Friday, September 21, 2007

Strengths as an Excuse?

Sometimes I hear people use their signature talent themes as an excuse for poor performance or as a reason not to engage in a task that's expected of them.

Examples?
  • Kate enters the department meeting 20 minutes late, after 8 people have waited impatiently on her. As she slides into her chair, she breezily says, "oh well, that's my Adaptability for you...what can I say?"
  • After Jeff rudely interrupts a colleague's story and has obviously hurt that person's feelings in the process, he shrugs and says, "Hey--I have no Empathy, and Command is my #1. Get over it."
  • When Jake is asked to organize his reports more effectively and turn them in by the deadline, he says, "Well, Discipline is not in my top five. I'm not sure this is something I can do."
  • When colleagues are asked to take turns on a departmental task that simply has to get done and that no one enjoys doing, Tamara responds with, "hmmm...that's not my strength" as she slides out the door.

In each of these examples, the task or skill is one that is routinely expected in the job. It's not a choice, a preference, or a privilege. Some things we just gotta do--and saying, "that's not my strength" misses the point.

So what is the point?

Strengths are qualities that enable us to do something particularly well--thus, they cannot be a reason for poor performance. Strengths only lead to positive outcomes, or they wouldn't be strengths! Talents can have a "shadow side" when we haven't honed them or developed them fully into strengths, or when we misapply them or fail to apply them. So a talent theme of Command can have a bossy shadow side, whereas an appropriately leveraged Command talent theme can result in the strength of taking charge and leading people through an emergency evacuation of a building.

A weakness is anything that interferes with our own performance or the performance of others. When we don't meet the expectations of our work, that's an area of weakness. Or if what we do keeps others from doing their jobs well, that's an area of weakness as well. And the trick is to apply our talent themes to those areas, so that they no longer interfere with performance. So rather than saying it's okay to be late and make others wait on me since I have the "strength" of Adaptability, it would be better to deploy my Strategic talent theme and set my watch 10 minutes early--and ask a colleague to stop by my office on her way to the meeting to help me be on time.

Talent MULTIPLIED by knowledge and skill equals strength, not excuses.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Invest in Your Talents

Over the past several weeks I've done a number of faculty workshops that have been focused on taking a strengths-based approach to learning. As I've interacted with faculty on this topic, it has become clearer to me how important the issue of talent development is. By this I mean that any strengths-based approach within education cannot simply focus on identifying strengths (or, to be more precise, identifying areas of greatest talent!).

The areas of students' greatest talent are simply the beginning of the journey. They point to what energizes the student naturally, what will connect most easily with the curiosities and passions already within him or her. They are a huge clue to motivation, for they are a way of validating what the student brings to the table--a message that too often higher education has neglected completely. We tend to focus on what the student is lacking--all those areas where they are not well prepared or do not yet have the abilities they need. But what a difference it can make to identify what that student brings to us -- how we as fellow learners are all enriched by their contribution to the learning environment.

But it can't stop with that. The rest of the story is just as important, if not more so! I like the way Tom Rath has started to talk about strengths as "talent multipled by investment." If there's no investment, then all the talent in the world won't produce strength (that consistently near-perfect performance). Even the most talented chess players, musicians, and basketball players spend a LOT of their time practicing. They invest effort that multiplies their talent into an amazing strength.

The importance of investing effort is confirmed in some of the research that is coming out of ACT. One of the best predictors of student learning and success is the quality of effort that students invest in the learning process. Dr. Eileen Hulme, one of our faculty at Azusa Pacific, just completed a grounded theory study of high achieving students at multiple universities and found that the central phenomenon, the core that all the students had in common, was their belief that high levels of achievement were most of all about effort -- just plain hard work.

So that's the message we need to send to our students as we start this new year -- how are you going to invest your time and energy so that your talents are developed and honed? Your best opportunity for growth is in your areas of talent, but the growth will only happen when you invest your energy to acquire the knowledge and skills. Talent x Investment = Strength!