The Career Upside Team Process

#1 - Define the Team Goal

Start with a leadership consultation:

• Discuss your team's current challenges and goals
• Identify communication, trust, role clarity, or performance issues
• Define what success should look like
• Recommend the right team process and session structure
• Determine whether the session should be in person or virtual

#2 - Assess the Team

Each team member completes the Birkman Method assessment:

• Complete the online Birkman questionnaire in 30-45 minutes
• Measure interests, usual behavior, needs, and stress behavior
• Identify individual strengths and potential blind spots
• Prepare data for individual coaching and team discussion
• Build a foundation for better communication and collaboration

#3 - Coach Each Team Member One-on-One

Every participant receives an individual review before the team session:

• Review each person's Birkman results privately in a 60-90 minute session
• Help team members understand their strengths and needs
• Discuss communication style and potential stress behavior
• Prepare each person to participate more openly in the group session
• Give leaders and team members a shared language for working together

#4 - Identify Team Patterns for Discussion

Review the team data before the group session:

• Identify shared strengths and possible overused strengths
• Look for communication patterns across the team
• Understand how the team handles directness, conflict, and authority
• Explore how the team approaches structure, follow-through, and change
• Identify differences in pace, focus, flexibility, and decision-making
• Review motivational patterns that may affect collaboration, competition, recognition, and team-first behavior
• Prepare the team session around the issues that matter most

Many team challenges show up in a few predictable areas. Some teams struggle with how directly people speak up. Others struggle with structure, follow-through, changing priorities, or slow versus fast decision-making.

For business teams, these patterns often affect meetings, accountability, communication, collaboration, and execution. For sports and athletic teams, motivational patterns can also influence how athletes respond to competition, recognition, playing time, leadership roles, and the balance between individual achievement and team success.

#5 - Facilitate the Team Session

Bring the team together to turn insight into better performance:

• Review team strengths, motivators, and communication patterns
• Explore how individual styles affect team chemistry
• Discuss where friction, misunderstanding, or stress may show up
• Focus the discussion on the team dynamics most likely to affect performance
• Use printed notebooks for in-person sessions or a Basecamp folder for virtual sessions
• Help the leader understand how to coach each person more effectively

#6 - Commit & Follow Through

Move from awareness to action:

• Identify practical changes the team can make immediately
• Clarify communication expectations and working agreements
• Create team commitments around trust, feedback, and collaboration
• Provide next-step recommendations for the leader
• Use the reports as a working tool for coaching and team development

#7 - Continue the Coaching

Go deeper as the team evolves:

• Revisit Birkman insights as new challenges, roles, or conflicts emerge
• Coach leaders on how to apply the data in real-time management situations
• Support team members through communication, trust, and performance issues
• Use deeper Birkman reports to explore additional layers of behavior, motivation, and stress
• Help the team apply the data to hiring, onboarding, leadership development, or succession planning
• Provide ongoing coaching through a monthly or quarterly retainer, depending on client needs

The initial team session creates awareness and shared language. Ongoing coaching helps the leader and team apply those insights over time, especially when pressure increases, priorities change, or new people join the team.