The Strengths Companion

This is a classic exercise that is used in many forms of coaching, including Strengths Coaching. The person is invited:

a) To clarify what they can control in their life and work.

The person may write, for example, that they can control their attitude, professionalism and ability to do their best.

b) To clarify what they can’t control.

They may write that they can’t control other people, the market or what others think about them.

c) To clarify how they can build on what they can control and manage what they can’t.

They may describe the specific things they will do to capitalise on their strengths and opportunities. Looking at the potential difficulties, they will develop strategies for doing their best in those situations. Looking ahead, they will also get some early successes and encourage themselves on the way to reaching their goals.

People like to feel in control. This exercise often enables them to feel stronger and more able to shape their future.

Links

* 3 tips for controlling the controllables.

Link.

* 3 tips for helping people to feel in control.

Link.

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.

He 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/

There are many approaches to working with people. Some of these focus on the human drive to leave a legacy.

The strength philosophy sometimes mirrors this approach. It focuses on how a person can use their strengths to encourage both present and future generations.

Stephen Covey brought the legacy approach to popular attention with his book First Things First. Co-authored with Roger and Rebecca Merrill, it had the subtitle: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy.

As is the case with models, people began adding to this list. They maintained it was important for people to laugh and spread happiness. Others added other ideas as the model developed.

Stephen Covey acknowledged the influence of Viktor Frankl, who wrote about people’s drive to fulfil their meaning. Writing after his liberation from the Nazi Concentration Camps, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning said:

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfilment.”

Looking further back, some people highlighted similar life themes in an old poem called Success. Wall posters of this inspiring poem attributed it to either Ralph Waldo Emerson or Robert Louis Stevenson, but there is no record of either writing it.

The poem was eventually found to have been written by Bessie Anderson Stanley. She wrote it in essay form for a competition run by the Brown Book Magazine in 1904. Readers were invited to write 100 words or less to answer the question 'What is success?'

Her winning essay was later converted into the following poem. (There are also several versions of this ‘original’.) It again highlights the importance of choosing to live, love, laugh and leave a legacy. 

Success

He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed often and loved much;
who has gained the respect of intelligent men
and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who has left the world better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty
or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory a benediction.

The Desire to Create a Legacy

Human beings have always wanted to pass on a legacy. This has taken many forms – some more positive than others.

From the 1990s onwards it became more common for people, teams and organisations to talk about creating a legacy. This was particularly so when, for example, bidding for sporting events, such as the Olympic Games.

Looking at societies as a whole, some have thought ahead to care for future generations. Some Native American tribes made decisions based on thinking about the Seventh Generation. Others have looked ahead to the next financial quarter.

When it comes to individuals, many have asked the eternal questions. These include:

“What is my purpose? How can I translate this into practice? How can I pass on a positive legacy?”

Over the past two centuries these questions have also been linked to studying human needs. This has led to creating many models regarding how people can satisfy their physical, psychological and philosophical needs.

These existential themes have been explored by some of the greatest names in psychology. These include, for example, William James, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Charlotte Buhler, Viktor Frankl, Virginia Satir, Rollo May and Erich Fromm.

Such themes have also influenced people who have focused on pursuing one’s vocation. Looking at the strengths field, you can find it in the work of people such as Bernard Haldane, Don Clifton and Martin Seligman.

Let’s assume that somebody wants to work towards leaving a positive legacy. There are many approaches to help them to achieve such goals.

Some involve exercises that talk about purpose, mission, life goals or other terms. But most take the form of inviting the person to focus on:

* The ‘What’ – the specific results they want to achieve.

* The ‘Why’ – the specific benefits of achieving these results.

* The ‘How’ and ‘When’ – the specific things they will do on road towards achieving the results.

So they may complete something like the following exercise.

Working Towards Leaving A Legacy

Many people are able clarify their personal or professional legacy. But then comes the challenge of achieving these goals.

Spiritual faiths offer their own views on how to live a fulfilling life. During the past two centuries, however, many people from different fields have offered their views.

One approach has been developed by people who built on the philosophy expressed in First Things First. This book encouraged people to live, love, learn and leave a legacy.

Since then people have added more ideas. One of these, for example, is to Labour – to translate the things you love doing into your labours of love. This also involves sweating – but in a joyful way – on the road to leaving a legacy.

One further addition stemmed from the work of Carl Honoré, who wrote In Praise of Slow. He believes that modern societies are addicted to speed. But going faster does not always produce well being, happiness and good decision making.

Carl believes that in some areas of life it may be useful to go even faster. But in many others it is important to slow down and appreciate life. Slowing down also gets us to focus on the life-long questions.

What are we here for? Are we here to go faster and make more money? Or are we here to appreciate life and safeguard the planet for future generations? Maybe the real question is:

How can we help people to be healthy and build a healthy planet?

