Understanding "Weakness" from a Strengths Coaching perspective

by Dries Lombaard


"Embrace your Weaknesses"

I love to see the expression on peoples faces when I make the above statement.  It is a foreign concept to most.  It is as if we have been conditioned to be ashamed of our natural weaknesses.  
To hide it, hate it, or ignore it.

Or then, in an effort not to have weakness, to spend as much energy as possible on it to try and fix it, improve it and erase it.

Unfortunately none of the above strategies have the results you hope for.  Your weaknesses are a reality just like your strengths.  No person is without it. 

It is essential to understand the meaning of Weakness just like we explained the meaning of Strength in Part 1 of this Blog. So let's unpack some of it's characteristics.

1. Weakness is a severe lack of energy

• The biggest misconception out there, is that weakness and lack of skill is the same thing.  Not so.  You can be the most skilled person in the room, and still be building on a weakness.  How do you know?  Skill won't energise you.  Talent does.  When you add knowledge, skill and experience to natural talent, you have a strength.
• It is important to keep in mind that weakness is not lack of ability.  Weakness is the lack of sustainability.  You may operate pretty well in some of your weaknesses, especially if you rely on skill to do so.  But be very sure:  it is not sustainable.  Just like playing a shot from the bunker in golf, you can play a brilliant shot. But should I ask you to play it again, and again....you will probably find it more and more difficult to repeat your success from relying on your skill alone.  
• In the same way as we are wired with sustainable energy within certain areas of talent, we have a lack of energy for other areas.  This reality cause us to feel weak, drained or demotivated when we have to engage with specific thoughts, emotions or behaviours.  

2. Weakness cause resistance

• Weakness is not alone a lack of energy towards specific thoughts, emotions or behaviour.  It is is actual resistance towards it. You will - consciously or sub-consciously - resist certain ways of doing things, certain patterns of thinking or certain emotional expressions or interactions.  That in itself is normal, and just as part of who you are as your energy and needs allow you to be.

3. You should manage your weaknesses and your exposure to them

• Sometimes I explain the effect of your Non Patterns (weaknesses) have on you by comparing it to the effect Kryptonite has on Superman. It steals his super-powers.  It makes him feel weak.  Eventually it has the ability to kill him.  Now, operating within your weaknesses won't kill you like Kryptonite does Superman!  But it will have a very specific negative effect on you if you are consistently exposed to it. A draining, weakening effect.  
• Because of this you need to do the same to your weaknesses as you would do with the bunkers on a golf course.  Avoid them.  Play around them, or over them.  Intentionally try as hard as you can to not having to rely on your natural weaknesses.  This is exactly why you should know what your natural weaknesses are, and how they manifest in different areas or situations of you life.  If you know that, you know what to avoid.
• You cannot always avoid being in a specific situation, among specific people or faced with a specific challenge.  When life takes you places you do not prefer to go, you need to be able and skilled to handle the roads.  This is exactly why there is no such thing as "ignore your weaknesses".  You cannot ignore them.  You need to embrace them.  But, you should not invest more in them than the absolute minimum time and effort you need in order for it NOT to be a detriment to your Strengths. 
• An important part of you managing your weakness is being open to yourself and to others when it comes to the expectations and realities you - and they - will face when you are functioning within your Non Patterns, or your "weakness space" if I can call it that.  Do not try to hide your weaknesses.  Communicate them openly - not as an excuse but as a reality.  Simply make others aware that they will not get the same energy, results or performance from you when you play from your Non Patterns, as they will when you play from your Dominant Themes.  In most cases people wo live or work with you will in any case know that even better than you do, as they often observe how you struggle better than you think.  So, embracing your weaknesses means you stop hiding them or stop covering them up with excuses.  

4. Making up for your Weaknesses

• You should develop the knowledge and skill to make up for your natural weakness, as life will take you there if you choose to or not.  You cannot tell your boss "Sorry, I am not wired to hand in reports", or tell you friends "I am actually not naturally supportive at all."  Well, actually you can do it. But the result will be defining to your career and relationships - in a negative way.  As human beings we are able to acquire an amazing array of skills. Yes, you probably can do anything you want to in life - but as I often tell my children, the fact that you can does not mean that you should.  Choose the places where you invest your energy in carefully.  But when it comes to the draining effect of Weakness on us, obtaining the knowledge, skill and experience to at least "keep the vehicle on the road" is essential. We call that, in many cases, life skills.  These are the skills teenagers and young people lack - and you can observe it in the results of their actions and decisions.  
• When making up for weakness with skill you should understand that it is sometimes "soft skills" and other times "hard skills".  In order to understand and operate in my business I had to obtain the hard skills of using and understanding spreadsheets and budgets.  I hate every moment of working with it.  But obtaining the skills (even very basic) made all the difference in me managing it.  I also constantly have to obtain certain emotional skills in my life.  It does not come natural to me.  But, as I choose to manage my emotions I handle my weaknesses in that area with a lot more grace and efficiency. These weaknesses is not a detriment to me any longer, as I developed the skills to at the very least "keep the vehicle on the road during a storm." 
• Another way to make up for the draining effect of your weakness is to work in a team or partnership with someone who is strong where you are weak.  Somebody who loves the stuff you hate.  Who get energised by the exact things that drains the life out of you.  Actually, I find that in most life partnerships, we tend to gravitate towards a partner or spouse that is completely opposite than we are.  What a team!  But in business and other areas of life we need to be very intentional in doing exactly this.  Find out who sits up straight when your shoulders drop, who smile when you frown, who picks up speed when you slow down, who makes the call when you hesitate, who brings the intuition when you bring the facts, who finishes well if you start well....those are your true partners who will make the team work and win with you.  Study the best teams or best partnerships.  You will see how it is in their difference that they are strong.

