I've been at The Gallup Organization's conference on Becoming a Strengths-Based Campus this week. What a great time to meet up with old friends, but also an amazing time to meet the surprisingly large number of people who are "new" to the strengths movement! As we talked together over these past few days, it has caused me to think even more about what it takes to really develop one's talents into strengths. I'm more and more convinced that simply identifying talents isn't enough--it may give a temporary boost to one's self-confidence or may help increase self-awareness, but without an effort to multiply the talents with skills and knowledge--and without the accountable relationships in which to do so--we've done little more than given people a pat on the back. Not that we all couldn't use a pat on the back now and then!
Tom Rath talked about vital friends and the role that friendships play in engaging people at work. Work is a lot more fun when enjoy the people we work with. And the same can be said for developing one's talents -- I'm much more likely to do so when there are people who care about me and are committed to helping me grow.
So at a time like this, I'm deeply grateful for the people with whom I work -- Eileen, Karen, Anita, Paul, Shawna, Susette -- they hone my strengths in a major way! But I also feel an even greater responsibility for the students whose lives intersect with mine. Hopefully by spotting some of their talents and helping them see how they can reach excellence by developing those talents, they will go on to do great things. I think that's why I've chosen to teach--to touch people's lives and make a difference in the world through my students.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Putting Your Strengths to Work
At the end of May I had the opportunity to be at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom with some of the doctoral students from Azusa Pacific University's Higher Education program. Alex Linley, Director of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, met with us and updated us on what was happening in his part of the world.
There are a number of threads that are beginning to weave together around issues of strengths-based teams. While Marcus Buckingham's new book Go Put Your Strengths to Work emphasizes how an individual can capitalize on his or her strengths so that more time at work is spent doing the things that are energizing, the work that Alex is doing seems congruent with not only what The Gallup Organization does with strengths-based teams, but also with my own experience in the Noel Academy as we have tried to practice what we preach and become a model of a strengths-based team ourselves.
Alex told the story of a large company whose executive team members were each delegated to specific tasks that would enable the company to meet its goals and fulfill its mission. After months of listing these tasks at each meeting, Alex came in and worked with them on how to become a strengths-based team. He pointed out that there were a number of items that remained on this "snag list" (as he called it) month after month and never got done. So he challenged the whole team to examine the list together and see whose strengths were better suited for managing some of those tasks.
Sounds simple and even rather obvious, right? If a job isn't getting done, find a person who can do it. But we tend to be confined to our job descriptions, afraid to step on others' toes by offering to do something that clearly isn't in their area of strength but happens to be something that energizes us. We may even believe that they should do that task because it's their job and they're getting paid for it -- no one else should do it for them. But if we really believe in strengths-based organizations, wouldn't we look at the task list as our list--something that collectively we hope to accomplish? When we do, amazing things happen. As Alex pointed out, the 12 or so tasks that had languished on the snag list for month after month were all completed within one month of the meeting in which people volunteered to take them on because they fit their strengths.
When we tried this in the Noel Academy, not everything on the snag list was grabbed by others eager to utilize their strengths to get them done, however! As I've thought about that, I think there were a couple of key differences in our situation--differences that might be useful for other teams to think about as they endeavor to become strengths-based.
First, the strengths constellations among the five faculty who are associated with the Noel Academy are remarkably similar! We ALL have Achiever (which can be dangerous at times!), we all have Learner, and many of us are Strategic as well. So there wasn't a lot of differentiation among our strengths--meaning we all enjoy doing many of the same things and are energized in somewhat similar ways. A good team probably has a little more variety in the strengths represented--and in searching for team members when an opening becomes available, this is something to remember.
Second, many of the things we put on our snag list were not necessarily important tasks that were crucial to accomplishing the mission of the Academy. The list tended to include items that simply had to be done by someone. But I think if we had started with mission (instead of starting with just what energized us and what "weakened" us, in Buckingham's terms), we would have had a different list--and a list of things that we all realized were vital to our success as a team. Then perhaps some of us would've realized ways our strengths could've been leveraged to accomplish those tasks.
