Understanding the Grip-Birkman
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What Value Could Come from this Tool?
1. The “Pull-apart” process — the GBB gives the opportunity, in a truly unique way, to separate that which is natural/ behaviors (the Birkman Method®) from the supernatural/spiritual gifts (Your Leadership Grip).
2. The “power” language helps people more intentionally hone in on their primary three/four spiritual gifts. Put simply: there are many things that you do well, but only two or three or four where the power of God shows up on a consistent basis. And because you are forced to look at your spiritual gifts from three distinct sets of language (Equipping/Supporting gifts, Team Styles and Primary Functions of Stewardship), it means that you come up with more accurate insights as to how you are powerful in the Spirit.
3. The principle of “making a sober estimate” in Romans 12:3 is core to the Grip/Birkman Blueprint process. Trained GBB coaches enable people to go deeper in understanding who they are naturally from birth (Psalm 119:13-14) and how they are powerfully gifted to fit into the Body life ministry (Romans 12:4-6).
4. There is an intrinsic “I to we” paradigm shift process built into the Grip/Birkman Blueprint. Many American Christians have a difficult time moving beyond their own individualized priorities into meaningful community/body life. We assume that 95% of believers in the West must go through an intentional process of learning to move from I to we in building and leading church plant or ministry teams — even small groups. The three critical questions that help this process are: By God’s design: Where are you powerful? How are you weak? Who do you need?
5. GBB looks at stewardship in three distinct categories:
* stewardship of who I am as leader — powerful strengths, intrinsic weaknesses, and who I need around me
* stewardship of who we are as team — same three areas above shared, understood and worked into body life application
* stewardship of who we are as “groups of we” -- putting together all the teams or groups within a church or ministry brings greater clarity as to the whole of God’s economy for the Kingdom.
Leadership is a series of functions carried out by a group of people, not just a job filled by one person. Leaders are commonly strong in two or three of these five areas: values keepers, team builders, listeners, vision sharers and equippers. The dynamic part of your leadership style grows from your spiritual gifting. There are many things that you do well, but only two or three that you do powerfully on a consistent basis. Finally, you will look at how your gifts function in a team setting.
Your Leadership Grip, a workbook that gives the Christian leader a chance to identify his or her spiritual gifts from three different angles and five different assessments. In addition, the leader is also able to identify where he is weak and who he needs alongside to make him (and them) stronger as a team. The goal? “Leader, rather than trying to be a visionary leader, a manager by objectives, or a leader who looks just like your mentor, how about first making a sober estimate of who you already are -- powerful strengths – and also your weaknesses, which simply reveal who you need.” And many leaders are doing just that.
The Birkman Method® consists of a 298-question personality assessment and a series of related report sets that facilitate team building, executive coaching leadership development, career counseling and interpersonal conflict resolution. The Birkman Method® combines motivational, behavioral and interest evaluation into one single assessment, which provides a multi-dimensional and comprehensive analysis, thus reducing the need for multiple assessments. The questionnaire is delivered on-line and should take about 45 minutes to complete. It has been translated into 11 languages in addition to English.
Through a combination of regression and factor analysis, The Birkman Method® identifies the respondent's everyday interpersonal style (usual behavior), and unlike most other popular assessments, gives unique insights into underlying motivations and needs. Stress behaviors are identified when these needs are not met. Knowing the underlying motivations and the consequences of unmet needs give the coach, consultant, counselor and organizational development professional an effective way to improve workplace performance and reduce conflict.
In brief, The Birkman Method® includes the five following major perspectives:
1. Usual Behavior - an individual's effective behavioral style of dealing with relationships and tasks.
2. Underlying Needs - an individual's expectations of how relationships and social situations should be governed in context of the relationship or situation.
3. Stress Behaviors - an individual's ineffective style of dealing with relationships or tasks; behavior observed when underlying needs are not met.
4. Interests - an individual's expressed preference for job titles based on the assumption of equal economic rewards.
5. Organizational Focus - the perspective in which an individual views problems and solutions relating to organizational goals.
The Birkman Method® is delivered on-line. You can access a variety of different reports and have the flexibility to combine reports specific to your needs. These insightful reports are designed to be used by Birkman Certified Consultants and those that have received training in The Birkman Method®.
History of the Grip Birkman Blueprint
by Dr. Paul Ford
Founder of the Grip Birkman Blueprint
Author of Your Leadership Grip
It has taken me fifteen years, but I finally have found a way to help Christians and Christian leaders to discover the whole of who they are, from baseline personality to powerful spiritual gifts…from underlying motivational needs even to gift liabilities! But first, the background….
