Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Strength
Revolution
Let your mind dwell
strengths- Bob Conkin
on
your
Guided by the belief that good is opposite of bad, mankind has for centuries
pursued its fixation with fault and failing. Doctors have studied diseases in
order to learn about health. Psychologists have investigated sadness in order
to learn about joy and schools &workplace around the world each one of us
has been encouraged to analyze and correct our weakness in order to
become strong. This advice is well intended but misguided, fault &failing
deserve study but they reveal little about strength.
Strengths have their own patterns. To excel in ones chosen field and to find
lasting fulfillment one needs to understand his/her unique patterns. On
needs to become an expert at finding describing, applying &practicing ones
own strengths.
Strength revolution-Context
At the heart of the strength revolution
is a simple decree: the great
organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is
different &it must capitalize on these differences. It must watch for the clue
to each employee has natural talent and then position and develop each
employee so that his or her talents are transformed into natural strengths.
Why? Because most organizations remain startlingly inefficient at capitalizing
on strengths of their people globally 20% of the employees working in large
organizations feel that their strengths are in play every day at workplace.
(Source-Gallup data base of 17 million employees in 101 companies in 63
countries).
Most organizations are built on two flawed assumptions about people:
1-Each person can learn to be competent in almost everything.
2-Each persons room for growth is his or her areas of greatest weakness.
Madonna. The same applies to these thirty four themes, used with insight
and understanding they can capture the unique themes playing in each
persons life.
Activator
Adaptability
Analytical
Arranger
Belief
Command
Communicative
Competition
Connectedness
Consistency
Context
Deliberative
Developer
Discipline
Empathy
Focus
Futuristic
Harmony
Ideation
Inc
Individualizatio
n
Input
Intellection
Learner
Maximizer
Positivity
Realtor
Responsibility
Restorative
Self Assurance
Significance
Strategic
Woo
Strength Building
Strength is a consistent near perfect performance in an activity that one can
demonstrate it time and time again. Practice doesnt necessarily make
perfect. to develop strength in any activity requires certain natural talent
(recurring patterns of thoughts, feelings or behaviors).
The three raw materials -Talent-knowledge Skills combine to create strength
in an individual. Although all are important to strength building, of these
three raw materials the most important is talent. Our talent is innate,
whereas skills and knowledge can be acquired through learning and practice.
E.g. as a sales person one can learn how to explain companys product
features-benefits(knowledge)one can learn how to ask right form of
questions during the sales call(skills) but one can never learn how to
push/pull the prospect to commit at exactly the right moment and exactly
right way .These are talent(Command &Individualization).
Although it is occasionally possible to build a strength without acquiring
knowledge or skills.-there are natural. In many roles one can acquire
relevant knowledge and skills to the point that one is able to get by, but no
matter what the role, if one lacks the necessary talent, one will never have
consistent perfect performance. Thus key to building bona-fide strength is to
identify ones dominant talent and then refine it with knowledge and skills.
Overtime each one of us becomes more and more aware of who we really
are. This growing awareness of self is vital to strength building because it
allows each one of us to identify more clearly our natural talent and cultivate
it into strength. Unfortunately this process is not always smooth. What looks
on the surface like transformation is actually acceptance of some things that
can never be transformed-talent. Spontaneous reactions, yearning, rapid
learning& satisfaction can help one detect this/her talents. As one rushes
through life, honest reflective pause on successes of life give clues to ones
talent.