Carl maintains that Slow Thinking plays a part in making good decisions. Fast Thinking is required to gather the pieces of the jigsaw. But most of our epiphanies come from Slow Thinking. The key is to get the right blend in our life and work.

Looking at the road towards leaving a legacy, people are therefore invited to Linger – to appreciate life and experiences. (Another version of this theme is: ‘Stop to smell the roses.’) Also, when appropriate, to allocate the right amount of time to making good decisions. This often involves focusing on what is really important.

Alice Herz-Sommer, the musician and oldest survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, continued to be optimistic well past the age of 100. Looking back, she said:

“I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times – including my husband, my mother and my beloved son. Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.”

“And life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and music are beautiful. Everything we experience is a gift, a present we should cherish and pass on to those we love.”

And the secret of her happiness:

“To focus on what is important – what is really important.”

Bearing these factors in mind, different people will focus on different themes on the road to leaving their chosen legacy. This may involve them exploring some of the following areas.

Imagine that a person has clarified their goals. Whilst they may happy with their progress towards, there may also be areas where they want to improve.

If appropriate, it can therefore be useful for them to tackle the following exercise. Bearing in mind the themes we have explored – to live, love, learn, laugh, linger, labour and leave a legacy – this invites them to describe two things.

* To describe the specific area they want to work on.

* To describe the specific things they would like to do in this area.

There are many ways of focusing on a person’s legacy. The strengths approach sometimes includes elements of existential psychology.

Strengths coaching sessions often start by clarifying the person’s aims. These can be their short, medium or long-term goals. Good coaches then provide practical tools the person can use to achieve their picture of success.

Links

* Stephen Covey.

Here is a link to the Stephen Covey site.

https://www.stephencovey.com/

* Viktor Frankl.

The official site about his work and legacy.

http://www.viktorfrankl.org/index.html

* Carl Honoré.

This takes you to Carl’s site and information on Slow Thinking.

http://www.carlhonore.com/

* Alice Herz-Sommer.

These links provide more information about her philosophy of life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5VTkQKgxkY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGkUWrt2RFw

http://www.arttherapyblog.com/videos/alice-herz-sommer-dancing-under-the-gallows/

There are many approaches to mentoring. Some of these contain elements of the strengths approach. So let’s start by considering some of the frequently asked questions about mentoring and coaching.

What do mentors do?

Mentors are wise and trusted advisers. They pass-on knowledge in a way that helps the mentee to achieve their personal or professional goals.

Many successful people use mentors. Why? Sometimes it is useful to take time-out with a third party who helps them to get an overview of a situation, explore the possible options and chart the road to success.

The word ‘mentor’ comes from Homer’s epic poem The Iliad. When Odysseus left to do battle in Troy, he asked a man called Mentor to take care of his son, Telemachus.

Rumour has it that Mentor was not always up to the task, so the Goddess Athena assumed his form and made him strong and wise.  Since then, the word mentor has become synonymous with ‘wise and trusted adviser’.

Why do some organisations use mentoring?

Mentoring plays a key role in nurturing talent. The benefits to the organisations include passing-on wisdom and helping people to make good quality decisions. The benefits to the mentee are that it provides an opportunity to expand their repertoire of knowledge and tools they can use to achieve success.

What is the difference between
mentoring and coaching?

Different organisations have different definitions. There are also different definitions in different parts of the world.

Here is one approach that is taken in some organisations. This does not mean it is right or wrong, because it is possible to have long discussions about the semantics.

The main thing is for everybody to be clear on the differences between mentoring and coaching in their own organisation.

They then know how to get the best from the session.

Mentors help people to take a helicopter view and focus on their strategy. Coaches then help people to master the skills required to achieve success.

Mentoring works best when the mentee chooses mentor, preferably somebody outside the line. Coaching often takes place within the line from the team leader. Here is an overview of the differences.

What are the respective responsibilities
of the mentor and the mentee?

The mentor’s responsibility is, first and foremost, to make sure they really want to be a mentor. Mentoring is very rewarding, but doing it properly can also be time-consuming.

After familiarising themselves with the organisation’s approach to mentoring, it is to facilitate the sessions and pass-on their knowledge in a way that the mentee can use to achieve success.

The mentee’s responsibility is to be proactive in setting-up the sessions, prepare properly and make the best use of their session with the mentor.

How do you choose a mentor?

There are obviously many ways to choose a mentor. Here are some suggestions.

* Choose somebody who has credibility in your eyes.

They must be somebody you respect. They must also have knowledge that you believe can help you to achieve your picture of success.

* Choose somebody who has similar values.

Look for a mentor who expresses the values you believe in and seems able to express these successfully at a high level. Values-fit is crucial.

