Ten o'clock on a Wednesday. My boss has invited me to a meeting that he's called a "development dialogue". We spend an hour talking about the development of my skills as well as my personal development over the past year. In the end, we agree on a few measures to further my development going forward.
Taking time to talk to employees about their development and how to support it sounds like a good idea and an opportunity to show appreciation. And it is. However, looking back on this conversation, which took place a couple of years ago, I'm not so sure any more. You'll understand in a moment, when I tell you exactly what we discussed.
Strengths and weaknesses
The meeting began with a warm welcome and a big thank you from my boss for my contribution and for being part of his team. We talked a bit about things that had gone well and where I'd excelled. Then, we switched to things that hadn't gone so well — the so-called "areas for improvement".
My boss pointed out that, despite my good performance overall, there were still a few skills I needed to work on. We discussed these in detail and came up with specific things I could do to improve and how we could measure my progress. The suggestions included going to a seminar on conflict management and being coached (by him) with regard to leadership skills.
As you've probably guessed, we focused far more on my weaknesses than on my strengths. We didn't discuss, for example, how I might improve my creative thinking, or how I could get better at bringing people together and helping them connect, or making my presentations to management more professional and entertaining. Since all of these skills were considered strengths of mine, we skipped over them without going into detail. No one thought any improvement was necessary in those areas.
This sort of thing happens a lot, but that's a pity. And it's a huge mistake.
From good to great
Of course, it's important to work on the basic skills that your job requires. If working with spreadsheets is an essential part of your role, you should be very good at that and, if not, you should improve. However, by focusing narrowly on what's not good enough (the weaknesses), we're missing something important: people don't stand out by going from below average to average. People stand out when they move from good or very good to excellent.
What if my boss had asked me: "Frank, what could we do to bring your creative ability to a superb level, so you come up with highly innovative ideas and inspire your co-workers to think outside the box as well?" I would have loved that.
If you strengthen the strengths of your employees, magical things happen: motivation goes up and, as a result of that, performance and loyalty should go up, too. Furthermore, your employees become an even more valuable asset to your team and the company as a whole as they excel in a specific area.
When I work with teams, I love to focus on strengths. Of course, we also work on the things that aren't going so well, but talking about strengths and resources is even more important.
There's a powerful exercise I recommend every team do at least once. It's especially helpful if new people have joined the team. It's called "The Strengths Interview" and goes like this:
1. Everybody writes down their top ten strengths. Not all of them have to be business-related. Make sure people have enough time, but not so much that they overthink things — ten minutes should do it.
2. People pair up (ideally, with a team member they don't know very well). Now, they tell each other what they think their counterpart's strengths are. At this stage, neither should reveal the strengths they wrote down for themselves. Encourage them to be bold and make assumptions. Help them by providing possible beginnings of a sentence, like: "I think you're good at…" or "I imagine that I could learn how to … from you." In each pair, one person talks while the other just listens and takes notes without interrupting. Then, they switch. Allow 10-15 minutes for this.
3. Now, repeat step 2, matching the people with another person they don't know very well.
4. Repeat again.
5. After everybody has talked to three people, they should each have quite a long list of strengths. Have them read through their lists for themselves and come up with their top three strengths.
6. At this point, you can have people volunteer to read out their top three strengths. Depending on the level of openness within the team, you could also write everyone's strengths on a board, creating a "board of strengths" you can always refer to.
Energy boost
After this exercise, it's helpful to take some time for reflection. Ask specific questions such as: "How did it feel to hear your strengths from somebody else?", "What surprised you?", "How did it feel to assume strengths of your partner?"
Almost always, there are people who weren't aware of this or that strength. People might realize, perhaps for the first time, that they're actually a good listener, or a great mediator, or that others see them as a creative thinker.
This exercise takes about an hour, and it helps not only to discover strengths in oneself and others. It's also an uplifting and team-building exercise. Hearing from others that you're good at something provides motivation and an energy boost for everyone. Furthermore, talking about strengths is quite personal, and this openness reinforces trust within the team.
I hope you agree with me when I say it's important to talk about individual strengths in a team. However, as a bonus, you can also talk about the team strengths. "What are our top three strengths as a team?" It's a question worth spending time on.
And finally, when you have your next "development dialogue", don't forget to ask the question: "What can I do to work on my strengths?"