An Independent Consultant’s View on Birkman’s Virtual and In-Person Team Workshop

About the Consultant

Billy Bennett, the founder of Pyramid ODI, has been a Birkman Certified Consultant since 2017 but has been leading organizational change for more than 30 years. His clients span across the United States, Europe, and South America, and consist of Siemens, Nike, General Electric, and Goodyear. As an organizational development coach, Bennett is hired by global companies to develop leaders, manage team conflict, and help employees utilize their strengths.

Workshop Highlights (According to Bennett)

• Solid Content goes well beyond theory and into very practical application.
• Virtual delivery allows for faster and deeper engagement.
• The Birkman data within High-Performing Teams creates 

The Workshop in Action

Because the workbooks are personalized with Birkman data, Bennett can spend extra time designing ways to increase engagement, customizing the conversations for each team, and focusing on their unique challenges and pain points.

Depending on each team and their conversations, Bennett may break the workshop up into five, two-hour sections or more. He feels that once the teams get through the first section on Purpose, they better understand their “why” and what they are working towards. 

The second section focuses on role clarity. Because this team he was working with was new, many individuals did not have a role definition or clarity on who to report to, which happens with most cross-functional teams. 

The third section is revolved around Psychological Safety. “This is really where the teams realize they have issues that have never been brought to the surface,” Bennett said. He uses Survey Monkey to put together an anonymous questionnaire to determine what Psychological Safety currently looks like on the team. He shares the information during the program, which he finds is more meaningful and powerful.

“This team had very low psychological safety, which I see in most teams I work with,” Bennett stated. “In this case, 66 percent agreed that if they made a mistake on the team, it was held against them.”

Each team that Bennett has worked with finds that after this discussion, the individuals are more open to the vulnerable conversations that are had in the program, bringing the teams closer together. Along the way, Bennett reinforces the top three strengths of each individual, why different perspectives matter, and how you can be others aware. He then delves into the Interests and Needs.