* Choose somebody who has the qualities you want in a mentor.

Try completing the following exercise.  Describe the qualities you want in such a person. You may want them to be a good listener, creative or whatever. Then try to find somebody with these qualities.

How do you facilitate a mentoring session?

Imagine you are a mentor. There are obviously many ways to facilitate a mentoring session. Many of these approaches are based on creative problem-solving.

The mentor starts by creating a stimulating sanctuary. They make the person feel welcome and clarify the topics the person wants to explore. They then make clear working contracts and agree on the goals for the session.

Different mentors use different models to help a person to explore these themes. Here is one approach called the Classic Mentoring Model. The mentor focuses on the 5Cs.

They encourage the person to explore their Challenges; Choices; Consequences; Creative Solutions and Conclusions. The aim is to enable the person to take away practical tools they can use to achieve ongoing success.

Here are some questions the mentor may ask the person at each stage of the model.

* Challenges

“What are the topics you would like to explore? What for you would make it a successful session?

“Looking at these various themes, which is the first challenge you would like to tackle? Can you give some background and explain what is happening at the moment?

“Looking at the challenge, what are the real results you want to achieve? If there are several results you want to achieve, let’s put these in order of priority.

“Looking at the situation, what are the controllables? How can you build on what you can control and manage what you can’t?”

“Let’s summarise the things we have covered? What are your specific goals? What are the real results you want to achieve? What is your picture of success?

“Let’s be crystal-clear on the ‘What’ before moving onto the ‘How’.”

* Choices

“Let’s consider the possible choices you have for tackling this challenge.

“What do you see as Option A? (Doing nothing is, of course, an option.) What is Option B; Option C; Option D; Option E? What other strategies have you tried before? Are there any other possible options?

* Consequences

“Let’s consider the consequences of each option. What are the pluses and minuses involved in pursuing Option A; Option B; Option C; Option D; Option E?

“We will soon be exploring any other potential creative solutions, but first let’s check your gut feeling for each of the possibilities. Rate the attractiveness of each option. Do this on a scale 0—10.”

* Creative Solutions

This is the point where good mentors earn their corn. They ask if it okay to share ideas for reaching the goal. They then pass on knowledge, tools and models the mentee can use to achieve success. So they may say something like the following.

“Let’s move onto the other possible creative solutions. First, let’s re-establish your goals. What are the real results you want to achieve?

“Looking at the different options you have outlined: Is it possible to take the best parts from each option and create a new road?

“Looking at the goals you want to achieve, here are some other possibilities you may wish to consider. For example, it could possible:

* To

* To

* To

“Looking at these other possibilities, are they any that resonate with you? If so, let’s explore those in more depth.

“Let’s consider your strengths – where you deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs. How can you use your strengths and assets to tackle the challenge? How can you complement your strengths by getting other kinds of support?

“Let’s learn from your positive history. Have you ever been in a similar situation in the past and managed it successfully? What did you do right? How can you follow these principles again in the future?

“What can we learn from other people who have tackled similar challenges successfully? What did they do right to achieve their goals? How can you follow some of these principles in your own way?

“Let’s return to the results you want to achieve. What are the three key things you can do to give yourself the greatest chance of success? Looking at the challenge: Are there any other possible creative solutions?”

Good mentors pass-on knowledge in a way the person can accept. The key is to clarify which ideas resonate with the person. This is easier to see with extroverts. When working with introverts, however, the mentor keeps saying something like:

“Looking at the ideas we have explored, which ones resonate? Which would you like to explore further? Which might be useful in this situation?”

During this stage the mentor will often go through the creative process of ‘opening up’ and then ‘closing down’. They will sit alongside the person, explore many ideas and see which resonate.

After a while, they will ‘close down’ by inviting the person to settle on the ideas they would like to explore further. Pursuing this theme further, they may then again go through the process of opening up and closing down.

Each mentor will do this in their own way and continue until the mentee is ready to move onto the next stage.

* Conclusions

There is often a natural rhythm to a mentoring session. The mentor will encourage the mentee to explore the first challenge, choices and consequences.

After considering the potential creative solutions, the mentee reflects and then, at a certain point, will be ready to move onto the final stage – their conclusions.

They settle on their plan for tackling the challenge. When it feels appropriate, the mentor enables them to take this step by using some of the following questions.

“Looking at the different options we have discussed, which route do you want to travel? What will be the pluses and minuses of pursuing this option? Are you prepared to accept the whole package?

“Let’s move on to your action plan. What steps must you take to reach your goals? How can you make this happen? Momentum is vital, so how can you get an early success? You can only do your best, of course, and make sure you also have a back-up plan.”

“What is the next challenge you want to tackle?”

There are many models for facilitating a mentoring session. The 5C model is one approach. The mentor can use it to enable people to achieve ongoing success.

