Category: strengths

Avoiding the stuffed anteater: striving for authenticity

In recent times we’ve grown used to the idea of ‘fake news’ and doctored photos, and even been warned about technological advances enabling ‘fake video’ – but the story a while ago of a photographer accused of using a stuffed anteater in a competition entry was sadly amusing. It was followed up by a couple of articles about the cheats regularly used in wildlife photography… like the bizarre practice of putting ants in the freezer. And all this is in contrast to – and possibly the reason for – the demand for authenticity that is current in brands, politics and a host of leadership and management books (and a fair few blog posts, too).

And this poses a dilemma for many people. We’re pretty good at looking at other people and weighing up how authentic they are. But how do you ensure that you’re being authentic, and not inadvertently being, to paraphrase Holden Caulfield, a phony? How do we remain authentic whilst operating within the parameters of corporate polices, or when the responsibilities of our role means we have to step away from our usual habits? I’m thinking about those disciplinary meetings, difficult conversations, and other situations where as a manager you might have to act in a certain way that doesn’t come naturally – ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway’ as Susan Jeffers said.

In short, as managers and leaders we don’t always act naturally, but we should always act authentically. One of the ways in which I help leaders to do this is through using your strength, not just those things you are good at, but which energise and fulfill you. This is the key difference between strengths and skills (your ability to do something well). If you are using your strengths you will be ‘going with the grain’ – by working with what comes naturally to you, you will be authentic.

You might ask what does this mean in practice? If I have strengths of Perspective, Hope or Prudence, how is that going to get me through a team meeting, or performance review? In his recent interview with me for People and Purpose – the Positive Leadership Journal, Ryan Niemiec of the VIA institute described how you can look at each task you have to complete from the position of your top five signature strengths, and planning out how you could actively use your strengths as you complete your tasks. Here’s a very basic example of using Curiosity and Kindness strengths:

The great thing about using strengths is for those situations where you are less confident, where you have to step outside of your comfort zone. Sit down and plan ahead – how can I use what I’m good at to help me in this situation. This means that you will be authentic even if you are having to ‘play a role’ of manager.

The other thing you can do is work with the strengths of your team. If you’re getting them to align what they do with their strengths, then they will experience that sense of fulfillment for themselves. So not just increasing productivity, but reducing the likelihood that you’ll come in one day and find they’ve used a stuffed anteater…

Here’s some further things you can do:

Watch

See Ryan Niemiec’s interview in People and Purpose – the Positive Leadership Journal for more about how you can harness strengths.

There’s a video and we’ve also written up a summary to help you.

Read

For practical information and guidance about helping your team find and harness their strengths, we’d recommend the Strength-Focused Guide to Leadership by Mike Roarty and Kathy Toogood.

You can read the summary of the key ideas on our website to see if you’d like it.

Investigate

If you want help in finding your strengths, there are a number of different tools available, which use a series of questions to identify your relative strengths.

To simplify thing, we’ve summarised five of these tools: Investigate strengths models

If you’d like more articles like this:

11th October 2018
5 of the best… Strengths Tools

If you want to find out your strengths, your best bet is to use one of these five strength assessment tools. They differ greatly in the number/categories of strengths, what you get for your money, and options for follow-up work, such as bespoke development programmes. We think that each assessment has value and can appeal to a different audience, so spend some time on their websites to make sure you choose the right one for your needs.

Information is accurate at time of press (summer 2018), but the models and the reports offered continue to be refined.

Finding your strengths is the first step to accessing the enhanced performance, motivation, engagement and commitment that comes when you are harnessing your strengths in your work and life. At Formium Development we can help you with all aspects of finding and harnessing your strengths, through training, coaching and assistance. If you’d like our help, please get in touch.

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27th July 2018
Review: The Strengths-Focused Guide to Leadership
If you want a practical manual to understanding how to harness strengths, for you and your team, this book is a great place to start, as it:
- introduces the key concepts of strengths
  - provides the research base for more inquisitive readers
  - illustrates with narratives
- prompts you with a range of exercises and action points
- explains how to weave strengths into your practice as a leader.
What really sets this book apart is the emphasis on practicality. Numerous exercises help you engage with the ideas. There are questions, forms and questionnaires for you to use. The book looks at embedding strengths in all your work, including coaching, team meetings, recruitment and appraisals. So even if you know the value of using strengths, this is still a worthwhile read.