5. The myth of "My Strength is my Weakness"

• Your natural Strengths will never be your weakness, simply because it will never weaken you.  It is your ability to manage the energy that comes with that talent that makes you experience it as a weakness.  But, it is actually a detriment. Just like the super power of a Super Hero character cause them detriment
• Yes, the result of an overused Strength can cause detriment.  But detriment is different than weakness.  Detriment can be changed into advantage. Weakness cannot be changed into Strength.  (Do not confuse talent and skill in this point!)
• What drains and weakens you, will always have that effect of you.  You can mitigate and manage the effect by adding knowledge and skill, and you should. But is stays a weakness - not sustainable and not a good investment of time and energy.  

"A well manage talent becomes a Strength. A miss managed talent becomes a detriment."   

So, the effect of your talent is determined by how you manage it.  If you don't manage the energy and need well, it will become an obstacle to yourself and others.  

Don't play towards your weaknesses. Avoid the bunkers.  

But when you do get stuck in them, do not be overwhelmed or paralysed.  Play to the situation as best you can.  Learn from every move.  

Then - get out of there as soon as you can.

The challenge of life is to play the whole field.  We have 34 Talent Themes. Some strong. Others weak.  But there is nothing we cannot do.

The right question is:  What should you be doing?

Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strategic Leadership Institute and NeuWorx, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator.  

Embracing my Weaknesses - while still being true to my Strengths

Strengths Institute recently had a 5 Day Weakness Awareness Challenge with their Network of Strengths Coaches.  We do not believe you should ignore your Weaknesses!  You should rather embrace it in a confidently vulnerable attitute.  Learn from it....but don't try to make it a strength.Over 5 days, each participant took one of their lowest 5 Talent Themes (Non Patterns) and reflected on the impact it has on personal thoughts, emotions and behaviour - from a weakening perspective.The feedback was incredible!  We decided to post some of the experiences of the Coaches as Blog Posts.  Enjoy!






Liesel Teversham - Strengths Institute Accredited Strengths Coach

Weakness:  Communication

When I found this was in my draining talents, it was actually the biggest RELIEF for me. 

I've known for many years that loads of talking drains me and I always thought there was something wrong with me. I used to teach 2 and 3 day workshops (up until 3 years ago) and after those, I was simply exhausted for a week or more. I couldn't understand what was 'wrong' with me. I LOVED the subject matter, the teaching, I was GOOD at it.... Why didn't I feel energized??

Now, I can see how it's the verbal expression that's tiring for me. The teaching I'll always be great at, the subject I know inside out - and I've had to come to terms with the fact that to keep my energy at acceptable levels, I'll need to manage HOW I teach in a different way. 

I also need to be careful how I structure my week. For coaching clients, I've realised I can't have more than 2 per day. 3 sends me over that healthy tip - then I wake up tired the next day and it gets worse from there. 

I started a podcast about a year ago and I've tried video marketing. With both of them, I realised it's just not the most FUN marketing activity for me. In fact, I start dreading it. I have to think very, very carefully about what I want to say beforehand. I have to do so much preparation that takes up way too much time. And I worry that I'm going to forget what I wanted to say. I'm NOT good thinking on my feet when I need to reply or do a talk 'on the spot'. 

I wish this one was a bit higher up in my list.  There's a lot more exploration for me to do here. I want to find the 'sweet spot' of how much verbal communicatiogn is good for me, and how far I can 'push' this one. 

I just hate that feeling of exhaustion after 2 days of talking and thinking about how to say things.

(And as you can see by the long post, WRITTEN expression is a different story. That energizes me like few other things.)

Weakness:  Significance  

Part of me just wants to keep this short and simply say
"I DETEST THE SPOTLIGHT!"

But I'll say a few more words. The writer in me can't resist.

I've worked on this thing for years with my tools and I'm so much better than I can remember myself as a child. To this day, when we have to go around the room and introduce ourselves in any environment, my heart starts beating like a train on a track when it gets to 2 or 3 away from me. 

I CAN look calm, I CAN say thank you nicely to acknowledgement of something I did that put me center stage... and boy, I don't enjoy it. When I published my first book in 2013 and I had a book launch in CT, I didn't enjoy all the fuss being made of me. Yes, it was a significant accomplishment for me. And I felt seriously proud. But I didn't need or want all that fuss from others. 

Center stage is not my spot. And I know I've judged people in the past because I thought they seemed arrogant or egotistical - I didn't understand this talent at the time. It always amazes me when people LOVE the attention and come alive when they're in the spotlight. 

It's just so not what I want. I cringe, blush, fiddle and can't wait to go back to my quiet space of observing. 

Hehe. How remarkably different we all are.

