Bringing TMBC's strengths workshop to our company totally changed the way we look at our People Development and Talent Review processes. Attending the workshop has not only help me implement a strengths-based culture within the company; it has also completely changed the way I operate personally and the way I lead and coach my own team.
TMBC's strengths program provided my organization with a new and unique platform to approach development planning. The result was a more engaged organization. An unexpected benefit for our team, aside from the personal learning and development, was the team-building that occurred as a result of the program. Why Strengths?
One morning, not long ago, people woke up to find that news channels and web sites were all talking about an incredible discovery. New research had revealed a way to help every single person in the world not only increase his or her job satisfaction but also improve individual performance at work and make businesses more successful. Amazingly, the same principle that made people better and more productive at their jobs also made them happier while doing them. Companies celebrated; workers rejoiced; the landscape of the workplace as we knew it was changed forever.
If you don't remember that morning, that's probably because it didn't really happen. The research is real, and the principle to increase job satisfaction and success exists. But most people haven't discovered it yet.
The key concept, as that anticlimactic headline up above gives away, is strengths. Specifically, when people are able to play to their strengths every day, individuals and companies see better results in a host of areas. Skeptical? You're not alone. But our focus on strengths didn't arise out of some untested theory; it's based on years of solid research. Read More...
For decades, The Gallup Organization has conducted ongoing surveys of workers in companies around the world to explore what makes companies and teams great. These surveys have posed literally thousands of different questions to hundreds of thousands of employees in almost 8,000 business units and measured the answers against five key business outcomes:
- Turnover/Retention
- Customer Loyalty
- Productivity
- Safety
- Profits
When the results were compiled and analyzed, patterns emerged in the data. Gallup isolated 12 questions* that differentiated high-performing teams and individuals from average or subpar performers. And of those 12 questions, one question showed the greatest correlation to the most business outcomes:
At work, do you have the chance to do what you do best every day?
Teams whose members strongly agree that they have the chance to play to their strengths every day are:
- 50% more likely to have low employee turnover
- 38% more likely to be high-productivity teams
- 44% more likely to earn high customer satisfaction scores
So, we know the secret; we have the key: make sure that people say "yes" when you ask if they have the chance to do what they do best every day.
The bad news? Only 2 out of 10 people do answer "yes" to this key question. Worse, fewer than a quarter of employees indicate that their supervisors discuss their strengths in performance conversations. And, asked whether focusing on enhancing their strengths or fixing their weaknesses will yield the best results, only about 40% of U.S. workers choose strengths (with most of the rest of the world being even more weakness-oriented).
This data - which TMBC continues to monitor and update every year - is what drives TMBC's mission. We know that focusing on strengths is the surest way to greater job satisfaction and performance. We know that people don't get the chance to use their strengths nearly often enough. And we know that many people don't even think that they should prioritize their strengths.
But we also know that every individual, team, and organization will be better off if people can shift their focus to strengths. That's why we have dedicated ourselves to creating strengths-based tools and training that help world-class managers do one thing: leverage their strengths and the strengths of their team members.
* The list of 12 questions and a fuller explanation of the data are available in First, Break All the Rules.