Leading teams successfully requires that people have a good understanding - and appreciation - for their own talents and strengths.
The Clifton Strengths Assessment is one of the most comprehensive ways executives, directors, managers and supervisors can lay a foundation of workplace engagement and improve employee performance. It is also the first step in developing your workplace into a Strengths-based organization.
Available in the best-selling book StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath, leaders like you can take the online assessment in 30-40 minutes and expect to receive a comprehensive Strengths Profile that will be a roadmap to the development of your talents and skills as a leader.
Specifically, leaders will learn the unique ways in which they can bring to bare their talents to improve employee engagement and performance. It is also one of the tools we use at OVP Management Consulting Group to help organizations effectively chart their leadership & development journeys.
When managers can begin to answer the question "What would happen to an organization's performance levels when you focus on what they do well, instead of what is falling short?" that is when sustainable change starts taking place. Ask yourself the following question: When evaluating employee performance, what percentage of your time is spent on reviewing and addressing less than stellar performance?
If the majority of your review is focused on the weakest part of an employee's profile, perhaps you're missing opportunities to help that employee reach greater success in areas that she already shows significant promise and skill.
Other assessments like Myers-Briggs, DiSC and the 9-Box Grid model are also great methods to optimize the most important decision a leader has to make: Choosing who to hire and/or collaborate with to grow an idea. Whatever assessment you choose to use is less important that actually using a systematic approach to evaluating your organization’s talents. They are the building blocks for success.
This notion of adopting a strengths assumption to the evaluation of employee performance, as noted in the Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, is being employed by many of the world's most successful companies. Perhaps the most effective application of these tools comes in the development of employee talent profiles that serve the needs of an organization’s operations.
Understanding the technical and meta-skills needed to operate a company is the first step in sustainable success. These skill profiles, along with mission and vision statements are the framework of workplace culture that serve as roadmaps for those that seek to come work for you.