Tuesday, 7 August 2012

Insights from Clifton StrengthFinder 2.0


StrengthFinder 2.0 by the Gallup Organization suggests that job performance and engagement are correlated to the fit between one’s intrinsic strengths and role requirements.  The premise is that every individual has strengths that when leveraged in the appropriate job results in high performance and engagement.

As a manager I was interested to see my team’s strengths.  And it was very insightful to look at the strengths within the group and compare to individual work style and job performance. 

I focused on the premise that strengths matched appropriately to the job result in high performance.  Indeed, the top performers on my team appeared at first glance to have the appropriate strengths for our strategic planning and analysis mandate.  However, one high performer stood out with a distinct skill set that favoured so-called “soft skill” strengths rather than analytical and quantitative strengths.

The key to understanding how these individuals with disparate strength sets can be equally high performers in comparable roles is in the environment in which they work, or more specifically the stakeholders whom they support.  The distinct individual supports a sales leader with a reputation for vociferous people-skills and a tendency to shoot from the hip, whereas the other individuals support sales leaders known to be data-centric and pragmatic.

If the analysts on my team switched places, I imagine they would both struggle to be equally successful compared with their current roles.

This insight has implications on the simple theory that fit between strengths and the role requirements results in high performance.  Consideration must also be given to the human environment defined by stakeholders, leaders and fellow team members.

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