The Strengths Blog

There are many exercises for helping people to clarify what they can do: a) To develop their inner strength; b) To make good use of the strengths. One approach is to encourage them to focus on creating their Perfect Days.

This is an exercise inspired by the writing of Eugene O’Kelly, the author of Chasing Daylight. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Eugene began working with his loved ones on creating perfect days.  You can find a link to the book at the end of this article.

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Imagine you are facilitating a strengths coaching session. The person you are working with wants to do three things.

* To take more control of shaping their future life.

* To do more of the things they find satisfying.

* To make more use of their strengths.

Certainly it is possible to focus on how they can integrate more of these things into their present life.

Another approach, however, is to invite the person to start by clarifying the perfect scenarios. They can then look at how to make some of these things happen. Bearing this in mind, you can invite the person to do three exercises on this theme.

* They can clarify their perfect personal day.

They are to start by brainstorming and then crafting their perfect ‘personal day’. Different people will obviously have different days. For example, they may aim:

* To have a leisurely breakfast.

* To go for a run.

* To spend time with your children.

* To work in the garden.

* To listen to music, paint, write or do some other creative activity.

* To enjoy a siesta.

* To …

They may also wish to sketch out different kinds of perfect personal days. Invite them to try completing the following exercise.

* They can clarify their perfect professional day.

Invite them to crafting perfect ‘professional day’ – the way they can earn money. So, for example, they may aim:

* To get to work early.

* To spend time with a coffee rehearsing the day ahead.

* To spend most of the day doing – or preparing to do – what they do best.

* To spend time with stimulating customers.

* To eat something healthy and nourishing every 2 hours.

* To set aside time for themselves halfway through the day.

* To rehearse the rest of the day.

* To help others to succeed.

* To do things that enable them to feel fulfilled at the end of the day.

Again, they may have several different kinds of perfect professional days. Sometimes their ideal personal and professional days may be blended together. Invite them to try completing the following exercise.

* They can begin creating elements of their perfect days.

“Life is for living. Everything is temporary, nothing is permanent,” we are told. Perfection may not be attainable and things may not always work out. But then each day may be perfect with its imperfections.

Invite the person to look ahead. Would they like to introduce parts of their perfect days into their personal and professional life? They may say something like:

“Yes, I would love to, but I am not sure how. At the same time, however, it makes sense to make a start.”

Some people go for a radical solution. They wipe the slate clean and start building their life around the things that are satisfying.

Some people choose a different approach. They begin introducing elements of their perfect days into their actual days.

Such people begin with a few things. They may start the day by listening to their favourite music; spend more time with their favourite customers; build-in times for reflection or whatever.

They then begin adding more elements, joining these together like a row of pearls. They do more and more of the things that would constitute their perfect days. Invite the person to do the following exercise.

Links

* Eugene O’Kelly.

The perfect days approach is described in Eugene’s book Chasing Daylight. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, he and his loved ones began creating perfect moments, hours and days. You can read more about the book at the following link.

http://amzn.to/g25Kye

Here is a New York Times article about Eugene.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/books/30masl.html?_r=1

The satisfying work curve is a concept that is sometimes employed in coaching. It is can be used to help a person to continue to build on their strengths and do stimulating work.

People sometimes go through several stages when doing certain kinds of work.

* Stage One is their Seed Corn.

They plant lots of seeds and explore many possibilities. Some seeds grow and, for example, potential customers show interest. So the person puts extra effort into pursuing these opportunities.

* Stage Two is their Satisfying Work.

They focus on these fulfilling activities and sometimes begin searching for funding. There is a sense of adventure and they discover new things. This can be one of the most satisfying stages in the work cycle.

* Stage Three is their Salary Earner.

They translate the satisfying work into money-earning activities. This pays the bills and can also be fulfilling because they see a response. After awhile, however, they may want to move on.

* Stage Four is their Spent Force.

The cash is still coming in, but performing the activities no longer generates energy. That does not matter, providing they have been continuing the development cycle and nurturing their next crop of seed corn.

The coach sometimes invites a person to clarify where they are on the curve. They may, of course, be at different stages with different projects or activities.

If appropriate, the person can be encouraged to keep building on their strengths. These are often the deeply satisfying activities where they deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs. They can then employ these strengths to keep planting seeds and continuing along the satisfying work curve.

Links

* 3 tips for understanding the satisfying work curve.

This piece goes into greater depth regarding how a person can keep doing satisfying work.

Knowing where you are on the curve.

There are many different definitions for strengths. There are, of course, common themes. Many practitioners invite individuals, teams and organisations to focus on:

‘Doing what you do best’.

