"When an organization's leadership fails to focus on an individual's strengths, the odds of an employee being engaged are a dismal 1 in 11 (9%). But when an organization's leadership focus on the strengths of its employees, the odds soar to almost 3 in 4 (73%). When leaders focus on an invest in their employee's strengths, the odds of each person being engaged goes up eightfold" - http://strengths.gallup.com
What are the strengths of your team members? How aware are they of these strengths? How are you creating environments for people to use their strengths?
A few weeks ago I worked with a wonderful organization who chose to invest time and focus on their team strengths, through focus and investment in an off-site retreat process. The day focused on really getting to know who was on the team, where the strengths lay, and what the gaps were. That, coupled with some skill development, can take a team a long, long way.
Great resources in this area are:
StrengthsFinder 2.0 - Tom Rath
Strengths-Based Leadership
Go, Put Your Strengths to Work - Marcus Buckingham
Consider the following:
What are you doing to invest in strengths? To help others identify their strengths?
Where do your team strengths lay?
What's missing? A gap? What's the impact of this?
What can you be doing differently to leverage the team strengths?
If you'd like to learn more about how coaching and/or retreats incorporating the strengths based approach would benefit your team or organization, please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to share some case studies of how this has benefited other organizations and professionals.
In closing, what can you do today to more fully utilize YOUR STRENGTHS?
Warm regards
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Phone: 416.996.8326
Email: info{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com