In thinking about putting our collective strengths to work, then, there are a couple of lessons I think I've learned: (1) start with mission -- what is vital to our collective success as a team? (2) Create teams that have a variety of strengths represented. And if those don't exist on the team, then think creatively about who can be brought in for particular projects or who else within the organization might be a good partner on some tasks. (3) Emphasize collective success and goals, rather than getting hung up on job descriptions and titles. (4) Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do--and that no one else wants to do, either! Hopefully, that's not the majority of your job, but sometimes you just have to dig in and do it.
Because the strengths philosophy is such a paradigm shift for most of us, it will take time to reframe our work in this way. But I think in the long run it will pay off with higher morale, higher productivity as a team, and a better product at the end.
There are a number of threads that are beginning to weave together around issues of strengths-based teams. While Marcus Buckingham's new book Go Put Your Strengths to Work emphasizes how an individual can capitalize on his or her strengths so that more time at work is spent doing the things that are energizing, the work that Alex is doing seems congruent with not only what The Gallup Organization does with strengths-based teams, but also with my own experience in the Noel Academy as we have tried to practice what we preach and become a model of a strengths-based team ourselves.
Alex told the story of a large company whose executive team members were each delegated to specific tasks that would enable the company to meet its goals and fulfill its mission. After months of listing these tasks at each meeting, Alex came in and worked with them on how to become a strengths-based team. He pointed out that there were a number of items that remained on this "snag list" (as he called it) month after month and never got done. So he challenged the whole team to examine the list together and see whose strengths were better suited for managing some of those tasks.
Sounds simple and even rather obvious, right? If a job isn't getting done, find a person who can do it. But we tend to be confined to our job descriptions, afraid to step on others' toes by offering to do something that clearly isn't in their area of strength but happens to be something that energizes us. We may even believe that they should do that task because it's their job and they're getting paid for it -- no one else should do it for them. But if we really believe in strengths-based organizations, wouldn't we look at the task list as our list--something that collectively we hope to accomplish? When we do, amazing things happen. As Alex pointed out, the 12 or so tasks that had languished on the snag list for month after month were all completed within one month of the meeting in which people volunteered to take them on because they fit their strengths.
When we tried this in the Noel Academy, not everything on the snag list was grabbed by others eager to utilize their strengths to get them done, however! As I've thought about that, I think there were a couple of key differences in our situation--differences that might be useful for other teams to think about as they endeavor to become strengths-based.
First, the strengths constellations among the five faculty who are associated with the Noel Academy are remarkably similar! We ALL have Achiever (which can be dangerous at times!), we all have Learner, and many of us are Strategic as well. So there wasn't a lot of differentiation among our strengths--meaning we all enjoy doing many of the same things and are energized in somewhat similar ways. A good team probably has a little more variety in the strengths represented--and in searching for team members when an opening becomes available, this is something to remember.
Second, many of the things we put on our snag list were not necessarily important tasks that were crucial to accomplishing the mission of the Academy. The list tended to include items that simply had to be done by someone. But I think if we had started with mission (instead of starting with just what energized us and what "weakened" us, in Buckingham's terms), we would have had a different list--and a list of things that we all realized were vital to our success as a team. Then perhaps some of us would've realized ways our strengths could've been leveraged to accomplish those tasks.
In thinking about putting our collective strengths to work, then, there are a couple of lessons I think I've learned: (1) start with mission -- what is vital to our collective success as a team? (2) Create teams that have a variety of strengths represented. And if those don't exist on the team, then think creatively about who can be brought in for particular projects or who else within the organization might be a good partner on some tasks. (3) Emphasize collective success and goals, rather than getting hung up on job descriptions and titles. (4) Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do--and that no one else wants to do, either! Hopefully, that's not the majority of your job, but sometimes you just have to dig in and do it.
