Knowing Me, Knowing You…
Mamma Mia (the original and Here we go again), are my 7 year old daughter’s favourite films and she wanders round the house singing the songs. This morning, “Knowing Me, Knowing You” was the song of choice.
Listening to the lyrics got me thinking:
Knowing me, knowing you (a-ha)
There is nothing we can do
Knowing me, knowing you (a-ha)
We just have to face it
This time we’re through
Bet you’re singing along now aren’t you?! Well I don’t know who they were writing about when ABBA wrote this song back in 1977 but clearly they hadn’t gone through an Insights programme because if they had, they would have understood that it’s not actually true that there’s nothing we can do 😊
In actual fact, there’s lots we can do and it’s all about understanding each other and learning how to adapt behaviour and style to meet the needs of another person. Had they spent some time in a workshop exploring this, maybe they wouldn’t have had to face inevitable heartbreak and breakup…. !
Seriously though, how often do we come across someone in our world who we just lock horns with, someone where you just don’t see eye to eye? So many times in my Insights workshops, I see delegates who are really struggling with someone, inside or outside of work, and by the end of the session, the penny drops and they totally understand why. Once they reach this stage, we start to work on what to do about it. Recognising your own style and behaviours is only the first step to truly improving your relationships with others, there are 3 more steps:
Once you truly understand yourself and you can recognise strengths in others, then in a team dynamic, you quickly learn to lean into others strengths and to work together.
Insights isn’t about putting people in boxes or about understanding what you’re not good at, it’s about understanding who you are, how you show up, what makes you tick, where your energy comes from, what you bring to the team and what are your greatest strengths.
Just imagine being part of a team which is open about all of this, a team which is really honest with each other about how things work, about how they show up when under pressure, about how they like to be communicated with, about what motivates them and about how they get along, how great would that be?
For me, Henry Ford summed it up beautifully:
So go on, invest in yourself and your team, what do you have to lose? You might find you have absolutely everything to gain.
