Through decades of research pioneered by Dr. Don Clifton, the father of strengths psychology, Gallup has discovered keys to boosting employee engagement and creating high performing teams. You will learn from Paul Allen, founder of Ancestry.com, that hidden within each employee is a unique combination of strengths. As you learn to identify and unlock these strengths – instead of concentrating on fixing weaknesses – you can dramatically improve manager-employee relationships and build highly engaged and productive teams.
4. Origins of the Strengths Movement
George Gallup
• His graduate research in 1920s
focused on why some
salespeople were more
successful than others. He
discovered it was about
psychological fit.
• In the 1930s, he founded
Gallup, a company focused on
studying the attitudes and
opinions of human beings around
the world.
Don Clifton
• When in graduate school in 1950s, he
realized that the field of psychology had
focused almost entirely on human problems,
rather than human success. So he
dedicated his life to studying human
success.
• In the 1960s, he founded a company
named SRI that focused on creating
assessments to identify psychological fit
between jobs and people.
• He discovered the key to success was
whether a person was able to leverage their
natural strengths in their career.
7. What will happen when we
think about what is right with
people rather than fixating on
what is wrong with them?”
Don Clifton
psychologist and business executive
(1924-2003)
“
8. Gallup Asked This Question Around the
World:
“Which do you think will help you improve the
most: knowing your strengths or knowing your
weaknesses?”
9. Those Who Choose to Focus on Their Strengths
and Manage Around Their Weaknesses Are a
Minority in Every Country in Gallup’s Study
41% 38% 38%
29%
24% 24%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
U.S. UK Canada France Japan China
Percent Knowing Strengths
10. “Most Americans do not know
what their strengths are. When
you ask them they look at you
with a blank stare or they
respond in terms of subject
knowledge, which is the wrong
answer.”
- Peter Drucker
11. Everyone is a genius. But if
you judge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree, it will live its whole
life believing that it is stupid.”
Albert Einstein
Physicist, scientist
(1879 – 1955)
“
12. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Talk to people in elevators, airplanes, stores, and
wherever you go.
13. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Write down a list of things to do and stick to it.
(even on weekends)
14. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Need to pick someone to race while driving.
15. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Seek a familiar face at a big party.
16. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Tend to be skeptical until given some proof.
18. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Clean your house or apartment before you can relax.
19. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Have a color-coded or otherwise organized closet.
20. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Push the elevator button to “remind” the elevator that you
are there.
21. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Figure out the plot of the movie before anyone else
does.
22. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Are accused of being “too nice.”
23. STAND UP IF YOU ALWAYS…
Are accused of not being “nice enough.”
24. A Recipe for Success
x =Investment
(time spent developing
knowledge, skills, and
regular practice)
Strength
(the ability to consistently
provide near-perfect
performance)
Talent
(a natural way of
thinking, feeling,
or behaving)
25. 1/3 of all U.S. workers are
not fully engaged at work
GALLUP KEY FINDING
28. “A strengths-based approach to management is the
single best means of improving the employee-manager
relationship that Gallup has observed over the years of
working with organizations to improve employee
engagement.”
(Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship, pg. 358)
GALLUP KEY FINDING
29. “At Facebook, we try to be a strengths-based
organization…”
New York Times Recommend the best business book you’ve read in recent years
Sheryl Sandberg
Chief Operating Officer,
Facebook Inc.
“Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham
and Donald O. Clifton. This book has been instrumental in
how we think about developing talent at Facebook. ...we try
to make jobs fit around people rather than make people fit
around jobs. We focus on what people’s natural strengths
are and spend our management time trying to find ways for
them to use those strengths every day.”
30. A [person] should never be appointed to
a managerial position if his [or her]
vision focuses on people’s weaknesses
rather than on their strengths. The
[manager] who always knows what
people cannot do, but never sees what
they can do, will undermine the spirit of
the organization.”
Peter Drucker.
Father of Modern Management Studies
“
32. Strengths Links to Performance
According to Gallup’s database research, strengths-based
development interventions have led to:
at the employee level
at the team level
7.8% greater productivity
14.9% lower turnover
12.5% greater productivity
8.9% greater profitability
33. CLIENT CASE STUDY:
STRENGTHS LEADS TO EMPLOYEE LOYALTY
Focusing on
strengths in your
job drives
employees
advocacy and
intent to stay with
the organization.
74%
85%
60%
29%
37%
21%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Recommend Company's
Products and Services
Plan to Be Here One Year From
Now
Plan to Spend My Career Here
%StronglyAgree
Focus on strengths No focus on strengths
34. Robert Scoble
Startup Liaison
Officer,
Rackspace
“Every employee has his or her five strengths on the back of
their badges and if you ever meet our chairman, Graham
Weston, don’t bring this up, because you’ll end up with a
multi-hour interesting conversation about corporate culture,
people, and how to build great teams using this system.”