Because the strengths philosophy is such a paradigm shift for most of us, it will take time to reframe our work in this way. But I think in the long run it will pay off with higher morale, higher productivity as a team, and a better product at the end.
Monday, May 28, 2007
My Strengths Journey
These last few weeks I have had a lot of opportunities to interact with people who are new to the strengths philosophy. Some are faculty, some are researchers, some are career counselors, some are administrators. It has reminded me of my own "strengths journey," as I have seen myself in some of the persons I've encountered.
When I was first introduced to the strengths philosophy by Chip Anderson almost ten years ago, I guess you could say I was a skeptic. It sounded too touchy-feely, Pollyannish, and seemed way too similar to some of the things that came out of the ill-fated self-esteem movement from the 80's. I remember asking Don Clifton what the coefficient alphas were for each of the scales--and in fact I really wanted to see all of the StrengthsFinder factor analysis results! Give me empirical evidence that it works--that was what would convince me (and I don't even have Analytical in my top five!).
At the time, StrengthsFinder had just been piloted (it even had 35 themes then) and the empirical evidence was sketchy. Promising, but sketchy. So I joined with some other universities in collecting some evidence over the next couple of years. One thing about higher education is that it is difficult to randomly assign students to conditions--or even to have a control group. So the evidence we collected was quasi-experimental at best. But it, too, was promising. First-year students appeared to be more confident, got better grades, enjoyed their classes more, and even were more likely to stick around for a second year when they had participated in a strengths-based first-year seminar.
But it was the student focus groups that changed my own view of the power of the strengths approach. Hearing students' voices articulating how they saw life differently--how they saw themselves and others differently--was what eventually "sold" me on the strengths philosophy. Even though Chip had distributed those wacky "strengths-colored glasses" to remind us that the strengths approach was a different lens through which to view the world, it was hearing students talk about how they saw their relationships, their majors, and their academic goals in a whole new light that was most convincing for me.
And I suppose that's connected to why I'm a faculty member. I live for those "aha" moments when students' eyes light up, when they really get it in a whole new way. That's what makes my job rewarding and meaningful--knowing I've opened a door for students. As Sonja Gravett from South Africa says, "informative learning changes WHAT students know; transformative learning changes HOW they know and WHO they are." That's what I've always wanted to happen in my classroom--I want to change students from the inside out in ways that are valuable and important to them. And the strengths approach does just that. Watching their eyes light up when they realize they have the seeds of success already inside them, that they have something to contribute to our mutual learning, that what college will add is the knowledge and skills to move them to levels of excellence--THAT is why I use a strengths approach to teaching. It energizes me; it makes my job much more fun and rewarding--and it changes my students in ways that matter for a lifetime.
It took me about three years to really get this idea (I'm a slow learner!). I still want the empirical evidence, I still love to read about coefficient alphas and principal components analysis, and I still push universities to randomly assign students to a control or experimental group when they are starting to using StrengthsQuest on their campus. But the bottom line is that I've seen lives changed--and in fact, my own approach to teaching has changed as a result. And that is what makes all the difference.
When I was first introduced to the strengths philosophy by Chip Anderson almost ten years ago, I guess you could say I was a skeptic. It sounded too touchy-feely, Pollyannish, and seemed way too similar to some of the things that came out of the ill-fated self-esteem movement from the 80's. I remember asking Don Clifton what the coefficient alphas were for each of the scales--and in fact I really wanted to see all of the StrengthsFinder factor analysis results! Give me empirical evidence that it works--that was what would convince me (and I don't even have Analytical in my top five!).
At the time, StrengthsFinder had just been piloted (it even had 35 themes then) and the empirical evidence was sketchy. Promising, but sketchy. So I joined with some other universities in collecting some evidence over the next couple of years. One thing about higher education is that it is difficult to randomly assign students to conditions--or even to have a control group. So the evidence we collected was quasi-experimental at best. But it, too, was promising. First-year students appeared to be more confident, got better grades, enjoyed their classes more, and even were more likely to stick around for a second year when they had participated in a strengths-based first-year seminar.
