Exploring Your Team Strengths

Significant research has been done by the Gallup organization and others on strengths, and strengths-based leadership. 

Did you know that:

•         People who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged on the job.
•         Teams that focus on strengths every day have 12.5% greater productivity.
•        Teams that receive strengths feedback have 8.9% greater profitability.

(Source: Gallup Strengths Center,  https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/)

How aware are you or your team members about their strengths? Are you able to use these every day? 

Here are some possible ways for you to explore and start using your strengths:

1. Undertake a strengths assessment. Two strengths assessments I usually recommend and work with my team clients with are the StrengthsFinder 2.0 as well as VIA Strengths. Each strengths assessment takes about 30 minutes to complete and are available online.  Reports of varying length are generated when individuals complete each assessments. 

2. Spend time as a team looking at strengths.  Completing the assessment is not  a”be all and end all”. What is interesting and important is what emerges in conversation about our strengths. Whether you as a team dedicate part of a team meeting to discussing strengths or you set up a separate meeting (virtual or in person) about strengths, key is exploring:

- What strengths exist on the team?

- How are they being used?

- How are strengths not being used?

- What gaps exist? What patterns do you notice?

From my experience teams really benefit when they have the opportunity to move through a structured conversation, using an external facilitator to the team.  These conversations can take place in person, or virtually for those teams that are geographically dispersed. When I work with teams on this process, I recommend we spend at minimum 2 hours exploring the strengths and developing an action plan, optimally half a day, or part of a series of conversations.

3.  Sustain the focus - As part of your own team process, check in regularly and discuss  how strengths are being used in the team, and what gaps may be present, particularly if team members are changing. What strengths are required for different tasks facing the team? Who might find it easiest/most rewarding to take that project on? 

Resources I would recommend those interested in exploring strengths are:

VIA Strengths Survey

StrengthsFinder 2.0 - Tom Rath

Strengths Based Leadership - Tom Rath, Barrie Conchie

Go Put Your Strengths to Work - Marcus Buckingham

Check out my other posts on strengths here at the blog.

What are your next steps to exploring, and using, your strengths?

Best regards

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton

Potentials Realized

Leadership | Teamwork | Retreats

Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)

Phone: (416)996-TEAM (8326)

Mapping Your Team's Strengths

Professionals, and teams, flourish when they are able to use their strengths. Did you know that...

"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

Employee Engagement in the new year

Employee engagement continues to show up as a critical issue for many managers and workplace learning professionals. You can read earlier posts I've written on the topic here.

The 2007 ASTD Employee Engagement Survey has just been released and answers some of the following questions:

• How many workers are engaged?
• How much does it matter to the learning function?

This study looked at link between learning and employee engagement and involved 750 respondents in an online survey. ASTD collaborated with i4cp and Dale Carnigie and Associates for the study.

You can listen to a podcast about the survey and its results here.

ASTD has also published an interesting article this month by Cris and Mel Wildermuth of The Effectiveness Group entitled the "10 Ms of Employee Engagement". I saw Cris present on this model back in June at the ASTD Conference in Atlanta -- it's a great model! I hope that the model will be able to spread more into the mainstream in coming months. Cris - if you do read this, I'd love to have you as a guest blogger or interviewee here.

For an additional mneumonic approach to Employee Engagement, check out the 10 Cs to Employee Engagement, originally published in the Ivey Business Journal.

What employee engagement issues are showing up for you right now in your organization?

Warmly,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer{at}potentialsrealized{dot}com

Employee Engagement Revisited

The concept of employee engagement has been on my mind over the last few days and has passed through a number of conversations I have had with organizations. It's almost been a year since I last blogged on the topic, and obviously is still very pertinent to today's workforce.

For those not familiar with the Gallup Research on Employee engagement, approximately 29% of employees today in the US are actively engaged. These employees are more productive, more profitable, have a better safety record, create stronger customer relationships and stay longer with the company.