“At Rackspace Hosting, we’re
religious about using Gallup’s
StrengthsFinder 2.0.”
38. PEOPLE WHO FOCUS
ON USING THEIR
STRENGTHS
. . . AND 6 TIMES
MORE LIKELY TO
BE ENGAGED IN
THEIR JOBS
. . . ARE 3 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO
REPORT HAVING AN EXCELLENT
QUALITY OF LIFE
39. EMAIL ME FOR A COPY OF
STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0 OR STRENGTHS-
BASED LEADERSHIP
paul_allen@gallup.com
40. This document contains proprietary research, copyrighted materials, and literary
property of Gallup, Inc. It is for the guidance of your company only and is not to be
copied, quoted, published, or divulged to others outside of your organization.
Gallup®, Q12®, StrengthsFinder®, Clifton StrengthsFinder®, and each of the 34
Clifton StrengthsFinder theme names are trademarks of Gallup, Inc. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
This document is of great value to both your organization and Gallup, Inc.
Accordingly, international and domestic laws and penalties guaranteeing patent,
copyright, trademark, and trade secret protection protect the ideas, concepts, and
recommendations related within this document.
No changes may be made to this document without the express written permission
of Gallup, Inc.
COPYRIGHT STANDARDS
Editor's Notes
Free the child’s potential and you will transform him into the world. (Maria Montessori)
Gallup created the science of strengths. In five decades of research and development, we've studied more than 1 million work teams, conducted tens of thousands of individual interviews, and coached even more executives, leaders, managers and employees. Our world-famous Clifton StrengthsFinder has helped more than 12 million people discover their strengths and what they do best. Our bestselling book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, has given millions strategies to develop their natural talents.
Instead, Gallup has found that there is infinite potential in developing what is right with people versus fixing what’s innately “wrong” with them. We define strengths as the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific task. And we have repeatedly found that when employees know and use their strengths, the effect on individual, team and organizational performance is spectacular.
Our society has been fixated on what’s wrong with people. We think that by understanding what is wrong we can figure out what is right…
We study disease to understand health
We study sadness to understand joy
We study divorce to understand happy marriages
And so many of us study our weaknesses to become stronger
Today, I am going to ask you to consider changing your focus from noticing what is wrong with people to notice what is right with people.
But let’s be real here… why would we want to spend 6 hours of your day talking about talent? If the purpose of business is to make a profit, then how does talent play a role in meeting that purpose?
Let’s explore that by putting together a puzzle…
(hand out one gallup path puzzle per table)
Note: This content spreads over several slides (1 of 13).
Purpose:
Start to build the case for strengths-based development.
Intention:
Transition to topical course content by leading this activity; begin by having participants stand up if they always …
Instructions:
We will move around a bit during this next activity, so push your chairs away from the table.
I am going to read a series of statements. If you always exhibit this behavior, please stand up.
Slide 2 of 13
[Animation adds “on weekends” after click]
Slide 3 of 13
Slide 4 of 13
Slide 5 of 13
Slide 6 of 13
Slide 7 of 13
Note: this is the final slide in the series (slide 13 of 13).
Transition:
Were you surprised when you stood up (or voted) and only a few other people did? Did you think everyone did those things?
Often, we think of these behaviors as personality quirks or idiosyncrasies, but really, they are your talents — natural behaviors that you apply in your everyday life. For most of us, no one taught us to do these things; they come naturally to us or are things we can’t imagine not doing. The same is true of our natural talents.
Note: this is the final slide in the series (slide 13 of 13).
Transition:
Were you surprised when you stood up (or voted) and only a few other people did? Did you think everyone did those things?
Often, we think of these behaviors as personality quirks or idiosyncrasies, but really, they are your talents — natural behaviors that you apply in your everyday life. For most of us, no one taught us to do these things; they come naturally to us or are things we can’t imagine not doing. The same is true of our natural talents.
Slide 12 of 13
Slide 10 of 13
Slide 11 of 13
My supervisor focuses on my weaknesses or negative characteristics.
My supervisor focuses on my strengths or positive characteristics.
These are the items that were asked (in addition to the Q12 items) to categorize respondents into engagement groups. These were taken from a Gallup Q12 workplace poll conducted in April 2004 (n=1,003).
Ignored: Marked 1, 2, or 3 to BOTH items.
We have completed this study year after year and come up with the same results.
Found online at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/books/review/sheryl-sandberg-by-the-book.html?_r=1&
Also: “A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2013, on page BR8 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: By the Book: Sheryl Sandberg.”
This is a great slide highlighting the impact that strengths have on loyalty to the organization.
Employees who felt they were able to focus on their strengths in their jobs were found more likely to recommend the organization’s products and services and to intend to stay with the organization for a long period of time.
These data were based on an organization using the Strengths Orientation Index items as a measure of the success of the strengths program.
Sourced from the following Facebook post by Robert Scobel:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/510317608997749