A further great feature is the use of dialogues, showing the ideas in action (e.g. a coaching session transcript) or as two alternative ‘scripts’ – one using strengths, the other weakness. These stories keep you grounded in reality.

The whys, whats and hows of using strengths

The authors define strengths as something that:

They show the advantage of working with strengths: that you are doing more of what you are best at. They set out the alignment between using strengths and increased sense of authenticity and purpose, increasing satisfaction and engagement. This naturally leads into a more productive cycle, with faster and better results.

For any readers averse to leaving a weakness-focussed approach, the authors provide both the evidence for focussing on strengths, and also how to address weaknesses with a positive mindset.

The MORE model

My strengths: To identify your own strengths, the authors offer five different methods: strength spotting, weakness spotting, a 5 steps strengths map, 360 degree feedback and online strengths assessments. They provide the exercises, questions and examples to help you through whichever of these methods you prefer to use.

Roarty and Toogood suggest 8 ways to develop your strengths:

They also provide 6 ways to manage your weaknesses. To align your goals and strengths, they suggest usual SMART objectives should rather be SMARTIE – adding Important and Energising.

Others’ strengths: The book suggests approaches to introduce strengths as a concept and to support your team in identifying their strengths.

Regular conversations: To embed strengths into daily practice, the authors provide checklists and questions which embody the three principles that will help you develop a strengths mindset:
- start with an outcome focus
- focus on what’s working
- manage weakness from strength
They advise how to use this mindset in one-to-one conversations, development planning, team meetings and coaching: interventions where a strengths-focus has great rewards.

Employee processes: Roarty and Toogood provide specific advice for a strength-based approach for performance appraisals, development discussions and recruitment. Particularly interesting is their approach for adapting to institutional reality: that while you may be required to use certain forms, competencies or expected approaches, you can still use a strengths mindset and techniques to provide a better outcome.

Leadership and teams

The book ends by providing the advice, evidence and resources to use strengths in two key challenges: creating a high-performing team, and in leading change. While specific examples are given, the advice reflects the key messages delivered previously, as detailed above.

You can buy The Strengths-focused guide to leadership, by Mike Roarty and Kathy Toogood, on Amazon UK or Amazon USA

Eszter Molnar Mills is a strength-based leadership and organisation development specialist.

She helps organisations and individuals reach enhanced performance by reflecting on what works, and by developing skills and strategies for improvement.

If you’d like help or advice on using strengths – such as implementing the MORE model, helping you find or use your strengths, or adopt a coaching approach, then please get in touch.

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15th July 2018
Book Review: The Positive Organization by Robert E Quinn

So many business books leave you wondering “…but how does that work in reality?” That’s not a problem with The Positive Organization – this short book (less than 160 pages from cover to cover) is packed with ideas, examples, case studies and practical exercises, written in an engaging and straightforward style.

Throughout, Quinn challenges us to consider a different way of thinking, and to think about how we can effectively participate in building a positive organisation. A key strength of the book is that it has actionable lessons for all, regardless of job role or responsibility, from board room to shop floor. Each chapter concludes with a tool to use with teams in self-assessment and development, as well as questions to encourage the reader to reflect and set aspirations, to deepen learning.

The central premise of the book is that building a positive organisation requires accountability and authenticity, that for it to be successful it has to be emergent and self-generating. This approach is built on listening, consultation and empowerment at all levels.

What marks this book apart from many others is both the effectiveness of Quinn’s model, as well as the Positive Organization Generator – over 100 real-life examples of how organisations have successfully increased their positivity.

Mental Maps and bilingualism

Quinn suggests that the culture of an organisation can be summarised in a mental map – an indication of what a company believes and assumes, covering domains such as Motivation, Status and Change. Most organisations, and most leaders, operate using what Quinn calls a Conventional Mental Map, a top-down, traditional hierarchy. He contrasts this with the more complex Positive Mental Map, focused more on networks and relationships, and a focus on the common good and authentic communication.

However, this is not a binary state – Quinn suggests a successful leader needs to be ‘bilingual’ able to speak the language of both maps depending on the need of the people they are working with, to find the right tools for the right occasion.

