Imagine you are a leader, coach or educator. What do you see when you look at a person? Do you see their strengths or their shortcomings?
It may be helpful to understand both, but it is interesting to know which we focus on first. The parts we see first are often those we put our energy into encouraging or fixing. We concentrate on their potential or problems.
Let’s explore how this can work in practice.
1) You can focus on the positive parts of a person.
This was the approach employed by the pioneering ‘Slough Project’ in 1967. The project aimed to enable ‘mentally handicapped’ young people to live in the community. They gave me my first job in social work.
The staff focused on the ‘responsible’ and ‘creative’ parts of each young person. The youngsters rose to meet the expectations and the project was successful.
I moved on to working with troubled teenagers. As part of my development, I visited George Lyward, who ran a remarkable therapeutic community at Finchden Manor. He talked about looking for those ‘golden moments’ when somebody comes alive. This was a philosophy also endorsed by writers such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Sydney Jourard, Viktor Frankl, Virginia Axline, Virginia Satir and John Dewey.
Many of the practitioners I met from ‘Slough’ onwards believed it was important to give people practical tools they could use:
a) To build on their strengths.
b) To manage the consequences of their weaknesses.
Everybody has their own set of questions they ask when looking at a person. The strengths approach invites them to ask:
“When does the person come alive? When are they in their element – at ease and yet able to excel? Where do they deliver 'As', rather then 'Bs' or 'Cs'? Where do they see patterns quickly? When do they go through the stages of absorption, aspiration and achievement? When do they flow, focus and finish? What do they have a track record of finishing? What do they have the potential to achieve?”
You will have your own questions and responses when looking at a person. So try completing the following sentences.
2) You can focus on the positive parts of a team.
“Taking over a new team is fascinating,” said one football manager. “My normal approach is to build on the positive people or bring-in leaders who will provide the backbone of the team."
"It is also important to build on the existing players’ strengths. I often find strengths during training sessions by moving players around and putting them in different combinations. Sometimes you get a surprise, such as two players working together as if they can read each other's thoughts. That is what I like doing. Looking at how people co-operate, then building on the parts that work best.”
Great coaches often take this approach in sports, the arts, business and other fields.
* They start by building on the positive people in the team. They encourage them to play to their strengths and make their best contribution.
* They give the neutral or negative people the opportunity to opt-in and contribute. But they do not spend excessive amounts of time chasing them.
* They encourage, educate and enable people to achieve ongoing success.
Great coaches help people to develop by focusing on two main themes. Watching people in action, they identify: a) The specific things people do well – and how they can follow these principles more in the future: b) The specific things people can do better – and how. They then educate people to achieve the specific goals.
You will follow this path in your own way, so try completing the following sentences.
3) You can focus on the positive parts of an organisation.
Imagine you have been asked to shift the culture in an ailing organisation. You will obviously aim to do three things.
First, to communicate a compelling vision – explaining the ‘What, Why, How, Who and When’. Second, to build successful ‘prototypes’ that demonstrate the future culture. Third, to invite people to decide whether they want to join the future culture and – if so – to clarify the contribution they want to make towards achieving the vision.
Different leaders take different routes regarding how they work with the existing people in an ailing organisation. For example, it is possible:
a) To focus on the people who are performing brilliantly.
It is to clarify what they are doing right to perform superb work. It is then to expand these principles across the organisation.
b) To focus on when people in the organisation have performed brilliantly in the past.
It is to clarify what they were doing right to do great work or overcome challenges. It is then to enable them to follow these principles again in the future.
c) To focus on the people who are unmotivated and performing badly.
It is to clarify their personal issues and perceived obstacles. It is then to spend time trying to fix the situation.
Some leaders employ a mixture of all three approaches. But many are now moving towards the first two options.
Appreciative Inquiry is a positive way of working with organisations that has gained popularity since the 1980s. Devised by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, it enables people to identify and build on what works well in an organisation. AI is also used to tackle extremely difficult problems. But the approach is to clarify what people did right to solve similar issues in the past. People then follow these principles to tackle the challenges in the future.
One leading company, for example, invited AI to tackle an issue it had with sexual discrimination. Previously the company had sent everybody on gender awareness training courses. But unfortunately the incidents of sexual discrimination continued to rise. AI went into the company and asked people:
"When have women and men worked together brilliantly in this company? What were the specific projects they tackled? What did they do right to work together well? What were the results? How can people follow these principles in the future?"
The company received hundreds of positive examples. People identified the successful principles and put these into practice. Since then the company's internal morale scores have risen considerably.
AI starts by inviting people to focus on a particular issue they want to tackle. For example: "How to give great customer service? How to improve internal morale? How to make better use of the talents we already have within the organisation?" People then go through a ‘4D’ process for delivering success.
* Discovery.
People describe when the organisation has performed brilliantly in this particular area they want to tackle. They clarify the principles it followed to perform brilliantly.
* Dream.
People translate these principles into a specific goal they want to achieve in the future. It is vital that the goal is an expression of the principles they believe in and they know work. The goal must also be stimulating and stretching.
* Design.
People focus on the key strategies they can follow to give themselves the greatest chances of success. They then commit to achieving the goals.
* Destiny (or Delivery).
People implement the principles successfully. They do great work, find solutions to challenges and do whatever is required to achieve the specific goal.
You can read more about Appreciative Inquiry at:
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/
There are many methods for building on the successful aspects of an organisation. You will do this in your own way. So try completing the following sentences.
“What we focus on, we become,” we are told. If we focus on strengths, we become stronger and optimistic. If we focus on shortcomings, we become disillusioned and impotent. One approach is to focus on the positive parts of a person, team or organisation. This can provide the springboard for achieving future success.
Posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2011 at 4:20 pm in Sharing knowledge, The Strengths Blog | RSS feed
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