“Call Me” is a favorite team building activity here at Forte. During this exercise, members of a team meet as a group and team members one by one complete the sentence, “You can call me any time to… .” So each shares something they are energized by that they are always happy to talk about or help with, and also which of their Significant 7 strengths is most connected to that activity.
You might think that participants typically state the obvious, based on their job responsibilities, when sharing what they can be called on for. At least, that’s what I expected when I first heard about this activity. Once I starting including this in workshops, though, I quickly discovered that many of the things employees want to be called on for are quite unexpected and remarkable!
For example, I recently facilitated a strengths-based workshop for a small team of five who know each other pretty well and have a very healthy work culture, and included Call Me. One amazing guy on the team, who handles retail operations, said, “Call me if you need someone to be inconvenienced. I don’t mind accommodating so please ask me to do this rather than someone else who might be stressed out.” He said that this offer tapped into his strengths of Flexibility and Compassion.
A woman on the team in an administrative role said she would love to use her strengths of Creativity and Compassion more and encouraged the others to call her any time to brainstorm new ideas and come up with solutions to problems. And another, who serves in a client relations position, said she’d gladly take a call to proofread or edit work written by others on her team—an enjoyable way to use her strength of Self-confidence.
Thanks to Call Me, these five co-workers gained some important insight about one another that will help them function even better than they had been, and that will lead to even greater success.