As a fully remote team, London Plus hosts staff days in London regularly so we can meet, reflect and reconnect. Last week, we all got together in Moorgate and spent part of our day learning from a fun temperament-type exercise.
Team temperaments
What is your ‘temperament’? This was the question we explored together.
The purpose of this exercise was to help us better understand each other and the ways we work. Understanding your colleagues is an important step towards more effective teamwork.
There are four temperaments, namely Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic and Phlegmatic.
These temperaments are named after the old Greek medical practice ‘Humourism’, a now-disregarded theory that bodily fluids affect human health and mood. This explains the off-putting names (I’m looking at you, Phlegmatic!).
Interestingly, most of the team fell into the ‘Melancholic’ or ‘Phlegmatic’ temperaments. These tend to be people who are more introverted. Meanwhile, a few people fell into the ‘Choleric’ and ‘Sanguine’ temperaments, and these types are generally more extroverted. It’s far from an exact science but does offer a way of understanding yourself and others.
This unique exercise was both fun and informative. Bearing our different temperaments in mind in our working lives could help us to adapt and improve our ways of working together. Time will tell on that one, but we strongly recommend discovering your temperaments with your own teams. Or, should I say, finding your ‘sense of humour’.
Embracing my temperament
As for me? Well, my temperament was Phlegmatic, with a side of Choleric. I was quite surprised to have fallen into the Choleric category. But, in the moment, those were the temperaments I scored highest in.
Perhaps my current focuses had an effect on my score, perhaps not. Either way, since scoring highly on Choleric I have begun to recognise some different personal characteristics.
Persistence, self-reliance, and determination are all Choleric cornerstones. They’re also things I see in myself, and can be good or bad depending on the situation. For example, self-reliance can be beneficial, but does mean I often won’t ask for help when I need it.
I had the opportunity to explore these things in our meeting. It gave me a better understanding of how I work as part of a team, allowing me to play to my strengths and recognise my weaknesses.
It’s not all about tasks
Meetings aren’t always about tasks, though. Given that we all work from home, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to make meetings ‘worth it’.
How do you make a meeting as purposeful as possible? Do you take the time to get through loads of tasks, keeping to a strict minute-by-minute agenda to be as productive as possible? What does it even mean for a meeting to be ‘worth it’?
Sometimes it is all about productivity, and that can be a good thing. Other times, a simple team dialogue is the most effective use of your time.
We spent a lot of our meeting chatting and catching up about things both inside and outside of work. We found that was just as valuable as task-based activities and ultra-productive teamwork sessions.
So, while London Plus has team members across all four temperaments, I think I can speak for everyone when I say this was a helpful meeting. It doesn’t matter if you are Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic or Phlegmatic, every team benefits from having a good chat.