So how does the strength
approach fit into mentoring?

Different mentors will obviously have different approaches to mentoring. This will influence the kind of questions they ask.

Mentors who lean towards the strengths approach will invite mentees to focus on their strengths and successful style when exploring creative solutions. As mentioned earlier, they will ask questions like:

“Let’s consider your strengths. Where do you deliver As, rather than Bs or Cs. How can you use your strengths to tackle the challenge? How can you manage the consequences of your weaknesses? How can you complement your strengths by getting other kinds of support?

“Let’s learn from your positive history. Have you ever been in a similar situation in the past and managed it successfully? What did you do right? How can you follow these principles again in the future?”

They will aim to pass on practical tools the mentee can use:

* To build on their strengths.

* To manage the consequences of their weaknesses.

* To achieve ongoing success.

There are many ways to be a mentor. Whichever approach is used, the aim is to enable the mentee to achieve their personal or professional goals.

Links

Here are some links to more information about the mentoring process.

* Choosing a mentor.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/3-tips-for-choosing-a-mentor

* Facilitating a mentoring session.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/3-tips-for-facilitating-a-mentoring-session

* Clarifying what you can offer as a mentor.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/3-tips-for-clarifying-what-you-can-offer-as-a-mentor

* Using the strengths model for helping people to achieve success.

http://www.thestrengthsfoundation.org/3-tips-for-using-the-strengths-model-for-helping-people-to-achieve-success

Peak performers love working hard, but they must also heed warning signs. Different people get different symptoms when events get out of control.

They may get headaches, forget appointments, get acne, neglect their family, feel exhausted or whatever. Here are three suggestions for learning from such signals.

You can recognise the warning signs

Try tackling the later exercise on this theme. Describe what for you are the potential warning signs. Sometimes you will know the reasons why, sometimes you won’t, but we will explore that later.

“Every Friday night I got a splitting headache in my left temple,” said one person.

“Despite working hard during the week – and feeling tired – I only get the headache when driving home on Friday.

“Visiting a chiropractor to deal with another problem, I asked about the headaches. She found a tight nerve in my right shoulder, which was where the pressure was located.

“She taught me how to massage the muscle, which eased the stress, but also taught me to recognise the symptoms earlier.

“I have always been duty driven. Sometimes it feels like I am responsible for taking care of my family, my team and my mother.

“Without getting into fluffy territory, I decided to take some time for myself and not carry the world on my shoulders.

“That meant saying ‘Yes,’ to some things and ‘No’ to others. Now I have been free from headaches for the past 2 years.”

So what are your symptoms? Try completing the following sentence.

You can understand the reasons
behind the warning signs

The symptoms can provide a wake-up call. After clarifying your warning signs, describe what may lie behind the symptoms.

You may be working hard with little time for recovery; be working on the wrong project; be surrounded by negative people or whatever. Sometimes the reason is obvious, sometimes it is more difficult to find.

One footballer with a good disciplinary record got himself sent off twice in a month. Nobody could understand why. He was always the first to training, the last to leave and would do anything for the team.

But the answer lay in front of our eyes. Over the past month he had been asked to play out of position. At first it seemed to work, but he actually felt extremely uncomfortable.

“My head is in a whirl, because I strain to remember the manager’s instructions,” he said.

“That isn’t the case when I’m playing in my natural position, because then I don’t have to think and I enjoy the game.

“Now I get confused trying to remember the instructions, which leads to me making mistakes and getting upset with the referee. I’m counting the games to returning to my best position.”

The footballer’s problem was quite solvable, but the manager blamed himself for not spotting it earlier. Because the player always did his best, the manager took him for granted.

The player served his suspension and, for the good of the team, volunteered to play one more game ‘out of position’.

Strangely, because he now recognised what upset him, he had a storming game. But he was grateful to return to his natural role on the field.

What do you think are the causes of your symptoms? Try completing the following sentence.

You can learn from the warning signs and
take more care of yourself in the future

Prevention is better than cure. So what can you do to learn from the warning signs? One person said.

“My wake-up call came after getting prosecuted for speeding twice in 5 minutes. Suddenly I had 6 points on my licence.

“There was no point in arguing that previously the cameras had never been turned-on. I was responsible and accepted the consequences.

“So I bought a device that legally detected speed cameras, stuck to the speed limit and felt much better. Now I see the prosecution has a blessing. Previously I had been addicted to speeding at over 80 on the motorway.

“Fortunately I had never hurt myself or, worse still, maimed other people. The wake-up call taught me to be more considerate towards myself and other people.”

Peak performers work hard, but they also learn from setbacks. Vulnerability can be a great teacher, providing we take heed from the lessons contained in the warning signs.

How can you look after yourself in the future? Try completing the following sentence.