Weakness:  Includer

I had the biggest insight about something that I've been struggling with, and it came on the right day (Includer awareness) - while I was preparing for a talk about Strengths I'm doing next week for a small group in the US.

I've never had a need to be Included in everything. Peer pressure never did it's thing on me, even as a teenager. I didn't care whether I was included in parties and the 'cool' kids. And I often feel like I keep myself apart from people. It bugs me in a way because I feel like I don't belong, and yet I realise it's ME that's excluding myself. 

But the insight I had just now sheds some light on where it's a DRAINING talent for me. 

I've had some clients recently that had me feeling EXTRA drained. Communication at 30 means I have to be careful with how many appointments I can schedule on a day. And I thought that was the only thing that caused my tiredness. But..... here's the next piece. 

I often have an internal struggle between Empathy/Connectedness/Individualization on the one hand, and Includer on the other. Those first talents prod me to include EVERYONE in the work I do, especially those who struggle with emotional things. I want to help them all! 

But... the Includer finds it draining to include everyone! And the clients I've been working with recently are not my absolute favourite clients, truthfully. I feel BAD and guilty to admit this - and that's Empathy and Individualization talking, NOT Includer. 

But I suddenly realized now with a sigh of relief that perhaps it's BECAUSE I've tried to Include even non-ideal clients, that it's draining for me. 

Boy. I have a lot to sit with and process now. It's a fabulous insight for me.

Weakness:  Command

Oooh this one has always frightened me with my Harmony at #4.

I have huge resistance to 'take charge'. I remember one time on a week-long workshop, each person in a 10-member team had a chance to 'take charge' of the meal preparation (for the rest of the participants). I knew my time was coming and I thought I had it handled. 

But when push came to shove, and the whole team looked at me for 'instructions' on who had to do what, I promptly burst into tears and crumbled. Phew. Embarrassing, to say the least. 

I'd much rather let someone else call the shots, I'll happily follow instructions and decisions. As long as I don't have to make them - especially FOR other people. Or tell them what I think they should do. I run for the hills. 

Also, I used to be really frightened of people with this 'presence'. I'm not anymore - but I'm still not all that comfortable. And I feel (with my Empathy) sometimes that they discount me because I just cannot push back, I'd rather agree. I really don't enjoy that feeling of being 'discounted' and yet in a way it doesn't bother me. If I had Includer higher, it probably would. 

I am working a couple of hours a week at the moment for an IT company and I suspect the CEO has some 'Command' in him. I know I NEED to give him at least a little pushback... and sheeez it's tough for me. I can FEEL him not respecting me if I'm too meek. 

I really resist this talent.

Weakness:  Activator

Sighing deeply about this one... I never realised (until I started seeing this pattern a couple months ago) how often I say in my head "I'll do it later / just now."

Big problem. Later often doesn't arrive.

I was in this exact situation again yesterday... Over a couple of days or 2 weeks I receive a few requests for help/support/work/ participating in something. I think "I'll think about it and decide later."

And then all of a sudden (well, haha) it's built up to a pile of decisions I need to make, I feel overwhelmed and unable to think clearly. Anxiety about everything I need to deal with then.... 

My Intellection at 5 has a huge impact here - it needs time to process and think before deciding or doing. They fuel each other unfortunately.

I have a good friend with Activator in his T5. I once told him my thought process of "I'll do it later." He burst out laughing and said that never, ever, ever crosses his mind. We have fun with each other now around this.

I find it soooo hard to get up early or starting projects. When I've started I can finish, no problem (with Achiever at 10). But boy, the starting energy is EVER so low. 

Liesel Teversham is an accredited Strengths Coach with the Strengths Institute South Africa.

liesel@clearspace.za.net 

Compat-ability - [Guest Article]

By Curt Liesveld

Strengths coaching is an approach to coaching that intentionally focuses on a person's naturalability. My first goal as a strengths coach is to help an individual capitalize on their natural ability,that is, those ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that they can productively apply with the most ease and enjoyment. In addition, I work with individuals to help them understand and manage their vulnerability, that is, the situations and places where this natural ability can be easily misunderstood or unproductively applied. The people we coach will also need some help in understanding and owning their liabilities or disabilities, that is, those required ways of thinking, feeling or behaving that don't come with either ease or enjoyment. Finally, I find that strengths coaching must eventually focus on compatibility, that is, how a person's abilities coexist and cooperate with the abilities of others. Compatibility is crucial in both personal and professional success. It is at the core of great partnerships, great teams, great marriages and great families. As a result, the people we coach are often very interested in finding a magic formula for compatibility. 

Most of us think we will experience compatibility when we can find and choose the perfect partner or teammate. I am wondering if this is why people who use the Clifton StrengthsFinder are often tempted to use the CSF as a selection instrument. I can almost hear them thinking, "If I can just avoid the person that has incompatible themes and find the person who has compatible themes, everything will be perfect. If I can just find the magic CSF formula, we will all live happily ever after." 

Embedded in this thinking are a couple of mistaken assumptions. The first assumption is that compatibility is something this is primarily discovered, rather than created. The second assumption is that since compatibility by definition is about "congenial, agreeable and harmonious existence and performance," it is most likely to occur when differences are limited and tension is eliminated. 

My theory is that we gravitate to the assumption of compatibility via discovery because it is much easier than believing in compatibility via development. If compatibility is a magic formula, I simply need to have people take an assessment and then apply the formula. Developing compatibility is much more difficult than discovering compatibility. Finding the perfect partner or mate seems an easier option than figuring out how to be the perfect partner or mate. 

I am not suggesting that making wise selection decisions is unimportant. While there are those rare times in life when we do get to choose a spouse, a friend, a roommate or an employee, much of our life is spent living and working with people we didn't choose. For example, we don't get to choose our parents and in most cases, parents don't get to choose their kids. Many times students don't get to choose their teachers, and teachers don't get to choose their students. Most of us don't have the option of saying, "I don't think I can live/work with you because we are incompatible.” We don't have the luxury of delaying collaboration until we find the perfect coworker. Instead most of us need to quickly figure out "How can I best work with this person or these people?"

Many people we coach will ask the question, “Are we compatible?” There will be times where that question is relevant, but in most cases a better and more productive question is, "How could we be compatible?” and "How could we work or live together in a more harmonious, agreeable and congenial manner?

The other flawed assumption related to compatibility is that there are some CSF themes that are mutually exclusive. That is, they just don't mix. Something akin to how water and fire don't mix. When you add water to fire the fire is extinguished and when you add fire to water the water is evaporated. Granted, there are certainly some themes that are more unlikely to occur together as dominant themes within a person. For example, Command and Harmony are not likely to occur together as dominant themes, neither are Maximizer or Restorative. However, just because two themes are unlikely to occur together within a person, it is wrong and unproductive to assume that these same two themes are incompatible and antagonistic when they occur in two different people. 

Instead of assuming that Command and Harmony are incompatible themes, it would be much more beneficial for a coach to help people with these themes to think about how they could work together in a more harmonious, agreeable or congenial way. How can the theme of one person positively enhance the theme of another person in a way that both themes can be authentically utilized at the same time?  

Let's go back to the example of fire and water. While water can extinguish fire and fire can burn up (evaporate) water, are there situations where they can co-exist simultaneously and productively? The answer is yes. Water could actually help to manage or control a fire and keep it from becoming a wildfire. Water, when applied to things that you don't want to burn, will control the fire. In the same way, water might be more valuable when it is warmer or boiling. When a regulated amount of fire is applied to water, the temperature of the water will increase and as a result the value of the water might be improved. 

Sometimes we are lucky and stumble across the perfectly compatible partner. But it’s more likely that compatibility is a long journey, developed through work and awareness. So this is the first step, change the conversation. How can you be a great partner to others? What do you bring that the other may need? What can you give to a compatible partnership, and what can you achieve that’s greater together?

Curt Liesveld passed away on May 16, 2015. This piece was one of the final writing projects he completed, a topic he had spoken about for several months. Prior to his passing, he approved all final edits and was excited about communicating the message he believed in completely. Curt inspired a loving family and a legacy of strengths-based development, which lives on in the positive work done by coaches and individuals all over the world. Consider what you might do today to feature your own talent and gifts as an act of humility and strength in your community. 

Five Practices of Great Strengths Coaching - [Guest Article]

by Stephen Shields, Senior Practice Consultant, Gallup

One of Gallup’s primary performance insights is that there are different strengths-based paths to the same outcomes. For strengths performance coaching, this means that there is no definitive style that describes a great coach. A coach’s ability, for example, to envision a potential positive outcome for a series of coaching sessions can be born of any theme. A coach who sees potential might be leaning on their own theme of Maximizer, for example. Or they might equally be pulling from their Strategic or even Futuristic. Similarly, while styles may vary according to that coach’s specific strengths, there are some common practices that can be seen in great coaching. Here are five I have found helpful in my own experience as a coach. 

1. Begin with great questions. When I first began coaching around strengths, I developed a list of initial questions from a variety of sources. Over time, I culled the list as I found some questions to be more helpful than others. As I continued using my questions, I came to realize that they were, basically, “insight nets” -- useful tools that helped me gather initial discoveries to pursue later with my client. As I’ve certified other strengths coaches over the years, I’ve frequently been asked by my students to provide them my list of questions. And while I’m happy to give examples, I typically encourage new coaches to develop their own list -- one that reflects their own strengths and style. In Gallup’s strengths courses, individuals pursuing strengths performance coach certification are exposed to a plethora of questions from which they can begin to assemble such a list. The purpose of such questions, of course, is to help you and your client to…
2. Pursue insights and emotions. While compiling such a list of questions is valuable, new coaches may sometimes spend too much time “sticking to the script” and remain married to their question list. Experienced coaches are instead constantly looking for promising rabbit trails that will help them transform the session from an interview to a conversation. Great coaches know whether an alternative path is worth pursuing or not based on whether they see their client discovering new or deeper insights or emotions. When you see your client’s emotion, you may be hitting a passion point. Clifton StrengthsFinder not only reveals what people are good at, but also something about their passion and what really motivates them. When coaches lean into their client’s passion, they are more likely to help them find new and helpful insights. Another indication that a profitable rabbit trail is presenting itself is when you see your client begin to have an “a-ha” Moment. Dive into that new realization and help your client explore it. Be selective, of course, about how many rabbit trails you pursue.When you pursue your clients “a-has” and emotions based on the past, you are following another great coaching practice…
3. Leverage your client’s experience.  Princeton’s Dr. Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work demonstrating that an individual’s decisions are mostly driven by emotions. Building on Kahneman’s work, Gallup research has been able to quantify that 70% of our decisions are based on emotion. Therefore your clients’ experiences are context for your clients’ emotions. One way to leverage experience is to help your client focus on activities in which they find ease, excellence or enjoyment. Help them consider the parts of their role they enjoy the most. Then explore the connection between their Signature Themes and that experience. In this way, you are helping them to connect those emotions with an understanding of their strengths. This will both deepen their understanding of and commitment to their own key strengths. But a great coaching session doesn’t just end with a deeper understanding.Coaching sessions that transform clients…
4. End with action. A few years ago, the Center for Creative Leadership originated the 70:20:10 learning and development ratio. It’s been expressed in a variety of ways but, essentially, the ratio captures that 70% of what precipitates true change is experience, 20% is relationships and 10% is information transfer. Accordingly, smart coaches recognize that real change occurs between coaching sessions. That is when their clients can have the experience (70%) of applying their new insights. To leverage this powerful change dynamic, the best coaches complete their coaching sessions by helping their client to develop a few specific new actions.
   
   Clients will tend to articulate their intentions as mere goals or aspirations. They may say, “I need to do a better job listening to my team.” The best coach will affirm the goal, but also help drive the client to more specificity: “That’s fantastic! What is one specific action you can take this week to do a better job listening to your team?” One helpful criterion for evaluating the specificity of an action is to ask, “Is this a filmable behavior?” If a film crew came in and filmed you doing that action, would anyone watching the video be able to articulate exactly what you’re doing? Under this criterion “A better job listening” is not specific enough, because you can’t film intention; it can’t be seen. “Sending out an email one day before the next team meeting to ask everyone if they have any items they’d like to add to our agenda,” is a specific filmable behavior that is easily verifiable. The email either went out or it didn’t.
   
   In the coaching session, after you and your client develop one or two great actions, then you can…
5. Hold your client accountable to their own best intentions.  Part of the powerful dynamic between great coaches and their clients is that 1) the clients generate their own actions and 2) the coaches remind them of their intentions and follow up. Less skillful coaches will overly rely on suggesting actions, not realizing that if the client generates their own action ideas, they will have far more ownership of the actions. Highly effective coaches will then send an email to their client after a session where they 1) express appreciation for the conversation, 2) review one or two key conversation points or insights that came up during the session, 3) remind the client of their intended actions, and 4) let the client know that the coach is looking forward to hearing how the execution of the client’s actions went when they next meet. Then, in the next session, the first thing the coach explores is that execution -- is it an action that they wish to continue doing? What did they learn from the action’s execution?  
   
   When you first begin meeting with a new client, the earlier conversations will tend to be more educational as you help the client to understand their strengths. But if education becomes the essence of ongoing conversations, the coaching relationship will most definitely have a limited shelf life. Longevity in thriving coaching relationships only comes when the client is also bringing something to the table: how they are operationalizing their understanding of their strengths, and how that is leading them to even deeper insights.
   
   By focusing on specific actions, you are truly helping your client to transform.
   
   Part of the challenge of coaching is accommodating the high variability of talents that coaches find in their clients. Part of the joy of coaching is identifying the best ways for coaches to apply their own coaching style to their clients! These five practices provide a helpful tactical framework within which each coach can execute their unique helping style!

Stephen Shields is a Senior Practice Consultant with Gallup. He conducts one-on-one coaching with executive and mid-level managers and team-building sessions with management and leadership groups; he also presents on leadership and employee and customer engagement to large groups. He has worked with clients in the healthcare, financial services, retail, insurance, hospitality and pharmaceutical sectors

What Is a Strengths-Based Team? - [Guest Article]

By Ryan Darby, Gallup Learning and Development Consultant

One of the more difficult concepts that managers, and sometimes coaches, struggle with is the strengths-based team. On the surface, it seems an easy idea. It’s a group of individuals who all use their talents and strengths to accomplish a common goal. Great! That does sound simple. It is, however, wrong. Not only is this incorrect, but trying to operate like this can actually hurt a true team. A strengths-based team requires much more than everyone simply working on their strong points; it requires a deep knowledge of each team member’s strengths and weaknesses and, importantly, the orchestration of those strengths and weaknesses to fit the goals of the team. Without that orchestration, teams flounder, flail, and fight.

Let me share with you a recent experience I had with a strengths-based team. I was working with a team charged with developing some really innovative ideas for one of our clients. At the project kick-off, we had gathered the team together to brainstorm and ideate on all the different things we could do -- the more ideas the better. Many people in the room had talent profiles that were perfect for such a task. We had lots of ideation, positivity, strategic, and self-assurance, amongst others. And the majority of people in the room were leaning into those strengths and generating great ideas at a rapid pace, except for one guy -- there’s always one, right? This person was not in brainstorming mode; this person was in full on execution mode. Whenever a somewhat decent idea would develop, he would ask what the next steps were or try to assign responsibilities. He was using his talents -- he has tons of activator -- but unfortunately, he was using it at the wrong time and place. As a result, he was completely throwing off the pace of the group. We would stutter and the idea generation, which was the point of the meeting, would grind to a halt. Happily, the team leader not only knew each of our strengths and weaknesses, but also knew how to orchestrate them to meet the specific demands of the project. “Jim, I love your enthusiasm, but I think you are moving a little bit ahead. Right, now what we need is less activator and more context. What do you know has worked in the past for similar clients?” And off Jim went recounting past successes, giving great ideas in the process. Erstwhile Jim was hurting the group, now Jim was a valuable and leading contributor. Some of our best ideas came from him!

The genius of what that team leader did was not that she put a stop to Jim’s activator, but that she orchestrated his other talents to fit the needs of the group and the needs of the project. Where Jim had at first been a contradictory partner -- his talents were completely offsetting the actions of the group -- Jim was now a complementary one. And this is the key to strengths-based teams -- forming complementary partnerships. To do so, one must know each of the team member’s talents and strengths, help team members understand which of their specific talents and strengths are needed by the group, and then position them in a way to contribute to the common goal. It’s not easy, but when all of these things occur, a team will finally become a strengths-based team.

Dr. Ryan Darby is one of Gallup’s leading Learning and Development Consultants. He works with the world’s top organizations to transform their corporate cultures into engaging and thriving workplaces. Darby has a doctorate in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University. His academic expertise and publications are on the influence of emotions on decision-making and behavior. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.

Ten phrases good managers always say {Guest Article}

By Rick Conlow - CEO, WCW Partners

Good managers are different from other bosses. If you have had one lately you probably noticed they have high standards, are upbeat, knowledgeable and straight talkers. You will get the feedback you need to succeed. If you are lucky enough to have one you will want to excel, because you believe in yourself a little more when you are around them.

A key attribute about good managers is that they talk differently than their colleagues, and that adds to our sense of empowerment. I have listed ten statements I have heard many of them say regularly, and that would help any manager.

1. “I am glad you are on our team.”
Yes, some leaders actually say that once in a while instead of something like “What have you done for me lately?” I had one that used to say, “How much money have you made me today?” All employees want to be part of something bigger or grander than the every day grind, and it’s nice to know work can be that something. Leadership is influence, and it’s either positive or negative. There is no neutral.

2. “My vision is…”
It seems this is a novel concept, to communicate the overall goal of the work team, department, or company. It gives the big picture to everyone’s job and the why. Good managers do this concisely but with passion, not matter what the work is. It is also important for on-going updates, telling everyone on the team “Here is how we are doing.” With mediocre bosses every day is “same old, same old.”

3. “My expectations for you are…”

Few managers are good at providing clear goals and expectations. Our research shows that 80% of performance problems are because of a lack of clear expectations and goals. The best managers also say, “Let’s talk about your progress,” and not “Let me give you some feedback.” This means LOOK OUT! The excellent managers adhere to this quote by Pat Riley, President of the Miami Heat:“A coach must keep everyone on the team in touch with present-moment realities- -knowing where they stand, knowing where they’re falling short of their potential, and knowing it openly and fairly.”

4. “You can do it, I believe in you.”
We all need someone to believe in us. Good managers give encouragement, and they challenge you to do the better. I had one that would say, “You can do it, let’s keep hustling.” I had another one that used to sing the song, “Sixteen Candles” down the hallway. Then he’d come over and praise me about some goal and head back down the hall singing. It set a light tone to our brief meeting. Poorer managers always seem to be about bad news.

5. “Thank you!”

People want to be appreciated. A simple thank-you often is enough. ‘Great job on…’,’keep up the good work..’ are also others ways they recognize but they do it regularly and sincerely. It’s hard to get a compliment from other managers. It’s documented that genuine praise works, plus it’s the right thing to do.

6. “How’s it going?
They are willing to talk to you. Mr. Jim Low was a master at this. When I first met him his legend preceded him. For over a decade he led his market in profit, sales and employee retention. I asked why he was so good. He replied by laughingly saying, “I didn’t go to college.” He added that every day he’d come to work and first go talk to as many employees as he could by asking, “How’s it going?” He might relate this to something he knew about the person. The employees mostly talked about their lives. He discussed business only if they brought it up. Then, when he had a problem, he would go to employees and get the straight info, no BS, because he already had a positive relationship with them.

7. “What do you think?”
Considering the pressures of our jobs and the need for innovation and improvement, why wouldn’t a manager ask this question of his or her team members often? Here are two reasons to do it. First, you don’t want people bringing all of their problems or concerns to you. There isn’t enough time. You have to train them to problem-solve and become solution focused. Second, they will become more proactive while improving their performance. Most employees are astounded when their managers ask this question and reply, “What????” Sadly, less effective managers are fearful of the answers or don’t care. Famed basketball coach from UCLA John Wooden said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

8. “How do you think we can improve?”

This is the next logical question to ask a team. When you do, you begin to get their buy-in and commitment grows. They want to achieve their goals for their reasons too, not just yours. Each employee has untapped potential for great ideas. Why not ask? The best do this and their employee engagement and productivity soars.

9. “I made a mistake.”
Nobody’s perfect. Good bosses admit it when they screw up and even apologize. Obviously, they aren’t making so many mistakes that they are apologizing all of time. I put this in here because it is so out character by leaders to do this at all.

I was at a conference a few weeks ago where a manager talked to his team about a marketing campaign that failed. The manager owned the failure, and said he was sorry to his team because he really pushed for it. Because he had trust with his employees, they got through it. By learning from this situation and collaborating they created a better plan-that worked. When was the last time you heard a manager say, “I made a mistake”?

10. “My success comes from my team.”
I have heard managers say this to their teams, but something more self-glorifying to their boss or colleagues. That gets around, and their credibility is destroyed. The managers that highlight their teams’ efforts and give credit to them for any victories are golden leaders. A leader’s success is all about the team. In the movie “The Mighty Ducks”, Coach Bombay tells his team,

“A team isn’t a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn.” With low employee morale and engagement in many companies, this is a valuable lesson that most managers have yet to learn.

Napoleon Hill declared, “Think twice before you speak, because words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.”Hopefully these ten phrases give you a lift, and helps you build your team up, not down like so many other managers do. Let’s not forget another quote filled with wisdom, by Emerson:“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 10 March 2015

Why not being able to say "No", means you're actually saying "No" all the time.

By Dries Lombaard, Director:  Strategic Engagement, Strengths Institute

There are a few classic detrimental struggles which I find to be very common with individuals I coach.  Very few sessions go by without someone admitting to me that they are kept back in their careers or relationships by seemingly unsurmountable and habitual practices like distrusting people, failure to meet deadlines, being seen as either too aggressive or too meek and mild and the like.

But there is one habit which I am used to by now as being the "mother of all detriments" within peoples careers.  It is a slow poison, but eventually it destroys health, relationships, partnerships and healthy teamwork.  It  is the inability to say "No". 

People with this detrimental habit have a lot in common.  Usually they are very supportive by nature.  They also have huge capacity for work.  They are trustworthy, loyal, likable and hard working.  And all of this makes them suckers for the "resisting-of-no" trap.   When it comes to the talent themes of the Clifton StrengthsFinder, you can bet your life on the fact that someone with the talent of "Responsibility" in their Top 10 will admit to the inability or struggle to say "no".  Ad "Achiever" talent to the mix, and you get a "Super Theme" of capacity, which also means the need of "Responsibility" to take ownership combine with the need of "Achiever" to achieve....and you have a "Yes, sure...give it to me" explosion.  So their greatest talents, mismanaged, becomes their greatest detriment.

At the core of the inability to say "no" you will find the lack of healthy boundaries.  It is for this reason I always recommend the brilliant book by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, "Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No to Take Control of Your Life" to my clients.

Still, I get the best response from clients if I explain the actual truth of this detrimental habit to them. I always get puzzling stares when I respond to the "I cannot say "no" admission with "What you actually mean is that you say "No" all the time, and that is getting the most of you."   

"No" they reply, "the problem is exactly that I CANNOT say "No" !  

I will then persist:  "You are actually a master at saying "No".  You are so good with it that you do it even without knowing it."  

It is then that I let them off the hook, and explain what I mean:

Saying "Yes" to something, always and inevitably means saying "No" to something else. There is always a trade-off. 

• Saying "Yes" to take on an extra task at work and staying late, means you just said "No" to your child waiting for you at home.
• Saying "Yes" to quickly jump up and help someone fix something the need fixing at their desk, means you just said "No" to be available at your desk when someone calls you there.
• Saying "Yes" to read through someones presentation at home to make sure they have everything covered, means you just said "No" to relaxing with your spouse or partner as you always do in the evenings.
• Saying "Yes" to meet an unrealistic and sudden deadline because of someone else's bad planning, means you just said "No" to the sleep you desperately need.
• Saying "Yes" to your friend to help him with his building project at home over the weekend, means you just said "No" to your family who are desperate to spend time with you.
• Saying "Yes" consistently for working too hard and too long hours means you are saying "No" consistently to your health and wellness.

You say "No" every single day.  You just mask it with a "Yes" for some other priority, reason or cause. But you are a professional and brilliant "No-sayer".  

And you can flip the bullet points above around, and then say "Yes" to everything you usually say "No" to, by simply taking the control, and audibly say "No" when someone need you outside of your healthy and needed boundaries.

This realization usually stop people dead in their tracks.  They realize that it is not about an inability to say "No", but actually their fear of the possible response or rejection from others in the moment, that may result from it.  So, we would rather say "No" to those who we think will not reject us:  we say "No" to ourselves, our children, our spouses, our health and our own time.  But, eventually, we get rejected by all of those also.  And then it is too late.

Next time you feel the urge to say "Yes",  knowing that it should actually be a "No", remember that you are saying "No" anyway.  Count the cost. There is always a trade-off.

"No" is a complete sentence.

Most HR Data is Bad Data - {Guest Article}

By Marcus Buckingham; Founder of TMBC

How good a rater do you think you are? If you were my manager and you watched my performance for an entire year, how accurate do you think your ratings of me would be on attributes such as my “promotability” or “potential?”

How about more specific attributes such as my customer focus or my learning agility? Do you think that you’re one of those people who, with enough time spent observing me, could reliably rate these aspects of my performance on a 1-to-5 scale? And how about the people around you – your peers, direct reports, or your boss? Do you think that with enough training they could become reliable raters of you?