A question of balance

Quinn provides us with a further analysis of organisational culture – the Framework of Organizational Tensions. Quinn groups organisational characteristics into two opposing lists, for example Individual Accountability and Cohesive Teamwork. If taken to extremes either of these positive characteristics could be negative – conflict on the one hand or group-think on the other. To illustrate the need to maintain balance between these positive forces, Quinn separates each pair on opposing sides of a disc, with an outer ring of negative forces that may arise if the positive force is over-developed.

This idea of tension and balance is crucial to Quinn – organisations are not static, they are dynamic, and to effect positive change we have to consider the whole system, that positives can turn into negatives.

A call to action

Having developed these models, Quinn turns to a number of key issues in developing a positive organisation, in chapters that focus on how to drive organisations forward by developing and promoting authenticity, creating a sense of purpose, fostering bottom-up change and collaborative development. He uses a range of interesting and relevant examples, referring back to the models at every stage.

In these sections he is challenging and insightful on the role of the individual, on our willingness to work for the common good, our ability to leave our ego and control behind when trying to develop an organisation that thrives. He is also realistic about human nature, and how difficult meaningful change and personal authenticity may be, but makes clear the benefits of developing leadership capabilities and organisational positivity.

Over to you

Quinn concludes by sharing with the reader his Positive Organization Generator. Designed to confront sceptics and resistance, he provides 100 examples of where an organisation has made positive change (from a range of industries, and with links to further articles on each of them). This is an amazing resource that gives readers a real opportunity to understand “how it works in reality”. Rather than just adopting these ideas, his instruction to readers is to re-invent them – to be inspired by the examples, extract the principle and re-imagine it for your own context, moulding and adapting to fit.

Robert E. Quinn’s website www.bob-quinn.com provides you with the resources from the book, including the Positive Organization Generator.

Or you can buy the book from Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

For more ideas you can also follow his daily blog: www.thepositiveorganization.wordpress.com

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Formium Development helps individuals and organisations to harness their strengths and improve their performance and culture. We know change can be hard, so we can bring our expertise to help you with organisational development – such as implementing the ideas in The Positive Organization.

Click here if you’d like more information on how we can help you and your team analyse, assess, challenge, innovate, communicate and develop.

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5th July 2018
Where does the courage come in?

I fairly recently went to an event on Women’s Leadership Careers organised by the Chartered Management Institute’s (CMI) Women in Management (WiM) Network. The keynoter was none other than CMI’s CEO Ann Francke, an remarkably dynamic and engaging speaker.

Ann shared her wealth of knowledge and experience about progressing in the ranks of organisations as a female member of staff. Among the many things she referred to was the 3 C’s: Competence, Confidence and Connections – the important components in order to get noticed and to ensure your mark in your field. She recommends keeping a list of your competencies and your accomplishments. Have confidence in yourself – avoid the tiara syndrome, i.e. waiting for someone to notice you, and the sorry skirts, connoting apologising for yourself. And the ever important C – connections – reach out to people. Look for colleagues and managers who can guide you, advise you and “sponsor” you.

As I was taking all this in, words of Sir Winston Churchill rang so true: “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities . . . because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” I add ‘courage’ as the 4th C to Ann’s list.

Courage could be the stepping stone to acknowledging your competencies, to speak up to the person at the office, who you want to connect with. And the courage to leave when you know something is not working – it could be a job that does not nurture your capacities, a relationship that does not support you in achieving your targets. It takes courage to review a past project and to be honest with yourself about what went great and what could have been done better.

It requires courage to lead a team, to disband a team and to implement change when it is needed. However, courage is not about being abrasive. It is very much about being gently assertive with yourself and taking that one extra step – making your competencies list or drawing on your confidence to connect with a colleague. After all, Churchill also purported that “courage is what it requires to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Reetu Kansal

27th July 2016
5 of the Best … Quotes on strengths

Formium Development team believe in a strength-based leadership approach. Leaders should concentrate on developing strengths instead of fixing weaknesses. Practicing a positive approach will likely help you and your organisation to become a lot more authentic and also more effective. Read our most-liked quotes on strengths:

What’s your favourite quote on strengths? Share with the online community in the comment section, or tweet us your favourite quote @FormiumLtd!

4th May 2016
Strength-based Recruitment

Capp founder Alex Linley defines a strength as ‘‘something that you do well and enjoy doing. When using a strength, people feel authentic and energised as they deliver successful performance.’’

