Strengths-based Organization @ End of Jobs - Rethinking Work, Talent and the Future

Pic Credit - Canva

Some moons ago, I was asked by Sheena Rajan from SR Global HR solutions if I would give a short talk on Strengths for an HR event she was organization..  The context - it was to a seminar titled "End of Jobs - Rethinking Work,  Talent & the Future".  Panel discussions and other speakers were also scheduled to cover different aspects of the topic.  

I'm India's First Strengths Strategy Coach and have an organization called "The Strengths Decoder". We help my clients leverage their strengths for success at work and in life. Strengths has been consciously been a strong part of my personal and professional life since the past 10 years.  So I readily agreed.  While the title was interesting, the sub-title of the event intrigued me further, and after a short discussion with Sheena, I decided to speak on "Strengths-based Organizations".  I don't really have a clip of my talk to share, so I'll get into a little more detail about the how and what of my presentation.

Why I chose that topic? Organizations face challenges in finding the right talent, engaging them, grooming them and retaining them.  This is happening at all levels.  With AI being used to replace jobs in every function, is it really the end of jobs? What then, is to become of the organization and it's people. Those left behind will definitely be apprehensive (if not unhappy) about the future.  When a person is unhappy at work, particularly if their strengths are not leveraged in their role, they will not be able to deliver optimum results. In fact, no amount of training can improve this performance.  This will negatively impact the growth and existence of the organization, if it doesn't act quickly.

Peter Drucker said "Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at... and yet, a person can perform only from strengths."

If an organization focuses on leveraging the strengths of its employees to achieve it's goals, it will have happier engaged employees who willingly give of their best, are more productive and are likely to stay longer since they see a strong alignment between their strengths (competencies) and the organizations goals / vision.  Of course, leadership buy-in is a must at all levels, and especially at the top.

Why are Strengths-based organizations important? An organization that works on a foundation of strengths tends to be solution - oriented. The employees are happier since they are getting to do what they enjoy doing. We know that happy and engaged employees are a joy to work with, and that improves collaboration along with ensuring that conflicts get resolved more quickly than otherwise.  This impacts the Organization Culture and Employer Brand positively.  Word of this work culture  and brand spreads, in the same way as it happens for organizations that have a toxic culture. This turns the organization that leverages its people's strength into a Key Talent Attractor.

What's in it for the individual employee (at any level)?  Knowing your strengths (what you're good at) and a clear awareness of your weaknesses (which activities drain you), along with knowing your values, will give you opportunities to explore and reject.  Hiring a Strengths-Strategy Coach helps a lot here.

Some stats that I shared during my presentation: Gallup Research has found that individuals and teams that lead with their strengths are:

• 6 times more engaged
• 3 times more likely to report having excellent quality of life
• 8.9% more profitable

It was a pleasure to meet old friends like Nikhil Gadodia and Milind Rane at this event and share the stage with HR stalwarts like Dr. Brillian S.K., Gauri Das, Govind Sharma and others. It was great to make new friends too.   Here are some pics of the action:

Sheena Rajan delivering the Keynote Speech

With Dr Brillian S.K., Gauri Das and Milind Rane

Panel members being felicitated by Sheena Rajan

Curious about finding out and leveraging yours and your employee's strengths? 

Step 1 - Get management buy-in for this systemic intervention.  This is extremely important since theis impact will be seen after a year or so. 

Step 2 - Use a validated psychometric assessment such as CliftonStrengths, PRISM Brainmapping Inventory, OPQ . Hire a Strengths-based Consultant and Coach (hint: me - call +919820155778) to work with you on this.

Step 3 - Be ready to communicate this intervention, and reconfigure your organization processes to incorporate strengths as a philosophy.

Do get in touch with me on +919820155778 or ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com to understand how knowing and applying one's strengths can help one's career and the organization.

The Key Quality of a High Performance Team

In Teamwork, silence isn't golden - it's deadly!

- Mark Sanborn

The importance of getting teams aligned and running smoothly is a key differentiator for an organization's success and tends to give leaders a headache especially when deadlines are missed or quality is less than desired.  

I put out this poll on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.  See the screenshot below on what the poll contained and what people chose.

Some background - Through the past few decades, the most popular models in conflict management were the Thomas Kilmann model and Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.  The first model describes clearly one's possible behaviours during a conflict, and the second model identifies what are causes of poor performance in teams.

So when I have covered the topic of 'Conflict Resolution' or 'Conflict Management' during my Leadership / Managerial Development (or as a stand-alone topic) workshops, both these models have helped the participants get a better grasp on managing and resolving conflicts.

As you may have seen from the poll, the respondents felt that 'Trusting each other' was the key factor for high performing teams, followed by 'Clear Goals'.  Some also shared their perspectives in the comments. Click here to view the interesting comments by some of the respondents in this poll.

The fact is that all four options are important for teams to deliver performance.  Some of my musings on these options: 

Trusting Each Other - What exactly are we trusting each other person to do?  Also trust is built over time, and is quite a fragile thing.  It needs constant repetition, like breathing, if it's going to be of use for a team.

Knowing Each Others Strengths - It's important, no doubt.  How are the strengths being appropriately leveraged by the individual and the team to deliver success.

Clear Goals are Defined - An extremely critical point that speaks of alignment of the team members to the goals.  What's needed post this is actual performance, guidance and flexibility to enable the team to reach the goal - while leveraging strengths, building trust, managing errors and so on.

Manage conflicts effectively - For high performance, the teams will have to work and resolve conflicts quickly.  Why?  because any conflict can consume humungous amounts of time.  A conflict doesn't start out as a conflict, but  mostly as a disagreement or a difference of opinion or a personality clash. So it's actually consuming time from a previous date.  Now we also know (but often forget), time is our most precious resource. Added to this is the amount of emotional energy invested from the initial disagreement to the conflict in progress, by all parties trying to convince the others that they are right.  These tend to become crucial or difficult conversations, which will consume further time and energy to getting the parties to agree to a particular course of action or thought.  

If team members are busy proving that they're right, they don't have time to build trust, get aligned to clear goals, or take the time to know each other's strengths.  As a result, performance will suffer.

The above quote is a reality throughout life, whether personal or professional (irrespective of the industry / organization culture).  Not every disagreement deserves a battle or a war.

Therefore, the faster the team is able to resolve their conflicts effectively, the quicker they are on their way to delivering high performance.  You definitely wouldn't want silence, no matter how golden, coming from your team.

Please get in touch with me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or +919820155778 for workshops and coaching on enabling your teams to work effectively together.

 

5 Conversations that foster Teamwork in the Workplace

We know that the world moves based on #conversations and #decisions.

Here's a useful article on the kind of conversations that #leaders and #managers could have with their #teams to foster #teamwork at the workplace. You may even want to have some of these conversations as one-to-one sessions for specific effectiveness and outcomes.

From the article - "Consistent communication is essential for #collaboration and performance."

Contact me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or send me a DM here if you want to learn how to make these conversations effective for your teams.