Think back to your last performance review. Your boss probably spent 10-20% of the discussion on things you do well, and the bulk of the discussion on your “areas for improvement” (aka: your weaknesses, your shortcomings, things you do not do well, etc.). Sound familiar? In fact, the only homework you might have had coming out of that review was to develop an individual plan to improve those “weaknesses”. But let’s be realistic, you never would be in the job you are in if it were not for your Strengths. I’m not saying to ignore your weaknesses. I’m just suggesting that we need to play to our Strengths just as much, or more, as we need to minimize our weaknesses.
But, do you really know what your Strengths are? What about your employees’ Strengths? In this blog, we will focus on the importance of determining Strengths and the assessment tools available to help.
Identify Your Strengths
Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive, wrote, “An effective executive builds on strengths; their own strengths, the strengths of superiors, colleagues, subordinates; and on the strengths of the situation.” Marcus Buckingham, author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work, wrote, “You don’t focus on people’s strengths to make them happier. You do it to make them better performers.”
There is growing support in corporate America to become more strength based. However, Marcus Buckingham further states that most people do not know how to play to their strengths. “We know how to label our strengths, however we have little idea how to take control of our work and steer it towards these strengths.”
In Now, Discover Your Strengths, Don Clifton and Marcus Buckingham states “Great organizations must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences.” But how do you go about doing that? You must watch for clues to each employee’s natural talents then position and develop each employee so his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths.
But how do you position and develop employees’ talents and strengths? It starts with how you select, develop and channel the careers of your people. It has been reported the talent shortage is going to have a profound impact on companies of all sizes. This may not be the case once the organization begins recognizing the talents and strengths of their employees. Employees, who play to their strengths, stay longer, work smarter and apply increased discretionary effort, all resulting in improved business results. Organizations must start mining the talent that resides within each of their employees. When this takes place, organizations will experience levels of increased productivity far outweighing the productivity increases caused by the technology revolution of the past 10 years.
Companies will tell you that they have been doing this. But most of the techniques that they employ and the information they gather are extremely subjective in nature. In many cases, individual development (primarily improving your weaknesses) is a requirement as a part of the annual performance review. This is tantamount to a “doing another chore”, “checking the box”, “getting ‘er done” exercise much like mowing the lawn. It is an event, not a process. Strength identification and development is almost never done as a part of the review process.
Identifying and building on strengths is a process. People enjoy events, like going to dinner, having a party, buying a new car. People generally do not like processes, like eating healthy, exercising regularly, saving for retirement. Events are short term and generally instantly gratifying. Processes take time and the results are not as instantly obvious. Yet the long-term benefit of strength identification and development far outweighs that of trying to minimize or eliminate your weaknesses through the annual process review event.
Result-driven leaders possess leadership, managerial, and technical talents and strengths. The CheckPoint360° and ProfileXT Assessments are tools to help objectively identify the talents and strengths of leaders, employees, and prospective employees. These Assessment tools are cost-effective, and are delivered through the most sophisticated Internet delivery system in the industry. The predictive reliability and validity scores of the CheckPoint360° and ProfileXT assessments are the highest in the industry.
P.S. So let’s say you begin to utilize the CheckPoint and Profile XT, and you now know your strengths and the strengths of your employees. That is the easy part…now, how do you avoid falling into the trap of not knowing how to steer your job and the jobs of your employees towards further use of those talents and strengths? We’ll talk about that in our Mid-August blog…
Identify Your Strengths
Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive, wrote, “An effective executive builds on strengths; their own strengths, the strengths of superiors, colleagues, subordinates; and on the strengths of the situation.” Marcus Buckingham, author of Go Put Your Strengths to Work, wrote, “You don’t focus on people’s strengths to make them happier. You do it to make them better performers.”
There is growing support in corporate America to become more strength based. However, Marcus Buckingham further states that most people do not know how to play to their strengths. “We know how to label our strengths, however we have little idea how to take control of our work and steer it towards these strengths.”
In Now, Discover Your Strengths, Don Clifton and Marcus Buckingham states “Great organizations must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences.” But how do you go about doing that? You must watch for clues to each employee’s natural talents then position and develop each employee so his or her talents are transformed into bona fide strengths.
But how do you position and develop employees’ talents and strengths? It starts with how you select, develop and channel the careers of your people. It has been reported the talent shortage is going to have a profound impact on companies of all sizes. This may not be the case once the organization begins recognizing the talents and strengths of their employees. Employees, who play to their strengths, stay longer, work smarter and apply increased discretionary effort, all resulting in improved business results. Organizations must start mining the talent that resides within each of their employees. When this takes place, organizations will experience levels of increased productivity far outweighing the productivity increases caused by the technology revolution of the past 10 years.
Companies will tell you that they have been doing this. But most of the techniques that they employ and the information they gather are extremely subjective in nature. In many cases, individual development (primarily improving your weaknesses) is a requirement as a part of the annual performance review. This is tantamount to a “doing another chore”, “checking the box”, “getting ‘er done” exercise much like mowing the lawn. It is an event, not a process. Strength identification and development is almost never done as a part of the review process.
Identifying and building on strengths is a process. People enjoy events, like going to dinner, having a party, buying a new car. People generally do not like processes, like eating healthy, exercising regularly, saving for retirement. Events are short term and generally instantly gratifying. Processes take time and the results are not as instantly obvious. Yet the long-term benefit of strength identification and development far outweighs that of trying to minimize or eliminate your weaknesses through the annual process review event.
Result-driven leaders possess leadership, managerial, and technical talents and strengths. The CheckPoint360° and ProfileXT Assessments are tools to help objectively identify the talents and strengths of leaders, employees, and prospective employees. These Assessment tools are cost-effective, and are delivered through the most sophisticated Internet delivery system in the industry. The predictive reliability and validity scores of the CheckPoint360° and ProfileXT assessments are the highest in the industry.
Call or email me today. I can show you how the CheckPoint and ProfileXT can help you identify your strengths and your employees’ strengths.
P.S. So let’s say you begin to utilize the CheckPoint and Profile XT, and you now know your strengths and the strengths of your employees. That is the easy part…now, how do you avoid falling into the trap of not knowing how to steer your job and the jobs of your employees towards further use of those talents and strengths? We’ll talk about that in our Mid-August piece…