We asked Gurpal Minhas, Head of Customer Solutions at Capp & Co Ltd (www.capp.co) , to explain strength-based hiring. Capp work with a range of UK and multinational corporations across the FMCG sector to banking, helping them hire for what applicants are great at doing alongsidewhere their energy passion and motivation lies.

In contrast to traditional competency-based selection, a strength-based approach allows companies to focus on more than just what candidates have previously done or on their competencies, and to consider their potential, engagement and energy. Minhas outlines the business benefits as shorter time to competence, improved engagement, improved performance and reduced attrition. On an individual level, employees are more engaged, and “there’s an increased level of self-esteem because they’re able to work on things that they enjoy and do well.” – he adds.

A strength-based approaches are also shown to create a level playing field between applicants with different social or cultural backgrounds, to improve the employer brand and to attract better-matched candidates.

The process starts with a Success Analysis. The Success Analysis identifies what the best people currently do in that particular role within the organisation. It also considers what the future of the job entails, for instance, how it will look in 2020 or 2025. The requirements are established through stakeholder interviews, focus groups and a review of the existing job description. Where a company has a competency framework, assessments using the competency framework and the strengths framework can be jointly applied. “That’s where that makes a big difference because you continue to be able to use existing language in the organisation, but you’re getting a lot more specific to what you’re looking for” adds Minhas.

The Sucs Analysist establishes a number of core strengths and potentially some role-specific strengths, such as ‘relationship manager’ or ‘Technofinity’ – all of which will be used in attracting and selecting the best candidates, based on a balance of performance, energy and use.

Candidates are assessed against the required strengths through assessment centres, the Situational Strengths Tests and Strength-based Interviews. “A strength-based interview is quite different from competency-based interviews in the fact that assessors are not probing candidates and likewise applicants can’t necessarily prepare for the questions. We may ask 12 questions in 45 minutes, whereas in a competency interview we might ask 6 questions in half an hour. The questions are shorter and significantly more varied. Candidates are having to share a bit more depth about what they do and how they approach tasks. We ask about how you feel about working on tasks- something that with a standard competency response, you can’t necessarily answer,.” explained Gurpal.

When using strength-based interviews, 74% of assessors felt they could better distinguish between low, average and high performers and 85% of candidates agreed the strength-based interview allowed them to show who they really were. In particular Generation Y and Generation Z candidates are eager to learn about themselves, gain more self-insight and feel recognised as individuals. Working in partnership with EY, Capp found in a representative sample of over 1000 students, 65% of graduates would select a job that would allow them to use their strengths rather than a role that paid them a higher salary.

Ultimately strength-based recruitment allows the selection of employees who are naturally, authentically good at the role and are energised by it, which in turn leads to better performance.

Founded in 2005, Capp have an established academic background in positive psychology and an extensive experience in the provision of strengths-based talent management solutions.

The Capp vision is “To match the world to their perfect job” – whether that’s an individual seeking a new challenge or someone growing and developing with their current employer.

You can benefit from the opportunities presented by better understanding applicants’ unique strengths by incorporating strength-based questions into your current selection practice. 9 Strengths-Based Interview Questions for you: Click Here for Your Copy

19th April 2016
5 of the best…resources to keep resolutions

How are your New Year’s resolutions coming along? January is the month of getting fit, being more productive, having a new frame of mind. We collected five resources that can help you keep the resolutions you choose to make, and for sustainably improving habits.

Better than before – Gretchen Rubin on habits
“Habits make change possible by freeing us from decision making and from using self-control.” – says Rubin. She provides resources to help you understand your preferences and choose habit strategies that will work for you. Also look out for her podcast.

MindTools
New year, new me. How can you renew yourself most easily? With learning a new skill for personal or career development. Since 1996, Mind Tools has offered practical online training to individuals keen to excel in the workplace. Join them!

FlexScore
Did you promise to yourself to be better at managing your money? FlexScore is a website that shows you how are you doing financially and how you are doing compared to your peers. The best part is that you get a free, update financial analysis that helps you understand how purchases affect your financial future.

100DayChallenge
A radically different approach helping you keep your New Year’s resolutions. The organisers claim that you can get more done in the first 100 days of 2016 than most people do in 10 years. This is an online programme with a daily video lesson and a specific call to action.