Some also include an element of motivation. For example, they invite people to focus on:

‘The deeply satisfying activities in which you deliver peak performance’.

Here is a selection of strengths definitions from several practitioners in the field.

Bernard Haldane and Dependable Strengths

Bernard’s pioneering work the 1940s covered such topics as Motivated Skills and Transferable Skills. In some of his early work he talked about strengths as activities that a person was: ‘Good at and motivated to do’.

Later he and his colleagues focused on what they called Dependable Strengths. This is the definition that is now used by people who follow this path.

Dependable Strengths: each person’s special talent for excellence.

You can discover more about the Dependable Strengths approach at the following link.

http://www.dependablestrengths.org/

Don Clifton, Gallup and Marcus Buckingham

Don Clifton is recognised as one of the Founding Fathers of the modern strengths movement. From the 1940s onwards he asked the question:

“What would happen if we actually studied what is right with people?”

He founded Selection Research, Inc., which eventually bought the Gallup Organization. Writing in Now, Discover Your Strengths, he and Marcus Buckingham used the following definition of strengths in the book.

Strength: Consistent near perfect performance in an activity.

Marcus Buckingham has gone to found his own company. He now defines a person’s strength as more than something they are good at. It is also something in which they feel strong and energised when performing it successfully.

You can discover more about the Gallup and the Marcus Buckingham approaches at the following links.

Gallup

Marcus Buckingham

Martin Seligman and The Positive Psychology Center

Martin has dedicated his professional life to: “Increasing the tonnage of happiness in the world”. He went on to set up The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. This covers more than focusing on strengths. It believes that:

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and promotes research, training, education, and the dissemination of Positive Psychology.

Positive Psychology has three central concerns: Positive emotions, Positive Individual Traits and Positive Institutions.

The Center tends to focus on Character Strengths rather than Creative Strengths. It therefore goes beyond providing one definition for strengths. It aims:

To study individual virtues and strengths, such as the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom.

You can discover more about The Positive Psychology Center’s approach at the following link.

http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/

Paul Brewerton and James Brook
of The Strengths Partnership

Paul and James created a tool called Strengthscope that enables people, teams and organisations to clarify and build on their strengths. They use this and other tools to help people to achieve peak performance. You can discover more about this in their book Strengths For Success.

Paul and James define strengths as the:

Underlying qualities that energise us, contribute to our personal growth and lead to peak performance.

You can discover more about the Strengths Partnership’s approach at the following link.

http://www.strengthspartnership.com/

Mike Pegg

Mike has used the strengths approach since the early 1970s. His books on the topic include The Strengths Way, The Strengths Toolbox and Strengths Coaching in 90 Minutes, the latter co-authored with Sue Moore.

Much of his early work was with individuals. He then moved on to helping people to use their strengths to build super teams and superb organisations. So the definition he uses applies to individuals, teams and organisations.

Strengths: The specific activities in which you deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs.

This is the starting point. When working with individuals, for example, Mike invites people to tap into their motivation by focusing on:

“The deeply satisfying activities in which you deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs.”

You can discover more about this approach at the following link.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/

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There are obviously many definitions for strengths and these will grow as the field expands. Such definitions are, of course, starting points. The key is to avoid academic arguments about the correct definition. The real task is to enable people, teams and organisations to achieve ongoing success.

Peak performers seem to have a sixth sense in the areas where they perform brilliantly. This highlights one way to identify a person’s strengths. It is to clarify the specific activities in which they have what Al Siebert called personal ‘radar’.

Famous for his books such as The Survivor Personality, Al began his studies of survivors when he joined the paratroopers. Looking at the hardened professionals, he found that many survivors demonstrated a specific characteristic. He wrote:

"During our training I noticed that combat survivors have a type of personal radar always on 'scan'. Anything that happens, or any noise draws a quick, brief look. They have a relaxed awareness. I began to realize it wasn't just luck or fate that these were the few who came back alive. Something about them as people had tipped the scales in their favor."

Peak performers in sports, business and many other fields possess a similar quality. They seem to know ‘what will happen before it happens’. This gives them more time and space to use their repertoire of talents to deliver great results.

So what happens when people use their personal radar? Entering the situation in which they excel, they feel alive and alert. Employing their antennae, they rapidly gather information about three things.

* They quickly see and extrapolate patterns.

* They see the potential picture of success.

* They see how to pursue the best strategy for achieving the picture of success.

A person may have good radar in some situations, for example, but not in others. It's also important to know where they have bad radar. They can then develop a strategy for dealing with those situations.

Radar is given. A person’s greatest area for growth, however, often lies in expanding their repertoire of strategies and skills for delivering results. This is something that develops with age, experience and wisdom.

