intuitively analyze the structure and dispositions of team members in various personality characteristics, based on any type of psychometric data. A part of TPA is also a 3D module, which enables you to “enter” into the team landscape and to work with the results of the analysis in a completely new way. TPA is a tool, which can explore hidden team qualities and thus develop and support the team thanks to advanced analyses and comprehensible visualization of results. TPA provides unique and priceless feedback for any team.