What's Your Team Player Style?

What’s Your Team Player Style
Dal Sohal, MA
Student Learning Commons

TEAM PLAYER
Brainstorm words and phrases that describe a team player

What is it
Parker Team Player
So What Does it Mean
A tool developed by Glenn Parker, to help you
identify the communication style you most often
apply to team work. The results can help you identify
ways to increase your effectiveness in a team.

About the Parker Team Player survey
• There is no way to “psych out” the survey;
your first impression is probably the best
answer.
• Go through the survey rapidly
• You can’t “fail” the survey or even get a “bad”
score
• You get to keep the booklet after the
workshop!

Now…
Take the survey

Understanding Your PTPS Scores
• Your highest score total in the last row is
considered your Primary Team Player Style.
• The range of scores is 18 – 72.
• A score in the high 50s or low 60s means you
are clearly committed to that style.
• If your lowest score, Least Active Team Player
Style, is in the low 30s or high 20s, you
probably clash with a team member for whom
it’s their primary style.

4 Team Player Styles
• Contributor is task oriented
• Collaborator is goal directed
• Communicator is process focused
• Challenger questions the goals and processes
of the team

Parker Team Player
So What Does it Mean
_____________________________________________________________________________
What is the ‘best’ style
– There is no ‘right’ or ‘best’ style. All four styles
can be effective under the right circumstances
– In fact, the most effective team players are able to
use the strengths of ALL styles, as required by the
team
– Each of us has the capacity to be effective team
player

Contributor – task oriented
__________________________________________________________________________
• Gets team to focus on short-term tasks.
• Likes detailed plan of action – tactical
• Provides data and information – likes to analyze and study
before moving ahead
• Likes to share knowledge and skills – often good at training
others
• Expects others to share their high expectations of quality work
• Dependable and timely

Collaborator – goal oriented
__________________________________________________________________________
– Gets team to focus on overall mission, vision and long
term outcomes
– Helpful in early stages of group formation, when the
team needs to become clear about its overall
purpose
– Helps team understand how its mission fits into the
larger strategy of an organization
– Willing to pitch in and do what it takes to reach the
team’s goal

Communicator – process focused
______________________________________________________________________________
• Cares about how people work and communicate together
with each other
• Often good facilitators & consensus builders; encourage
participation and inclusion, resolve conflict
• Often bring a sense of humour and help foster a positive team
climate
• Ensures team members get recognition: likely to plan social
activities and celebrations

Challenger – questions goals and processes
___________________________________________________________________________
• Questions what the team is doing and how it is
working on its tasks, willing to disagree with the
leader
• Asks tough questions
• Pushes the team to be more creative and innovative
• Suggests the team take some risks

In your Primary Team Player Style Group
_____________________________________________________________________________
Think about a time when your team style
helped your group. Share the example with
others of your same team style.

Parker Team Player Styles
PROBLEMS
Occur when team players take their strengths to excess or
become intolerant of members with other styles

When you get ineffective
• What does the Contributor do that makes
him or her ineffective
• What happens when a Collaborator goes into
overdrive
• What are some weaknesses of the
Communicator
• What are some of the ineffective behaviours
of the Challenger

Contributor – task oriented
__________________________________________________________________________
• Can get too focused on detail and forget the
overall purpose of the team
• Can impose too much data on the team; can
over analyze a problem, dismissing proposed
solutions as ‘not good enough’
• Can spend too much time working on
unhelpful or useless tasks

Collaborator – goal directed
_________________________________________________________________________________
• Can be so visionary that they overlook ‘practical’
implementation and important details
• Can be so focused on future, they overlook the work
that needs to be done now
• Can fail to include others in the development of the
team’s purpose

Communicator – process focused
______________________________________________________________________________
• Can focus so much on ensuring people get along and
enjoy themselves that they lose sight of group’s
purpose and goals
• Can forget that we don’t form teams for people to
get along, we form them to accomplish a task, and
sometimes constructive conflict can generate good
results
• Can avoid conflict to excess

Challenger – questions goals and processes
___________________________________________________________________________
• Can push too far, argue long after consensus has
been reached
• Can lose their effectiveness, because people stop
listening to them as they appear in constant
opposition to the team’s efforts
• Can sometimes pick a fight, just because they enjoy
disagreement, not because they truly disagree with
the group’s decisions.

An Effective Team
Includes All Four Styles
Contributor
Collaborator
Communicator
Challenger

Analyze Your Team
1. Look for style overload
2. One style is missing

Analyzing Your Team
Name/Style Contributor Collaborator Communicator Challenger
Ben 50 42 49 39
Emily 48 40 48 44
Vince 49 43 42 46
Jan 59 46 30 45
Lynn 49 42 46 43
Helene 44 55 36 45

Develop a Plan (p. 18)
___________________________________________________________________________
• My main strengths as a team player…
• My strengths show up on the job in the following
ways…
• My potential for becoming an ineffective team player
show up on the job in the following ways…
• I can become a more effective team player by doing
the following…