But it was the student focus groups that changed my own view of the power of the strengths approach. Hearing students' voices articulating how they saw life differently--how they saw themselves and others differently--was what eventually "sold" me on the strengths philosophy. Even though Chip had distributed those wacky "strengths-colored glasses" to remind us that the strengths approach was a different lens through which to view the world, it was hearing students talk about how they saw their relationships, their majors, and their academic goals in a whole new light that was most convincing for me.
And I suppose that's connected to why I'm a faculty member. I live for those "aha" moments when students' eyes light up, when they really get it in a whole new way. That's what makes my job rewarding and meaningful--knowing I've opened a door for students. As Sonja Gravett from South Africa says, "informative learning changes WHAT students know; transformative learning changes HOW they know and WHO they are." That's what I've always wanted to happen in my classroom--I want to change students from the inside out in ways that are valuable and important to them. And the strengths approach does just that. Watching their eyes light up when they realize they have the seeds of success already inside them, that they have something to contribute to our mutual learning, that what college will add is the knowledge and skills to move them to levels of excellence--THAT is why I use a strengths approach to teaching. It energizes me; it makes my job much more fun and rewarding--and it changes my students in ways that matter for a lifetime.
It took me about three years to really get this idea (I'm a slow learner!). I still want the empirical evidence, I still love to read about coefficient alphas and principal components analysis, and I still push universities to randomly assign students to a control or experimental group when they are starting to using StrengthsQuest on their campus. But the bottom line is that I've seen lives changed--and in fact, my own approach to teaching has changed as a result. And that is what makes all the difference.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Research Webinar this Tuesday
This Tuesday at 11 am Pacific time Gallup is hosting a webinar on research that has been done and is currently underway to test the impact of strengths-based interventions. Contact Irene Burklund at irene_burklund@gallup.com for information on how to join me for this. I'll be talking about the types of outcomes that a strengths-based intervention OUGHT to produce, will describe some of the research results we have found so far, then will focus on how you can design powerful research projects on your own campus to determine whether or not the strengths-based intervention you implement actually makes a difference!
So many campuses are adopting a strengths-based approach to various programs -- advising, first-year seminars, student leadership programs, residence life education programs -- yet few are determining in advance what outcomes they want to see. Even fewer design the most powerful interventions and test them with powerful research designs. So this is your chance to get in on the ground floor and collect the kind of evidence that your Provost and faculty will want to see before deciding to adopt a full-scale strengths program.
I look forward to hearing your voice on Tuesday!
So many campuses are adopting a strengths-based approach to various programs -- advising, first-year seminars, student leadership programs, residence life education programs -- yet few are determining in advance what outcomes they want to see. Even fewer design the most powerful interventions and test them with powerful research designs. So this is your chance to get in on the ground floor and collect the kind of evidence that your Provost and faculty will want to see before deciding to adopt a full-scale strengths program.
I look forward to hearing your voice on Tuesday!
Noel Academy Grand Opening
A few weeks ago the Noel Academy for Strengths-Based Leadership and Education celebrated its Grand Opening. What a great time that was! There were three separate symposia that were held during the three-day event: one on Positive Psychology on Campus, one on Strengths, Calling, and Vocation, and one on K-12 Education. Shane Lopez was the keynote speaker for the Grand Opening and did a terrific job of painting a picture of where the strengths movement is heading in the next few years.
The Power Point slides from the various sessions are available on the Academy's website at www.apu.edu/strengthsacademy.
If any of you are interested in being put on the mailing list for either the Positive Psychology on Campus group or the Strengths and Calling group, let Shawna Lafreniere know by e-mailing her at slafreniere@apu.edu. I will be sending out a survey to all on the Positive Psychology mailing list to determine the level of interest in continuing to communicate with one another and work together on a possible research project--and to see who can connect with us again at the Summit in DC this fall. If you are planning to attend the Positive Psychology Summit (now called the Global Well-Being and Engagement Summit) at The Gallup Organization's headquarters in Washington, DC this October, Shane Lopez will be organizing a Positive Psychology on Campus track during that conference. Knowing who you are and that you are interested in connecting with like-minded others will help us get the word to you about conference plans.
