What was your first team experience….?

No…, your first team experience wasn’t with the girl / boy scouts or the yearbook team in high school or a sport’s team it wasn’t even your first team experience at work.

Your FIRST TEAM was your family of origin.

Your family of origin is where you learned about relating to others, completing tasks, how to treat other team members and how to interact with the world.  Your “family team” is where you first experienced a myriad of emotions and observable behaviors. Even if there was a lack of emotions or your contact with your family was minimal, these early experiences have still influenced you both positively and negatively.

Our FIRST TEAM dynamics can have a strong influence on the way we see ourselves, the way we interact with others and help to establish our view of the world. These first team experiences we take with us into the workplace.

The patterns we learned in our family often show up within teams and are often missed by leaders. To understand team dynamics, it is helpful to understand how our past family of origin experiences get played out in the workplace.  Some family patterns can turn into career derailers.

eTIP: DON’T LET YOUR FAMILY PATTERNS BECOME YOUR CAREER DERAILERS

Here are 3 things you can do:

  1. AWARENESS: Become aware of your family patterns that you are taking into work that may be limiting your career success. Request Feedback.
  2. EDUCATION: Educate yourself on family patterns and take some time to reflect on the things that you carry with you from your family. Learn More.
  3. OWNERSHIP: Ultimately, you control what things from the past you carry around with you. Identify the things that are working for you and what things are potential career derailers for you. Address them.