Dive Brief:
- In many organizations, employees learning to know and use their strengths at work is not encouraged.
- According to Gallup, some individuals, teams and divisions across many Fortune 500 employers still finding ways to discuss and take advantage of their strengths.
- Even so, building a strengths-based culture is difficult because conventional management focuses more on fixing employee weaknesses than building their strengths. Gallup provides five strategies companies can adopt to bring strength to the forefront.
Dive Insight:
That is a huge mistake, according to the Gallup article. Gallup reports that strengths-based management efforts can be valuable, and their analysis reveals that people who use their strengths every day are three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life, six times more likely to be engaged at work, 8% more productive and 15% less likely to quit their jobs.
The article offers several ways to build strength-based culture, including: Have leaders who know their own strengths and limitations; build an inspiring and decisive performance management system; use strengths with purpose; develop expert strengths coaches, and have the right managers. Without those five steps, and employers don't put the right conditions in place, employees feel embarrassed to say that they are not great at something and inertia takes over. It's just so much better -- for employees and their employers when employees feel they are being their best, the article says.