In 1986, I started developing ways for lay Christians to discover and fulfill their God-designed roles in or beyond the local church. The Mobilizing Spiritual Gifts series was the result of that eight-year effort, with the title of one of my workbooks telling the story: "Getting Your Gifts in Gear". Organic body life began for many Christians and churches, with many believers discovering and playing their God-prepared parts for the first time.
But by the mid 1990’s it was very clear that thousands of Christian leaders were the ones blocking the door to effective lay mobilization. So I started doing teambuilding seminars with ministry teams to help those leaders build strong teams by first understanding the ministry identities of their players. As they first became good stewards of their own gifts, leaders also became more intentional in equipping and releasing others to play their gifted parts. They became good stewards of “who we are.”
Many a leader quit worrying about how to be that “visionary leader” and got back to the biblical business of equipping and releasing the saints for the work of ministry. The workbook Discovering Your Ministry Identity (DYMI) has become a strategic resource for helping leaders to assess themselves and their team members in six different areas – from spiritual gifts to ministry burdens or passions – and therein discover how “who I am affects who we are.” Body life functioning realized its dependence upon every person playing his or her part.
But I continued to be incredibly frustrated with leaders beyond training effective lay mobilization and intentional teambuilding. Then, in 1999, I got to the heart of why many leaders were not equipping and releasing others: the majority of leaders (as high as 70%) do not clearly understand who they are in Christ! Many were never trained to be good stewards of their gifts. It was out of this frustration that I developed Your Leadership Grip, a workbook that gives the Christian leader a chance to identify his or her spiritual gifts from three different angles and five different assessments. In addition, the leader is also able to identify where he is weak and who he needs alongside to make him (and them) stronger as a team. My goal? “Leader, rather than trying to be a visionary leader, a manager by objectives, or a leader who looks just like your mentor, how about first making a sober estimate of who you already are -- powerful strengths – and also your weaknesses, which simply reveal who you need.” And many leaders are doing just that.
But one more piece yet needed to be fit into helping people discover their God-designed blueprint for living at the deepest level. In mid 1996, I became a consultant for a personality profiling tool called The Birkman Method.
Based on Psalm 139:13 and developed by a dear Christian friend, Dr. Roger Birkman, this highly sophisticated resource was already well-known to corporations like Microsoft, Ford and Sprint – but not in the Christian community. Its quality was Cadillac, but so was its pricing! [Most churches concerned about identifying personality traits simply used less expensive tools – and with less depth than the Birkman Method.]. It was during this time that I began to use Birkman’s report sets with individual leaders alongside my “spiritual assessments” because I wanted to discover the whole person: personality AND gifting.
It slowly dawned on me, over a seven-year process, that a Christian has two distinctive patterns going on in his or her one life at the same time. That is, every believer has a baseline personality but also functions powerfully with two or three spiritual gifts, with the gifts flowing out from the baseline personality. I used to think that the two, gifting and personality, just blended together into one form. But then I observed scores of leaders whose personality and gifting appeared to be distinctively different in part or in total. And for some, the attempt at understanding gifting was actually confused by certain personality qualities. Which is it: talent or gifting?
But how could I help leaders come to grip with the reality of both worlds colliding within? It was then I realized that the Lord had already given me the two major puzzle pieces to frame things together! I welcome you to the "Your Leadership Grip enhanced BIRKMAN Blueprint". We saw a chance to help people identify, more deeply and profoundly that ever before, the differences between one’s gifting and personality, one’s supernatural empowering and one’s talents. I saw a chance for each person to discover his/her “blueprint for living” as God has designed from birth, then empowered from conversion.
ChurchSmart worked out the plans to combine my multi-angled gifts resource, an assessment set with ten years of impact, with a personality profiling resource with 45 years of sophistication and depth. And the costs of the resource were brought to several levels that make the resource more fully accessible than the Birkman Method in particular has been previously. And I have trained coaches to come alongside anyone who needs some assistance in going deeper with the Base or Mid levels of the resource. Additional help can also be had through Birkman Consultants at the Prioirty Level of the resource, also available through ChurchSmart.
As both a gifts specialist of eighteen years and a Birkman consultant of ten years , it is such a privilege to come alongside Dr. Birkman and with him create this resource that will impact both individuals and teams all the way to denominations and mission agencies. Why? To help Christians more intentionally become good stewards of God’s grace and design in their lives, ultimately to further the cause of world evangelization!