HeadSpace
Did you have a stressful 2015? Did you promise that you will give more attention to mindfulness and meditate? HeadSpace is a personal trainer for your mind. You can choose different sessions to suit your mood and lifestyle. You can take a break anywhere and anytime since HeadSpace is available for iOS and Android as well.

+1 Strengths Challenge 2016
The list would not be complete without our featured interviewee, Michelle McQuaid’s program. Join if your resolution was being more happy and energized at work. We took part last year and we can tell you that it has had an impact.

10th January 2016
November, the Month of Gratitude

This month we are prompted by the US Thanksgiving tradition to take time and practice gratitude.

The practice of gratitude as a tool for happiness has been in the mainstream for years. Long-term studies support gratitude’s effectiveness, suggesting that a positive, appreciative attitude contributes to greater success in work, greater health, peak performance in sports and business, a higher sense of well-being, and a faster rate of recovery from surgery.

But while we may acknowledge gratitude’s many benefits, it still can be difficult to sustain. So many of us are trained to notice what is broken, undone or lacking in our lives. And for gratitude to meet its full potential in our lives, it needs to become more than just a Thanksgiving word. We have to learn a new way of looking at things, a new habit. And that can take some time.

That’s why practicing gratitude makes so much sense. When we practice giving thanks for all we have, instead of complaining about what we lack, we give ourselves the chance to see all of life as an opportunity and a blessing.

Remember that gratitude isn’t a blindly optimistic approach in which the bad things in life are whitewashed or ignored. It’s more a matter of where we put our focus and attention. Challanges and problems exist, but when we focus on what works and what we can appreciate, including our strengths and the strengths of others, we can make great gains in performance and well-being. Gratitude balances us and gives us hope.

There are many things to be grateful for: a great team, loyal and appreciative customers, challenging and exciting projects at work, new learning, our health, a long list of friends and family to plan festive gifts for. What’s on your list?

Author’s content used with permission, © Claire Communications

24th November 2015
Work is my (second) Happy Place!

Do you know that place when you can hide from stress and the darkness of the cruel world? Probably, you think about a special place right now. It can be a real place like a hidden bench in the park near your office where you usually enjoy your lunch-break or it can be an abstract place like the Narnia of YouTube. The places like this are called your happy place. The Narnia of YouTube is my No.1 happy place. A couple of days ago I realised I have another one: my workplace.

Yes. It is weird isn’t it? Well, it should not be weird to feel happy at your workplace. It should be normal since you spend most of your time there. There was a 5-day challenge which helped me to improve my strength and turned work to my second happy place.
It called the Strengths Challenge 2015 by Michelle Mcquaid and her team who believes that creating a daily eleven-minutes strengths habit is an easy way to put people’ strengths to work. Firstly, you have to identify the strength you want to develop. (Find out more about your strengths by taking the free VIA survey.) The next step is to cue the habit in 30 seconds. At the third part you will need 10 minutes. You have to practice your strength-development routine. Dive into a routine that allows you to put your strengths to work. The last part was the FUN part. Reward your behaviour for 30 seconds.

I chose creativity. They say a creative adult is a child who survived. I think you don’t have to survive to be creative, you can improve that just like any other skills. How did my 10-minute practice look like? I decided to check different projects on crafty sites like Pinterest or Weheartit and watch tutorial videos on YouTube. To be honest I was an eager-beaver… Sometimes it took a little more than 10 minutes, just for the fun! I got some really great ideas about desk organizing, office-exercises, home-made lunch and a lot of other things. My reward was a nice latté and a little group messaging with my friends.

Creativity can be used in any kind of work. For instance I have to use it to create content, edit pictures, write catchy social media updates or blogposts, create nice infographics etc. But as I said you can use your creativity in any kind of job. “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and, – SNAP – the job’s a game.” Sounds familiar? Marry Poppins. Isn’t it fun to find the right pop cultural reference to your message? She was right, you just have to be creative and find your spoon full of sugar which will help you to get the job done.

Or you don’t even have to be that creative just find the thing what you’re really good at it, your strength. Built on it then use it daily to take care of your tasks. You’ll feel much happier during your work hours when you feel that you’re really good at what you’re doing. So, I bet you have daily 11 minutes to transform your workplace into a better place for yourself.
If you would like to explore your own strengths and how they can benefit you, book a free exploration session.

29th August 2015