What Teams Get Wrong (and Why Strengths-Based Team Building Works)
In my work with leaders and their teams, I’ve heard this a lot: “We have talented people, but we’re not working together as well as we could.”
I see it across industries. A lack of skills isn’t what causes teams to fail. They’re struggling because they haven’t learned how to harness the unique Strengths of each member and align them toward a shared purpose.
That’s where Strengths-based team building comes in.
Why Strengths-Based Team Building Matters
When searching for growth, a lot of teams focus on fixing weaknesses or standardizing performance.
Strengths-based team building flips that script. Instead of asking “Where are we broken?” it asks: “Where are we brilliant, and how can we multiply that brilliance together?”
When applied at the team level, this approach builds the conditions needed for high performance by helping people:
– Name and claim their natural talents: turning unconscious behaviors into intentional contributions.
– Spot the interdependence of strengths: how one person’s Analytical precision strengthens another’s Futuristic vision.
– Transform conflict into creativity: seeing differences not as threats but as necessary tensions that spark better decisions.
– Develop a shared identity: shifting from “my work” to “our mission.”
CliftonStrengths® provides the framework for this transformation by outlining a team’s collective intelligence.
A team grid can reveal if a group is heavily weighted toward Executing talents but thin in Influencing, signaling a risk of burning out through hard work without gaining organizational buy-in.
Or, a team with abundant Relationship Building Strengths but few in Strategic Thinking may excel at culture but lack foresight.
This insight matters because Strengths operate in systems.
When teams learn to recognize both their patterns and their blind spots, they become more agile, innovative, and resilient in the face of change.
The International Coaching Federation describes the essence of team coaching as helping the team see itself as a single entity with its own identity, culture, and dynamics.
Scripture captures this same wisdom: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). Strengths-based philosophy embraces the differences among team members, knowing that the body is strongest when every part contributes fully.
Moving Beyond Traditional Team Building
Most leaders are familiar with team building exercises: offsites, icebreakers, and workshops designed to boost morale.
These generate short-term energy but rarely create lasting transformation. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) highlights that real team development exists on a spectrum: from training and facilitation at one end, to team coaching at the other.
Here’s the critical difference: team coaching doesn’t just create connection, it reshapes the team’s identity.
Instead of focusing only on surface-level communication, advanced team coaching digs beneath the visible layer into the team’s subsurface dynamics:
– What unspoken alliances or conflicts are shaping decisions?
– How are different personalities and Strengths amplifying (or clashing with) one another?
– What hidden assumptions are limiting innovation?
When viewed this way, the coach acts as a mirror, helping the team see itself clearly as one entity by identifying patterns and habits that either support or sabotage performance.
Strengths-based team building becomes the lever for this deeper work. A grid of team talents becomes a diagnostic tool:
– A team overloaded with Strategic Thinking Strengths may thrive at ideation but struggle with execution or influence.
– A group rich in Relationship Building may have cohesion but avoid hard accountability.
These insights let a leader re-balance responsibility, close performance gaps, and align talent with organizational goals.
This is where Strengths wisdom truly shines: it moves the conversation from “how do we get along better?” to “how do we intentionally design a culture where our collective gifts drive sustained results?”
The Role of ICF Team Coaching Competencies in Strengths-Based Team Building
While Strengths wisdom gives us the language of talent, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) provides the competency framework that helps teams apply those talents with rigor and integrity. Many leaders don’t realize that the ICF has developed a distinct set of Team Coaching Competencies, guidelines that elevate the practice beyond surface-level facilitation.
A few highlights include:
– Seeing the Team as the Client
In individual coaching, the client is a person. In team coaching, the client is the team as a single entity. This perspective shifts the focus from “Who’s right?” to “What helps the whole thrive?”
– Cultivating Trust and Safety
Effective team coaches build spaces where every voice is respected. This includes surfacing unspoken conflict, fostering participation, and codifying team norms for healthy interaction.
– Maintaining Presence in Complexity
A team coach balances many inputs at once: listening to what’s said, noticing body language, tracking energy, and guiding reflection without losing objectivity.
– Listening Systemically
Beyond hearing individuals, a team coach notices patterns in how members interact (alliances, blind spots, recurring tensions) and reflects those back to the group.
– Evoking Awareness and Growth
Coaches challenge assumptions, reframe conflict, and help teams turn new insights into actions that build resilience, accountability, and autonomy.
Together, these competencies ensure that strengths-based team building, which starts as a fun team activity, becomes a disciplined process of helping the team integrate its gifts for high-quality performance.
As I shared in my earlier blog, A Christian Perspective on ICF Coaching, these competencies also resonate with biblical wisdom, reminding us to practice humility, listen deeply, and see the team as a whole body made of many parts.
Advanced Approaches for Strengths-Based Team Building
Newer methods in team coaching use metaphors and data to unlock transformation. For example:
– Coach as Conductor: Just as an orchestra needs harmony, not uniformity, the team thrives when each member plays their part fully while attuning to others.
– The Empty Chair Exercise: This activity surfaces personal narratives, blind spots, and working styles that reshape how colleagues perceive one another.
– Strengths Grids with a System Lens: Advanced facilitation leads with curiosity. It asks: What’s the cost of over-relying on certain talents? Where do we need to intentionally develop counterbalances?
– Team Storytelling Practices: Rooted in council principles, teams practice listening and speaking from the heart, building the kind of belonging that fuels innovation.
These techniques build capacity for resilience, self-awareness, and continuous adaptation, the hallmarks of a truly high-performing team
Taking the Next Step
If you’re ready to move your team beyond surface-level connection into deeper collaboration and performance, there are practical tools to help.
One of my favorites is my Top 10 Strengths-Based Team Building Activities Infographic, which provides ready-to-use exercises for leaders, managers, and coaches. You can download it here: Top 10 Strengths-Based Activities.
Strengths-based team building is a great way of honoring the God-given talents in every person, fostering trust that lasts, and equipping teams to flourish in today’s complex world.
When leaders invest in this work, they don’t just create stronger teams. They create workplaces where people belong, contribute, and thrive.
