Strengths-based

I am facilitating a 2-day workplan workshop this week for a corporate group when the matter of Strengths-based practice came up for discussion.

In 1998, Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. (1924-2003) the Father of Strengths Psychology, along with Tom Rath and a team from Gallup, created the StrengthsFinder assessment. Gallup later introduced the first version of it's online version StrengthsFinder, in their 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists that started a discussion globally and challenged many to uncover and discover their top five talents.

In 2004, the assessment was renamed "Clifton StrengthsFinder" to honor its chief designer.

StrengthsFinder knows all too well that many of our our natural talents go untapped. And many hours, personal and organisation, much resources have been devoted to trying to fix our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

More than a decade on, many organisations are still on the shoring up weaknesses approach, much to the detriment of organisational time, resources and energy. Worse, it does not add value to employee engagement, performance nor retention.

Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Can your organisation become Strengths-based?