Geared toward undergraduate student-level supervisors, this presentation gives students a chance to review their results from the StrengthsQuest assessment and learn how to apply their Strengths to the work they will do as a peer leader and supervisor.
2. The Customer Service Supervisor team will…
Explore more of the meaning behind their
strengths through developmental activities.
Understand the significance of the domains of
strengths.
Evaluate their ability to do their best work and
how that translates into the development of
their staff team.
3. Guided belief: good is the opposite of bad?
Disease teaches healthy behaviors?
Divorce teaches healthy, happy marriage practices?
Strengths have a unique pattern different from
weaknesses.
Gallup’s Mission: Learn the talents that make
up success and strong leadership.
Focusing on strength leads to better
satisfaction, performance and retention.
4. Example
Signature Themes Definition
Empowers Me To…
(How Do You Use It?)
Critical ActivitiesSignature Themes Definition
Empowers Me To…
(How Do You Use It?)
Critical Activities
Responsibility Focus and drive to contribute
to projects and teams
Contribute strong teamwork
and exhibit high reliability
Committee work; Program
development;
Arranger Ability to exhibit strong
spatial organization and solve
problems
Take the ideas of others and
provide structure to projects
Training coordination;
Scheduling opening/closing
responsibilities
Relator Ease of finding connections
with others
Develop strong interpersonal
connections and establish
effective teams
Teambuilding sessions with
the CA staff; Developing
rapport on committees
Developer Recognition of opportunities
for growth and ability to
provide guidance
Show care and interest in the
experiences of others and
strengthen working
relationships
Developmental conversations
with students about career
development and
involvement opportunities;
Job action meetings
Empathy Recognition and appreciation
of the emotions and feelings
of others
Recognize the challenges of
others and provide support
when needed
Managing student distress;
Mediating peer group
disputes
5. How did you first react to your Strengths
assessment results?
What are some thoughts about how you may
want to move forward in a Strength’s focused
way?
7. With all of this positive psychology, there has
to be a “dark side,” right?
The shadow side of strengths comes not from a
misuse of talents but a misperception.
These misperceptions can create conflict that
challenges the success of a partnership or
group.
9. The Summit: clear, focused and engaged.
Camp 3
This last year, have I had the opportunities to learn and
grow?
In the last 6 months, has someone at work talked to me
about my progress?
Camp 2
Do I have a best friend at work?
Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel
my job is important?
Do my opinions seem to count?
Camp 1
Is there someone who encourages my development?
Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care
about me as a person?
In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for
doing good work?
Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
Base Camp
Do I have the materials and equipment I need?
Do I know what is expected of me?
10. To be able to lead effectively, one must first ask
themselves the question, “what do I do best?”
Identify the top 10 statements in that you
exhibit the greatest strength/passion related to
your career and then try to narrow that list
down to 5.
Are there items that are important to you that
are missing from the list?
11. What I Do Best
Q12 – “I have the opportunity to do what I do best every
day.”
How do your selections of what you do best match up
with your actual responsibilities on a daily basis?
What I Want Most
Similar to what you do best, the most engaged employees
have strong correlations between their talents and their
environment.
How do your talents and your environment match up?
What experiences are missing from your environment
that could increase your engagement on a daily basis?
12. Tuckman’s Stages
Forming: What are you learning about the strengths of the
group? What connections can you make about potential
complementary talents?
Storming: What similar or different strengths may create
conflict? Who may be able to effectively mediate conflict?
Norming: Who can contextualize positive patterns of
partnership? How can combinations of strengths boost the
effectiveness of projects?
Performing: How do you recognize strengths for success? How
do you encourage continued development of partnerships?
Adjourning: How do you recognize the contributions of each
group member? How can you maintain relationships?
How can you apply these questions to the
development of your CA teams?
So why take the road of positive psychology?
Guided Belief
There is a perception that good is the opposite of bad, which has informed us which how we seek out information.
There have been advances made in understanding health through understanding disease and exploration what makes a marriage work by eliminating what doesn’t
The difference with understand strengths is that they have unique patterns that are not exactly the opposite of a weakness.
For example, failure to nurture a talent does not make that talent become a weakness.
“Weaknesses” also do not automatically inhibit someone from success in tasks assumed to be correlated with certain talents.