Peak performers keep putting themselves into places where they have good radar. Grasping the situation quickly, they then reach into their repertoire and use the right tools to achieve the required results.

Links

* 3 tips for employing your personal radar.

This article describes how to develop and apply your radar.

Radar.

* The Strengths Foundation’s introduction to Al Siebert’s work.

Al.

* Resiliency Center.

Here is a link to the Resiliency Center. This provides more information about the work of Al and others who have focused on overcoming setbacks.

http://www.resiliencycenter.com/

Resilient people develop the inner strength, strategies and skills to overcome setbacks. Managing such challenges can sometime provide the platform for achieving future success.

Al Siebert did pioneering work on resilience. His superb books – such as The Survivor Personality and The Resiliency Advantage – enabled many people to develop their inner strength.

Al provided more than inspiring stories. He offered positive models and practical tools that enabled people to develop their resiliency skills. They could then apply these to overcome challenges when using their strengths. He helped many people to make breakthroughs in their personal and professional lives.

Returning to college after completing his military service, Al resolved to study psychology, but he grew frustrated by its emphasis on mental illness.

He decided to study life’s survivors – those who grew when overcoming tough challenges. Scoping out the areas of study, he chose to focus on people that met four criteria:

* They had survived a major crisis.

* They had surmounted the crisis through personal effort.

* They had emerged from the experience with previously unknown strengths and abilities.

* They had, in retrospect, found value in the experience.

Building on his research, Al outlined some of the strategies survivors adopt to overcome crises successfully. These include the following.

The Survivor Personality is one of the first and best books on the topic. Al went on to start Thrivenet. This a web site packed with stories and tools that people can use to overcome adversity. Here is the link:

Thrivenet.

Al then expanded on the topic to produce another compelling book.

The Resiliency Advantage

Expanding on the theme of survival, Al focused on how people can thrive in a fast-changing world. This calls for individuals, teams and organisations to develop their resiliency skills.

Why? In the old days many people relied on ‘institutions’ to tell them what to learn and how to behave. Nowadays people must manage increasing information, complexity and unpredictability. Such events may include, for example, personal setbacks, sickness, redundancy, market changes, reduced budgets, technological changes, economic downturns or whatever.

People will need to deal with such challenges. This calls for them taking responsibility, seeing to the heart of the matter and making good decisions. Even if they choose the right strategy, events may conspire to throw them off-track. They will need to recover quickly, practice ‘course correction’ and do everything possible to reach their goals. People who develop such resiliency skills are more likely to increase their chances of success.

Al illustrated these ideas with real-life inspiring stories. Some are in the book; some on The Resiliency Center web site. You can access these stories at:

Resiliency Center.

The Adversity Advantage

Paul G. Stoltz and Erik Weihenmayer wrote The Adversity Advantage. This shows how overcoming setbacks can fuel a person’s ability to produce greatness.

Paul originally gained public attention with his work on AQ, Adversity Quotient. This enabled people to measure and improve their ability to overcome adversity.

Erik became the first blind person to climb Everest. A journey he chronicled in his book Touch The Top of The World.

After seeing Erik featured on the front of Time Magazine, Paul sought him out. Building on the views they shared in common, they decided to write The Adversity Advantage. Their site outlines seven strategies for overcoming adversity and achieving peak performance. Here is a brief summary taken from the site, which describes these in more detail.

http://www.adversityadvantage.com/

1) Take It On.

Learn how to overcome frustration, helplessness, and anger — and benefit from adversity.

2) Summon Your Strengths.

Challenge the conventional wisdom that natural strengths drive success. Exceed expectations of what you and others can, or should, attempt to do.

3) Engage Your CORE.

Learn how to handle adversity better and faster. Engage your CORE and learn how to turn adversities into advantages. (CORE stands for: Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance.)

4) Pioneer Possibilities.

Devise signature systems for turning the impossible into the possible. Learn to create strategies that others fail to see.

5) Pack Light, Pack Right.

Learn how packing poorly cripples you… but how choosing the right things, people, obligations, and pursuits strengthen you. ,Spring clean, so you can rise up, rather than crumble, under the weight of adversity.

6) Suffer Well.

Character is forged in the flames of adversity. Done right, suffering can fuel greatness.

7) Deliver Greatness, Everyday.

This summit, the culmination, weaves together the most important ideas of the book, providing a coherent, portable package of practices that you can apply anywhere, anytime.

Links

* Resiliency Center.

Here is a link to the Resiliency Center. This provides more information about the work of Al and others who have focused on overcoming setbacks.

http://www.resiliencycenter.com/

* Paul Stoltz’s web site.

http://www.peaklearning.com/

* Erik Weihenmayer web site.

http://www.touchthetop.com/