The Power Point slides from the various sessions are available on the Academy's website at www.apu.edu/strengthsacademy.
If any of you are interested in being put on the mailing list for either the Positive Psychology on Campus group or the Strengths and Calling group, let Shawna Lafreniere know by e-mailing her at slafreniere@apu.edu. I will be sending out a survey to all on the Positive Psychology mailing list to determine the level of interest in continuing to communicate with one another and work together on a possible research project--and to see who can connect with us again at the Summit in DC this fall. If you are planning to attend the Positive Psychology Summit (now called the Global Well-Being and Engagement Summit) at The Gallup Organization's headquarters in Washington, DC this October, Shane Lopez will be organizing a Positive Psychology on Campus track during that conference. Knowing who you are and that you are interested in connecting with like-minded others will help us get the word to you about conference plans.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Your Own Sphere of Influence
In thinking some more about faculty ownership issues, I want to encourage you to think about your own sphere of influence. As with any change process, there are usually about 10% of the faculty who are right with you from the beginning. These are usually the folks who are strongly committed to students and are already thinking about ways of helping them learn most effectively. There may be some "Maximizers" in this bunch who just naturally see the world through a strengths lens, as well! Then there will probably be about 10% of the faculty who will never be with you on this issue, for a variety of reasons. Maybe they're too near retirement, maybe they're too tired or too busy, maybe what they're already doing is working great for them, maybe the way they see the world is through a lens of improving weakness--and they're highly committed to that lens. Forget about them! No need to waste your time and energy trying to win over these 10% -- unless you have Woo and just can't resist the challenge :)
But that leaves almost 80% of your faculty who will give you a chance to win them over. Some of that 80% are very close to the "early adopters" group and it won't take much to persuade them to try a strengths-based approach to teaching or advising. And let's be honest--some are nearer to the "no way" 10% that will never try this approach. They will need lots of evidence and probably will need to have a positive experience of it themselves and plenty of time to think about it before they'll give it a try with their students. The rest are somewhere in the middle--and will need to be cultivated in different ways.
The point here is that change takes time and a variety of strategies. It takes good communication with the right people at the right time. It takes a winsome appeal and persuasive evidence. You might think about those faculty with whom you already have good relationships and ask them to "pilot" this approach and give you feedback.
But the most important thing is to work within your own sphere of influence--model a strengths-based approach in your own classes or student programs, in your own personal interactions with students and other faculty and staff, in your own way of building a team in your department. As people begin to experience YOU engaging your own strengths as you relate to them and as you accomplish your goals, they may be intrigued and want to find out more. And then you can say, "I'm glad you asked!"
But that leaves almost 80% of your faculty who will give you a chance to win them over. Some of that 80% are very close to the "early adopters" group and it won't take much to persuade them to try a strengths-based approach to teaching or advising. And let's be honest--some are nearer to the "no way" 10% that will never try this approach. They will need lots of evidence and probably will need to have a positive experience of it themselves and plenty of time to think about it before they'll give it a try with their students. The rest are somewhere in the middle--and will need to be cultivated in different ways.
The point here is that change takes time and a variety of strategies. It takes good communication with the right people at the right time. It takes a winsome appeal and persuasive evidence. You might think about those faculty with whom you already have good relationships and ask them to "pilot" this approach and give you feedback.
But the most important thing is to work within your own sphere of influence--model a strengths-based approach in your own classes or student programs, in your own personal interactions with students and other faculty and staff, in your own way of building a team in your department. As people begin to experience YOU engaging your own strengths as you relate to them and as you accomplish your goals, they may be intrigued and want to find out more. And then you can say, "I'm glad you asked!"