Gallup turned the focus onto understanding the talents and characteristics of leaders and highly valued employees to determine what talents comprise strong leadership and service and ways to pinpoint opportunities for extended grow.
Through millions of surveys and interviews, Gallup reduced their list of strengths to 34 and learned through their data that focusing on strengths and talents led to higher evaluations of satisfaction, performance and retention of staff and leadership.
Have each person make a 6x4 grid, leaving enough room to jot down notes. The titles across the top are:
Signature Theme (Top 5)
Personal Definition (In their own words…)
Empowers Me To… (How does the strength come up in their work?)
Critical Activities (What are the specific responsibilities in the CD position where each strength comes to the surface?)
Give each person a about 5 minutes to explore their recognition of their strengths in action.
Take about 5 minutes to share.
Beyond the understanding of the individual strengths, each one fits into an overall theme category.
Executing strengths are focused on the ability to accomplish tasks/projects. This may include how one looks at challenges, perceives a motivation to accomplish tasks or appreciates maintaining order in their life.
Influencing strengths all apply a boost of attention to promoting oneself or a set of goals. This could manifest through the development of quick rapport, confidence in one’s abilities/identity or drive to seek out the best outcome.
Relationship building strengths represent talents for connecting with people, potentially through one’s attitude, ability to see different perspectives or focus on giving oneself to each individual relationship.
Strategic thinking strengths focus on concepts of information gathering and developing vision. While some talents in this category would apply to providing strong leadership and vision (i.e. strategic and futuristic), others also look at the development of perspectives and ideas through the review of the past (i.e. context) and collecting of information in the present (i.e. input and learner).
Understanding the 4 domains provides a new perspective to the recognition of talent areas and the development of interpersonal and group dynamics through the recognition of complementary talents and identities.
The Q12 is a series of questions (similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model) that focuses in on the concept of engagement within the working environment.
The bottom camps are focused on the basic necessities to complete tasks, while the upper camps are more about engaging in an immersive, supportive and developmental atmosphere.
The important lessons from this model are that you need to achieve strength in the each camp to be able to consistently achieve success in your role, perspective must transition from a place of individual support to organizational commitment, development can be supported by others but is in your hands to control and that (at a base level) the question of having the opportunity to do what you do best every day is more complex and vital than the model even highlights.
The question of doing one’s best directly correlates with one’s ability to utilize their strengths.
Use the One Key Question Worksheet
Leadership requires that individuals know themselves well and can define how they are valuable to the functioning of an organization..
Using the “One Key Question” document, start determining your most significant values through exploring situations when you are at your best.
Starting with Part 1, identify 10 items that speak the most to your talents and see if you can narrow that number down to 5.
If there is something missing from the list, feel free to add those statements to the end.
Use the One Key Question Worksheet
What I Do Best
Engage the group in sharing their experiences of strength in the workplace.
Take note of areas where there is a disconnect between talents and daily activities.
Additional Questions
What makes one person succeed and another fail when they exhibit the same strengths?
Can someone mold into the right fit for a position or do you see what you are going to get when you first meet them?
Can excellence be learned?
What I Want Most
Start exploring this concept by moving to Part 2 and identify the top 5 attributes you seek in a work environment.
After exploring the questions on the slide, identify the fact that recognizing your talents and their fit in their work environment provides a new perspective on your unique style of accomplishing tasks. This then translates to recognizing experiences important to your growth and to the settings you would like to work in.
Tuckman’s Stages
Forming: As a group is coming together, each person brings their own combination of strengths to the table. Thinking about how you can start to recognize the diversity of talents (even the different presentations of the same theme) can help start a group on the right foot.
Storming: The shadow side of strengths can cause conflict before individuals get to truly know each other and the benefits of their different talents. Thinking about disconnects between personalities and talent combinations can help to reduce the loss of productivity and support for the success of the team.
Norming: Setting the stage for how individuals can complement each other on certain projects or tasks can move a team from existing to achieving. Starting to recognize individual talents with new responsibilities will start to exhibit a pattern of positive reinforcement.
Performing: Even once a group is working effectively, there is always room for more development and opportunities to recognize talent contributions through positive reinforcement and providing new leadership experiences.
Adjourning: The way a group wraps up is important in providing significance to the experience. Each person make like to be recognized in different ways, but finding their preferred recognition method can bring positive closure.