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.

To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR.

Today we see the return of regular columnist Dorothy Nesbit who has written a rather topical article.  It won’t have escaped your notice that emotional intelligence is cropping up on a regular basis and this week Dorothy looks at why many of us find it hard to be ourselves and express our feelings within the workplace. (Ed Scrivener)

To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

We all agree (do we?) that emotional intelligence has a significant role to play in the workplace.  Words like “authenticity” and “integrity” are widely used and have a strong appeal with organisations looking to recruit people who display these qualities.  At the same time, in many organisations, people hold the belief that they have to show their best side in order to succeed and invest time and effort into creating a professional mask and identity.  To what extent is it really OK to be human in the workplace?

As early as 1973, Dr. David McClelland published a paper, Testing for competence rather than for intelligence, in which he argued that classic aptitude tests (the type that might, for example, predict performance in school exams) were a poor predictor of later performance in the workplace.  He posited the idea of testing for competencies – those attitudes, traits or behaviours that differentiate the more outstanding performers in a particular job.  McClelland’s ideas have since been widely tested in the workplace even whilst scientists have been making significant discoveries into the workings of the brain.

Daniel Goleman, himself a student of McClelland, has been widely credited with coining the term “emotional intelligence” and his book Working With Emotional Intelligence outlines a model for effectiveness in the workplace which draws significantly on the work of McClelland and others.  Emotional intelligence recognises that our effectiveness in the workplace reflects our ability to tune in and respond to the full range of information available to us, including our own emotions.

You might expect, then, a growing trend towards encouraging authentic self- expression in the workplace.  You might also expect that this would lead to higher levels of engagement at work.  You might even expect that this would be desirable to employers:  higher engagement leads to improved work outcomes as a result of increased discretionary effort.  But is it really so?  Working (as I do) as a coach to senior leaders I notice how often I am party to the sharing by clients of thoughts, feelings, desires that they hesitate to share with colleagues, even whilst they wish their colleagues would understand them better.  Surely there’s some paradox at work when all the research points to the benefits of such sharing and still, it’s not happening?

"I don't know how, but I'm not asking for help"

Reflecting on my own experiences, I see some clues as to why this might be so.  A first clue lies in my experience of joining the workplace:  one thing I took from my upbringing was the idea that there was a “right” and a “wrong” answer to everything – and the idea that often I was wrong.  I entered the workplace (as much as the rest of my life) with a fear of learning that yes, I was indeed wrong.  This did not make it easy for me to share my fears and to seek the help and support I needed early in my career.  It also took many experiences for me to learn, finally, that I was not alone in putting on a brave –but not entirely authentic – face.  For a while, it seemed to me that everyone had it sussed – everyone but me, that is.  I wonder how many others would share similar experiences of hiding their human face because their upbringing and education has not prepared them to show themselves fully at work.

Later, I learned of a second challenge when it comes to the authentic sharing of our human selves:  it’s actually rather hard work!  Perhaps the first experience I had of working in an environment in which such sharing was encouraged was as a volunteer, supporting Ian McDermott and his colleagues in training large groups of people in neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP).  This was set up with the expectation that, as a member of the support team, I would have as much learning opportunity as participants.  Team members were allocated a learning partner, for example, and supported by their coach and their team leader.  I used to love the morning “huddle”, in which we came together at the beginning of the day to check in and to prepare for the day ahead.  I felt supported in being myself as well as relishing an environment in which people were looking out for my successes.  This was quite new to me.  At the same time I quickly learned that, as much as it was safe to share what was going on for me, the invitation was always for me to learn.  This was quite different from what I often experienced in the workplace where the invitation was to collude.  This was the difference between “yes, your colleague was in the wrong” and “so what’s the learning for you?”  I came to welcome this approach which led me quite quickly to recognise my love of coaching and still, it required of me a willingness to take responsibility for myself and for the quality of my experience which was new to me and for which, initially, I was ill-prepared.

Be yourself...

A third reason why it can be hard to be fully human in the workplace is this:  it’s not always fully welcomed by others.  This can be a little circular.  It takes trust, for example, both to share ourselves fully and to receive each other as we share.  As part of my own practice I am a student of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and make it my aspiration and my discipline to share my feelings, needs and observations and to make clear requests as well as to seek to connect with the feelings and needs of others.  Recently I fielded a request from a colleague and decided to explore the request with her so that I fully understood it before saying yes or no.  This was received as a criticism which was not my intention.  Suddenly, I found myself seeking to handle a conversation with someone who was acting on an inference (that I was criticising her) as if it were true.  Oftentimes, in the workplace we find that our open and honest self-expression is not received with a glad heart by others.

Perhaps a fundamental reason why we struggle to be fully human in the workplace is that we don’t know how.  As a broad generalisation, Western cultures sponsor rational thinking heavily and discourage the expression of other aspects of our experience such as bodily sensations (our gut reaction) and feelings.  Since those from whom we learn come from this background they are not always good teachers when it comes to being fully human.  This can present a particular challenge for those of us who enter the professions likely to be reading this article – including members of the HR profession, trainers, consultants, coaches.  Many people are drawn to these professions precisely because (like me) they didn’t thrive in the environments they grew up and they want to see something different.  At the same time, they lacked role models from whom to learn and face the risk of hypocrisy as they seek to educate others whilst overlooking (or struggling with) their own limitations.

I’ll be expanding on these thoughts at my blog.  In the meantime, I wonder, what has been your experience of being fully human in the workplace?  And what do you aspire to at work when it comes to being fully human?

About the author:

Dorothy Nesbit, Leadership Coach, unleashes innate leadership potential through powerful, compassionate and authentic relationships.
Blog | Website

Addendum
Our regular columnist and next week's writer John Hepworth has an assoication with the Occupational Psychologists JCA, who recently produced the following report about Emotional Intelligence that may be of interest to our readers.

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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 30^th June and will be written by HR Consultant John Hepworth.