I've sort of gotten all I can from it at this stage of my career, but I've grown a lot through the StrengthFinder program. It probably changed my (work) thinking as much as anything I've done (along with my MBA and working for Welch-era GE). As much as it helped me, it's allowed me to help others just as much.
For using it to help others has it been having them take it, pointing out to them how they've flexed their strengths in the past w/o realizing, showing how the org needs them now and how/where they can apply them? Or something a little more intensive (e.g. career direction)? Or something altogether different?
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Having a debrief call with my would-be boss on Monday. I think we're in the home stretch...
Well, all of the above, since they are all beneficial, but mostly in terms of my thinking. The Strength-based approach leads to the idea of "capacity"; where are you in terms of your capacity? The question isn't what do you do great and what do you do poorly, but what areas do you have the most capacity to grow and improve, and focusing on them. I don't know what sport you follow, but it's like football; you don't ask a 6'6", 325lb offensive lineman to run deep post patterns and catch passes, and you don't ask 5'8" 185lb punters to play right guard. But you might encourage that 6'0" 235lb running back to work on his/her hands to become a more dangerous pass catcher, or you work on that receiver to perhaps do kick returns.
It may be pessimistic, but I do not believe every person can do every job to an equal degree. I don't believe that just "seeing someone like me" doing something is the key to unleashing my inner Thor. Some of us have capabilities that exceed others (and those same "others" have capabilities that exceed ours). I don't want a team that is five clones of me. I want a team that is capable of filling the gaps I have and vice versa. (And it should be noted, that part of the 'strength' and capability is an acceptance of that fact). I don't know, I've never talked to him about it, but I would imagine that Belichick is a "strenghts-based" coach.
Ok, more questions on this:
-I've only read two books on SF (what I think is the original, plus the leadership one)...what all did the program entail? It was clearly much deeper than the content of the book, based on how you are framing things
-Was this an "organizational language" at GE? Was it run by the internal Training group, or did outside folks come in for it?
-Was it something where you helped peers, or that you used in development of your own team? Were you in a position to give (or negotiate for) developmental assignments for folks to explore/develop capacity?
No problem at all; I can talk about this stuff all day long.
It's interesting; I have to answer the second sentence first: there was no formal organizational language at GE, it's only in hindsight that I found this language to fit. I first encountered this at the other company I worked for. (For the record, I started with Company 1, left them after 10 years to join GE, went back to them after six years, worked for them for five years, got laid off, then went back to GE where I am now, even though my particular business was bought by a French company back in '15.) They had a corporate leadership program developed in conjunction with the Army Corps. of Engineers. It was very powerful, and changed my life; not just my work life, but my LIFE life. For them, it was an organizational language, and I embraced it pretty well; they had rigorous testing (including some proprietary tests prepared for the Army COE, including a strategic thinking assessment that was mindblowing for me; I had/have proof on paper that I don't think like the vast majority of people on this planet).
The content was pretty extensive; it was first the testing, but then it was an organized assessment of that testing and an open conversation - 360
0, meaning with the employee, the supervisors and the reporting staff - to better frame the conversations that the employee was having. Now, not EVERYTHING was open conversation, but there was an explicit acknowledgement that not all staff did all things to an equal degree. The information was presented in an organizational framework (that company called it the "Vanguard Program" and treated it almost as an internal, corporate "MBA" for employees). So, to answer your third question, yes, it became a tool that got used at multiple levels. I personally got invited to be part of the CEO's Strategic Planning Team - we would meet bi-monthly and discuss corporate strategic initiatives. We used this language a lot in that context, especially when discussing how we thought the company might tactically achieve the strategies we were seeing.
The "capacity" framing makes complete sense. It's one of those things where I can look back and see that there were people who saw certain capacities in me (that I had no idea I had) and put me in positions to see/develop them. It's also something I've done with others, even though I never put this set of words to it.
I'm a big fan of this, and I am bought in, but one word of caution: if dealing with staff and peers, it's like anything else, you all have to be talking the same language. "Strength-based" focus doesn't necessarily fly with some of the more basic, feel-good tenets you see in the world today; I've written before that I find the "See it, be it!" mentality to be largely banal and trite, since it misses SO MUCH about how we as humans develop and grow. You have to be careful saying to someone - and this is true the younger the person, in my experience - that someone has certain capacities and lacks others. Some of this might be better considered "sausage making" and done apaquely.
I don't think it's pessimistic to think that we're not all blank-slate clones..hell, it would be a dreary, depressing world if we all had effectively the same brains. And from a business perspective, the diversity in strengths, outlooks, experiences, communication styles, thought processes, etc. is how we have creative, original ideas and avoid massive blindspots.
One of the things I really learned is how the hiring process can be (and is) at the same time random and unpredictable and perfectly predictable. I can't tell you how many times I've watched managers (I say that very specifically, as opposed to the more positive "leaders") hire clones of themselves. Unless the unit you're in is one-dimensional and has only one objective and goal, that's a recipe for failure. Your sales leader, for example, ought not have the same skill-set, the same strengths, as your finance leader or your engineering leader. SOMEONE on your team needs to be an exemplar of tactical thinking, whereas one person ought to be an example of a strategic thinker. They are NOT the same thing. I forget the exact term that Company R used, but they had a discrete category for those people that were "connectors"; you know the type: the people that remember every birthday, that have a knack for joining their friend group, that have a knack for putting disparate people together. Mike Portnoy. SOMEONE on your team needs to be a connector but not ALL the team can or should be. You need those people that are single operators to get the work done.
Topic: Job Interviewing - Do's and Don'ts (Read 73700 times)
