Strengths - The Heartbeat of Employee Engagement

Rarely has a topic received such overwhelming interest from HR practitioners and line managers as employee engagement. Organisations are queuing up to purchase what are often 'snake oil' solutions to try to eek out additional discretionary effort and performance from employees. This trend has been amplified by strong evidence from recent research suggesting that employee engagement is directly related to customer satisfaction and financial indicators of performance such as sales growth and revenue (e.g Rucci, Kirn and Quinn, 1998).

However, based on our own experience, most of the efforts we see in organisations aimed at strengthening employee engagement are significantly misguided. Why? Because the main underlying assumption is flawed - that employees are all engaged in the same way. This leads companies to approach employee engagement from a systems and process perspective, rolling out "one size fits all" solutions that may appeal to some employees, but generally fall short of the overriding purpose - to engage all or at least the vast majority of employees. In their attempt to energise employees and motivate extraordinary performance, efforts we typically see are new reward programmes, investment in standardised training or personal development workshops and new employee relations programmes aimed at enhancing employees' wellbeing. We are not suggesting that such programmes are without merit and measurable benefit. However, they fail to take account of the most critical aspect of employee engagement - the importance of the employee's personal experience of the job, team and work environment (i.e. what they find particularly energising and fulfilling) and the role that his/her underlying strengths play in freeing up positive energy and discretionary effort.

Our experience suggests that rather than seeking quick-fix, generic solutions to engagement, the starting point should be to understand employees' unique strengths and aspirations regarding how these might be productively applied. We define strengths as "underlying qualities that energise us, contribute to our personal growth and lead to peak performance" (Brook and Brewerton, 2006). By helping employees explore and understand how their strengths can be more productively deployed, organisations will be building a strong and sustainable basis for employee engagement and performance excellence. There are numerous benefits to helping employees understand and play to their strengths including:

1. Ensuring they get clarity on their natural strengths so they can realise their full potentialc
2. Increasing their positive energy and confidence, which is crucial for performance improvement
3. Enabling people to better manage or mitigate their weaker areas through providing them with new perspective and a wider range of options for dealing with these areas

Experience with a growing number of clients suggests that focusing on individual and team strengths really does release and focus energy and effort. Individuals start seeing old problems and performance blockers in a new light - through a strengths 'lens'. Their managers also challenge old assumptions they have about employees' weaknesses when they learn that these are overplayed strengths or strengths in overdrive. For example, one executive we worked with learned that his direct report's tendency to get impatient with her colleagues and force things through without the required debate and consultation resulted from her strong results focus and passion, which were in overdrive. This changed his perspective of the challenge and led him to engage her more positively around this area of growth rather than seeing it as a weakness that would be extremely difficult to overcome. Moreover, it helped the director understand the need to be more aware of situational factors in exercising her strengths and increased her confidence and options for dealing with these areas.

Our work has shown us that it is necessary to provide individuals with practical and accurate assessment of their strengths (using a tool like ©Strengthscope, www.strengthscope.com), ideally one that provides feedback from multiple raters and not simply a self-assessment. Since people are not used to talking about strengths and generally describe them in extremely non-specific ways (e.g., "I am a good communicator" or "I am excellent with people"), a major benefit of such an assessment is that it provides a language for people to start exploring their strengths and enables them to focus their energies on opportunities to deploy these more fully. However, this is not enough. As part of ongoing performance dialogues, managers and employees together need to explore how these strengths can be made more productive, not only in the person's current role, but in tasks and projects outside the role. Like professional athletes, employees need to build agility to use their strengths in a variety of different conditions and situations. This appreciative and prospective process will create a "virtuous circle" and build much needed confidence. This in turn will ensure the individual has the self-belief and determination to deploy their strengths appropriately, whilst managing or mitigating weaker areas and negative energies that so often debilitate excellence.

Of course, all this requires a much closer, appreciative and enabling relationship between the line manager and employee than we often see in organisations. It requires line managers who view employees as individuals with unique capabilities and strengths to be nurtured and encouraged rather than "resources" to be directed towards compliance and control. If organisations help employees and teams use their strengths more productively and create an environment where authentic, appreciative relationships flourish and become the norm, they will be well on their well to creating an engaged workforce and strong, sustainable organisational performance. Through unleashing strengths at the individual, team and wider organisational levels and capitalising on the powerful multiplier effects of focused, positive energy and effort, they will ensure a healthy organisational heartbeat for many years to come.

References
Rucci, A.J., Kirn, S.P., and Quinn, R.T. (1998, January-February). The employee-customer-profit chain at Sears. Harvard Business Review.


James Brook, M.Soc.Sci, MBA

James is founder and managing director of Titan Talent Ltd (www.titantalent.com), a management consulting firm specialising in strengths-focused leadership development, coaching, talent management and organisational change solutions. He has 15 years experience in leadership and talent development, having worked in various international roles in consulting and talent management.

James specialises in strengths-focused solutions to talent development and performance improvement; building authentic, inspirational leadership; executive and cross-cultural coaching; and designing innovative assessment approaches to identify, retain and develop talent.

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