What jogging tells us about team dynamics

I think it’s fair to say that most people walk the same way. With the odd exception it’s rare to be wandering down the street and pass someone and think ‘okay, that’s something different’.

Jogging though.

I have always been baffled by how despite everyone basically walking the same, when it comes to jogging… it’s just an absolute minefield of idiosyncrasies. Given it’s basically walking sped up a bit, what happens? Everyone, and I fully include myself here, jogs in a weird way. Think you don’t? You do.

Okay, where’s this going? Fair question.

Last week everyone at 50 Degrees got together in person in Oxford to chew the fat, plan for the year ahead, make sure we‘re on track… and yes, drink a few cocktails (and mocktails). In the afternoon session, our Head of People and Wellbeing, Matt Wells, ran a session on the GC Index. What’s that?

Okay, I’ll try and summarise in a couple of lines! The GC Index is a way of discovering what motivates people at work – and identifies some of your preferred ways of working. You fill in a questionnaire, the math elves do some very clever stuff… and there you go, you learn about your ‘proclivities’ (their term, not mine!).

Matt’s session looked at the different proclivities of the 50D team, helping us to understand a bit more about what motivates different people, and to get an appreciation of how people with different proclivities can better understand each another’s approach. Sensible stuff.

To be candid, it occurred to me that on a standard day, despite people having different proclivities, this sort of thing isn’t much of an issue. Common sense and the merest degree of emotional intelligence sees you through.

That said, bid development is a deadline driven industry. Does that come with pressure? Yes. Does the bid deadline make everything feel like it’s ‘sped up a bit’. Yes. Am I making a tenuous link between bidding and jogging? Yes.

But is is fair to say when the pressure of the deadline hits, that’s where we all reveal our idiosyncrasies both individually and collectively, and the potential for frustration with others can creep in.

Again, to be candid. I’ve never been an advocate of the old school personality profile stuff. But the GC Index does genuinely feel like a practical, useful tool. Ultimately, it’s our job to develop and submit the highest quality bid that we can for our clients. And optimising how we work as a team can only help that.

So while I won’t be consulting the GC Index scores on a daily basis, I can absolutely see the value in taking a look to see how I can communicate better with my team mates when the next deadline inevitably hoves into view.

John Ashworth
Managing Consultant