Anywhere from 54-56% of employees are not engaged. These are employees that are "checked out" - showing up for work, but really not connecting or contributing significantly to the company's bottom line.

The third category from Gallup's research are the 17% of employees who are actively disengaged. The cost of disengagement to the US economy is $350 Billion dollars a year, a very significant amount. Actively disengaged employees are not just "checked out", but they are the toxic employees, whose dissatisfaction has the possibility of spreading to the rest of the workforce.

You can read my earlier blog posts on employee engagement here. In June, I saw Tom Rath, one of the Gallup Researchers, and experts on the topic of employee engagement speak in Atlanta. It was a great presentation and when I get back to my office next week, I'll follow up with some additional research that it coming out, as well as what organizations can do to boost employee engagement.

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer {at}potentialsrealized.com

How Engaged Is Your Workforce?

I'm reposting a blog post from one of my companion blogs, Your Balanced Life!, which I wrote almost a year ago (November 16 2005). I've been having a lot of discussions lately around employee engagement lately with organizations here in Canada and am sure that you will appreciate this one:

"A recent study of 85,000 workers in 16 countries across four continents found that only one in seven employees are "highly" engaged in their jobs and willing to go that extra step. This study was carried out with people working for large and midsize companies

The Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study found that 14% of workers surveyed around the world are highly engaged, 62% are moderately engaged, and 24% are disengaged. Employee engagement is the measure of people's willingness and ability to give discretionary effort at work.

Here in Canada, 17% of the 5,100 workers surveyd indicated that they were highly engaged, 66% moderately engaged and 17% disengaged. We ranked fifth, with respondences from Mexico indicating the highest levels of engagement (40%) followed by Brazil (31%). The US rakned thrid with 21% of respondents indicating that they are "highly engaged", 63% moderately engaged and 16% disengaged.

The Toronto Star (November 15 2005) indicates that in Canada the most important factor influencing their rating was senior management's interest in employee well-being. Two years ago a similar study found that 21% of employees were highly engaged."

What is the state of engagement in your organization? What is senior management's interest in employee well-being? What is one thing you can do this week to boost the level of engagement for yourself and your team?

I'd be interested in hearing your story and speaking with you if you are looking to boost employee engagement in your organization.

To an "engaged" week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CPCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Web: www.potentialsrealized.com
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

Another Resource for Creating an Engaged Workforce

As I've said in earlier posts, creating an engaged workforce is a major theme in corporations at this time. A new book came across my desk last week which addresses this issue. Destination Profit: Creating People Profit Opportunities in Your Organization, by Scott Cawood and Rita V. Bailey is an excellent read on employee engagement. Based on the premise that people=profit Cawood and Bailey look at a handful of very successful organizations which put their people front and centre in terms of bottom line success.

This book is a great read, and provides a trusty toolkit of questions and exercises for organizations to reflect on. This book is also a great resource for organizational consultants who partner with organizations to address employee engagemet issues. Thoughout the book, Cawood and Bailey share their 4 A Process to maximize business growth while handressing engagement and passion of employees. Co-published by ASTD, this book can be ordered at the ASTD Online store at http://store.astd.org.

What resources have you come across related to employee engagement that are useful for your organization or work?

Until next time,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CHRP, CPCC, CPT
Potentials Realized
http://www.potentialsrealized.com
Email me here

Off of the Bookshelf: The Power of Full Engagement

I'm midway through reading an excellent book - The Power of Full Engagement from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. If high performance issues relate to you in the workplace or business, this is a must-read.

The terms Engaged, Engaging and Engagement seem to pop up everywhere these days in business. The Power of Full Engagement is based on solid research and highlights many real life case studies, while providing a powerful model and tools for the reader to follow.

The book also mentions the 2001 Gallup results on an engaged workforce - how 55% of the workforce is "not engaged", and 19% are "actively disengaged", those that are unhappy at the workplace and also regularly share their feelings with co-workers. The Gallup Results found only 26% of the workforce "engaged". How engaged are you at work? Your staff?

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized