Good to great – Annabel Shilton focuses on strengths to increase productivity…

 

Are you aware of your team’s strengths and are they using them productively at work?

Are you successful in improving people’s weaker areas?

Are your people really engaged in what they do?

Are your teams working together as a “team” rather than a group of people?

If the answer to all of the above questions is NO then please read on…

Using a strengths based approach to improve the productivity and efficiency for your people and teams is now proving to have a significant positive impact in the workplace.  Based on positive psychology, strengths energise us and enable us to perform at our peak both in good times and also during challenging times.  In this way they are different from our skills and competencies i.e. what we have learned over the years to be competent at.

Using strengths is first about how much energy or passion you get from a task or activity and second about how good you are or can become at it.  The first is of great importance as it will determine how much you will stick with a task or activity over time in order to build real strength or mastery.

Therefore strengths can be described as:

“underlying qualities that energise us and we are great at (or have potential to become great at)”  Brewerton and Brook 2014

Strengths unlock excellence in people and focusing on them provides:

• Peak performance
• Agility
• Confidence
• Energy and perseverance

Why are strengths important in a team?

• They bring balance and equal out weaknesses – we don’t want to ignore weakness, we need to be aware of them.
• Bring energy and drive to teams that no longer have it.
• Having a common language to discuss strengths particularly when people are in “overdrive” i.e. doing too much of what they know they are strong at
• Promotes diversity – useful for recruitment as it identifies gaps in teams.
• Promotes “the difference between us” and how it works well.
• Build respect and “bond” teams together.
• Managers know who is best at what and can get the best out of their team members.

Research shows that people who understand and apply their strengths at work significantly outperform those who focus mainly on fixing weaknesses.

• Optimising strengths increases engagement by up to 73% (Rath and Conchie 2008).
• Employment performance is on average 36% higher when line managers focus their appraisals on staffs’ strengths and talents (corporate leadership council 2005).
• Customer retention is 44% higher in companies where people are allowed to “do what they do best” every day (Harter et al 2002).

Strengthscope is the only psychometric that measures people’s significant strengths at work and is also the most extensive strengths profiling system on the market.

It measures 24 strengths across 4 key areas:

• Thinking strengths – high quality analysis and decision-making
• Emotional strengths – effective management of emotions
• Relational strengths – engaging in productive relationships
• Execution strengths – delivering results

Unlike many assessment systems, Strengthscope is positive, pragmatic and motivates people to develop themselves beyond narrow boxes.  It has been researched and tested thoroughly over 12 years.

Get in touch If you would like to find out more about how the MDHUB can help you undertake Strengthscope assessments within your organisation to facilitate them going “from good to great“.