These are critically important questions, because in the grand majority of organizations we operate as though the answer to all of them is yes, with enough training and time, people can become reliable raters of other people. And on this answer we have constructed our entire edifice of HR systems and processes. When we ask your boss to rate you on “potential” and to put this rating into a nine-box performance-potential grid, we do it because we assume that your boss’s rating is a valid measure of your “potential”— something we can then compare to his (and other managers’) ratings of your peers’ “potential” and decide which of you should be promoted.

Likewise, when, as part of your performance appraisal, we ask your boss to rate you on the organization’s required competencies, we do it because of our belief that these ratings reliably reveal how well you are actually doing on these competencies. The competency gaps your boss identifies then become the basis for your Individual Development Plan for next year. The same applies to the widespread use of 360 degree surveys. We use these surveys because we believe that other people’s ratings of you will reveal something real about you, something that can be reliably identified, and then improved.

Unfortunately, we are mistaken. The research record reveals that neither you nor any of your peers are reliable raters of anyone. And as a result, virtually all of our people data is fatally flawed.

Over the last fifteen years a significant body of research has demonstrated that each of us is a disturbingly unreliable rater of other people’s performance. The effect that ruins our ability to rate others has a name: the Idiosyncratic Rater Effect, which tells us that my rating of you on a quality such as “potential” is driven not by who you are, but instead by my own idiosyncrasies—how I define “potential,” how much of it I think Ihave, how tough a rater I usually am. This effect is resilient — no amount of training seems able to lessen it. And it is large — on average, 61% of my rating of you is a reflection of me.

In other words, when I rate you, on anything, my rating reveals to the world far more about me than it does about you.  In the world of psychometrics this effect has been well documented. The first large study was published in 1998 in Personnel Psychology;there was a second study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2000; and a third confirmatory analysis appeared in 2010, again in Personnel Psychology. In each of the separate studies, the approach was the same: first ask peers, direct reports, and bosses to rate managers on a number of different performance competencies; and then examine the ratings (more than half a million of them across the three studies) to see what explained why the managers received the ratings they did. They found that more than half of the variation in a manager’s ratings could be explained by the unique rating patterns of the individual doing the rating— in the first study it was 71%, the second 58%, the third 55%.

No other factor in these studies — not the manager’s overall performance, not the source of the rating — explained more than 20% of the variance. Bottom line: when we look at a rating we think it reveals something about the ratee, but it doesn’t, not really. Instead it reveals a lot about the rater.

Despite the repeated documentation of the Idiosyncratic Rater Effect in academic journals, in the world of business we appear unaware of it. Certainly we have yet to grapple with what this effect does to our people practices. Look closely and you realize that it will cause us to dismantle and rebuild virtually all of them.

Fueled by our belief in people as reliable raters, we take their ratings — of performance, of potential, of competencies — and we use them to decide who gets trained on which skill, who gets promoted to which role, who gets paid which level of bonus, and even how our people strategy aligns to our business strategy. All of these decisions are based on the belief these ratings actually reflect the people being rated. After all, if we didn’t believe that, if we thought for one minute that these ratings might be invalid, then we would have to question everything we do to and for our people. How we train, deploy, promote, pay, and reward our people, all of it would be suspect.

And yet, is this really a surprise? You’re sitting in a year‐end meeting discussing a person and you look at their overall performance rating, and their ratings on various competencies, and you think to yourself “Really? Is this person really a ‘5’ on strategic thinking? Says who – and what did they mean by ‘strategic thinking’ anyway?” You look at the behavioral definitions of strategic thinking and you see that a “5” means that the person displayed strategic thinking “constantly” whereas a “4” is only “frequently” but still, you ask yourself, “How much weight should I really put on one manager’s ability to parse the difference between ‘constantly’ and ‘frequently’? Maybe this ‘5’ isn’t really a ‘5’. Maybe this rating isn’t real.”

And so perhaps you begin to suspect that your people data can’t be trusted. If so, these last fifteen years have proven you right. Your suspicions are well founded. And this finding must give us all pause. It means that all of the data we use to decide who should get promoted is bad data; that all of the performance appraisal data we use to determine people’s bonus pay is imprecise; and that the links we try to show between our people strategy and our business strategy — expressed in various competency models — are spurious. It means that, when it comes to our people within our organizations, we are all functionally blind. And it’s the most dangerous sort of blindness, because we are unaware of it. We think we can see.

There are solutions, I’m sure. But I think, before we can even consider those, we must first stop, take stock, and admit to ourselves that the systems we currently use to reveal our people only obscure them. This admission will challenge us. We will have to redesign almost our entire suite of talent management practices. Many of our comfortable rituals — the year-end performance review, the nine-box grid, the consensus meeting, our use of 360’s — will be forever changed. For those of us who want HR to be known as a purveyor of good data — data on which you can actually run a business — these changes cannot come soon enough.

- This article was published in the Harvard Business Review on 9 February 2015. 

Marcus Buckingham is the founder of TMBC, a company that builds strengths-based tools and training for managers. He is the author of several WSJ and NYT bestsellers, including his latest book and accompanying strengths assessment, StandOut: Find your Edge, Win at Work.