Using your strengths to stand out

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR.

Well what a day! The largest strike in decades and Lloyds Banking announcing a further 15,000 job cuts.  Fortunately our regular columnist John Hepworth comes to the rescue to inject some positive thinking into what could be a rather dour day.  Today John picks up from last week’s theme on emotional intelligence and looks at recognising and utilising ours and others strengths. (Ed Scrivener)

Using your strengths to stand out

“Positive Psychology” is seen as the new way forward for many…the concept that “Positive Psychology is the scientific study of optimal human functioning. It aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive. The positive psychology movement represents a new commitment on the part of research psychologists to focus attention upon the sources of psychological health, thereby going beyond prior emphases upon disease and disorder (Sheldon et al, 2007, University of Pennsylvania).”

So, looking at the ‘good stuff’. This has always been a bit of a stretch for me, in that my selection interviewing training, for instance, taught me to seek examples from candidates that met the criteria for the job. In my mind, then, I was seeking to find out things that candidates could do, rather than what they could not. But let’s run with this, because to me, the way that Positive Psychology is moving now suggests that there is more to it than just – let’s face it – happy, clappy Americanisms.

OK, so what do I mean? My introduction to the topic has been focused on career development for clients. Where clients have little or no work experience to draw upon, I was finding myself restricted in how I could help. Without any doubt, following a discussion with Bill Davies at JCA (Occupational Psychologists), a ‘strengths’ approach – delivered from a Positive Psychology perspective – paid dividends. I used “StrengthsFinder” ® and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and this provided a rich seam of information for development and learning.

I was presented with an in-depth profile of what the client saw as their strengths, allied to a comprehensive MBTI report that complimented and helped start a discussion. It was amazing to me at least to see traits and preferences that had been seen as a ‘problem’ in some clients, suddenly turned into ‘strengths’. This allowed me to work with the clients on how they then implemented their new-found strengths into practical, career-based action.

I was then struck by a sentence on the back of a book…”…we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, whilst our strengths lie dormant and neglected.” This is taken from ‘Now, discover your strengths’ by Buckingham and Clifton (2005) and my goodness, did this resonate with me!

Did the constructive criticism go too far?

Thinking back on my employed career, how often did I actually focus on the strengths of employees and managers alike? Rarely, mainly in formal succession planning sessions rooted in personal bias and cultural norms, rather than what was actually required ‘to move the business forward’. Mainly, my job was identifying and correcting weaknesses – even if I did call them development needs. We Brits do like to criticise – but give someone sustained and authentic feedback?! And when it came to selection interviewing, well, what I actually did was seek instances where candidates met our competencies, rather than demonstrated their strengths and how they may be applicable.

Interesting and I am sure that many of you will have a different view. But what has changed for me is that far from being ‘happy, clappy Americanisms’, the role of Positive Psychology and its applications can be at least as powerful as a competency-based approach (and hey, most good competency systems now describe behaviours that are ‘good’ and ‘bad’).

Where does this leave me, then, in my view on Positive Psychology? One example helps here. Writing in ‘Assessment & Development Matters’ (BPS, Vol 3, No1, Spring 2011), Trenier et al share their experiences of using a ‘strengths’ approach with undergraduates. The Association of Graduate Recruiters (2010) noted that some 70 graduates were applying for each available job, so by implication, graduates needed that ‘something else’ to stand out from the mass of applicants. Trenier et al devised a programme to help undergraduates identify their strengths, to help them identify realistic career choices and to present themselves strongly to recruiters.

The outcomes for the students involved were telling. For instance, the simple fact that recognised that they could not all be all-rounders – we all have different strengths – and yet strengths are not static: they can be ‘realised’ through targeted development and experiences.

I feel now that it goes without saying that applications such as Emotional Intelligence lead the way for career development and psychological well-being – and tools in EI focus on strengths. Picking up on last week’s blog, what we need to see more of now is the business success associated with adopting Positive Psychology and EI approaches: the Holy Grail of linking people well-being with outstanding business performance. Sufficient to prove once and for all that we ‘people professionals’ were right all along!

About the author

John helps organisations, especially in the SME sector, achieve competitive advantage. He has a particular interest in translating strategic HR management into practice. Typically, this has meant focusing his efforts on recruitment & selection, performance management and training & development activities. John sees the challenge of matching the development of internal competencies with the externally driven demands of the market place as one of the key themes in developing organisational engagement, capability and performance. 

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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.  Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 7^th July and will be written by Annabel Kaye, Employment Law Specialist.