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Getting Faculty Ownership
Today I'm responding to one of the comments that was posted. The question asked how to get faculty buy-in to strengths-based interventions or programs. There is no easy answer to this question--Provosts across the country would love to know how to get faculty buy-in on anything :)
Since I have been a faculty member for the past 25 years, let me simply share what gets my attention and leads to ownership for me. I think there are three basic principles at work here: (1) I pay attention to things that interest me or that solve a problem I have; (2) anything that saves me time and especially that results in me spending less time on tasks I don't enjoy and more time doing the things I love will get my attention; and (3) I want to see compelling evidence that what you are suggesting will actually work!
Faculty's first and foremost allegiance is to their discipline, usually. I wish it were otherwise--I wish our primary allegiance was to our students and their learning! And for some, that is the case. But for many of us all our training and educational preparation was focused squarely on our disicplinary expertise. Few of us were trained to teach--and even fewer were trained to advise students. We've had no courses in teaching/learning theory, no background in higher education. We know what we were taught--and we tend to teach the way we were taught. We typically were the brightest and best--abstract thinkers and researchers for whom critical thinking is an art form. So our tendency is to critique everything--that's what we do best. That can be a little intimidating to others! But once you know that it is what makes us excellent--that critical thinking is faculty operating out of their own collective strength--then you also know the way to our hearts :) In a word--"prove it!" If you can show me that what you are suggesting is solidly grounded in theory, has empirical evidence to support its effectiveness, and will help me accomplish goals that matter to me, you will have my buy-in. Now that's a social scientist speaking--Humanities profs may frame it a little differently in terms of the "evidence" they'd like to see. But all of us hunger for evidence that something will actually impact student learning. Anything that can help me reach my students and will result in higher levels of learning and academic performance has got my vote.
Many of us faculty are finding it harder each year to reach this generation of students. We've noticed a sea change just in the last four or five years, with students spending the majority of class time texting or IMing one another or checking e-mail and surfing the net. [Not in my classes, of course--but I hear that other faculty have trouble with this :) ] So anything that helps me engage my students will get my attention. And that's where the strengths approach holds enormous potential--but more about that next time!
Since I have been a faculty member for the past 25 years, let me simply share what gets my attention and leads to ownership for me. I think there are three basic principles at work here: (1) I pay attention to things that interest me or that solve a problem I have; (2) anything that saves me time and especially that results in me spending less time on tasks I don't enjoy and more time doing the things I love will get my attention; and (3) I want to see compelling evidence that what you are suggesting will actually work!
Faculty's first and foremost allegiance is to their discipline, usually. I wish it were otherwise--I wish our primary allegiance was to our students and their learning! And for some, that is the case. But for many of us all our training and educational preparation was focused squarely on our disicplinary expertise. Few of us were trained to teach--and even fewer were trained to advise students. We've had no courses in teaching/learning theory, no background in higher education. We know what we were taught--and we tend to teach the way we were taught. We typically were the brightest and best--abstract thinkers and researchers for whom critical thinking is an art form. So our tendency is to critique everything--that's what we do best. That can be a little intimidating to others! But once you know that it is what makes us excellent--that critical thinking is faculty operating out of their own collective strength--then you also know the way to our hearts :) In a word--"prove it!" If you can show me that what you are suggesting is solidly grounded in theory, has empirical evidence to support its effectiveness, and will help me accomplish goals that matter to me, you will have my buy-in. Now that's a social scientist speaking--Humanities profs may frame it a little differently in terms of the "evidence" they'd like to see. But all of us hunger for evidence that something will actually impact student learning. Anything that can help me reach my students and will result in higher levels of learning and academic performance has got my vote.
Many of us faculty are finding it harder each year to reach this generation of students. We've noticed a sea change just in the last four or five years, with students spending the majority of class time texting or IMing one another or checking e-mail and surfing the net. [Not in my classes, of course--but I hear that other faculty have trouble with this :) ] So anything that helps me engage my students will get my attention. And that's where the strengths approach holds enormous potential--but more about that next time!
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