I originally wrote about StrengthsFinder on our Touchwood website as we were investigating how this online survey and personal development tool could be used to develop teams and groups — particularly in non-profits and social groups.
I’m posting about it here as well because knowing and honing your strengths is a sound survival strategy. We’re also looking at developing team building activities blending our outdoors courses with StrengthsFinder to make for some memorable and hopefully very useful events.
If you know what you’re naturally good at, and do that every day, you are 300% more likely to be successful in your work and have a better quality of life.
That’s according to research conducted by Gallup of over 10 million people over the past 30 years. Out of these findings, they’ve developed StrengthsFinder, an online survey to assess your top 5 “strengths” out of 34 different possibilities.
What we’re interested in is: can StrengthsFinder help community projects and social enterprises be more successful?
Having done the survey 3 times over the past 6 years, I can definitely say it’s helped me.
I first discovered the book when I worked for Sprint, a telecommunications corporation in Washington, D.C. Back in those days, I struggled to get up in time to go to work. I remember dreading the sound of the alarm clock, the shuffle to put a suit on.
Once I was at the office, my days seemed miles of meetings about nothing. I felt hamstrung by the slow pace of change, the lack of vision. Though initially I was promoted, eventually my performance started to suffer as I cared less and less about my job. I’m sure if I had stayed much longer, I would have been given the boot or quietly sidelined.
The biggest problem at my old job was that I rarely used my talents. I’m a big ideas person and a voracious learner, and there was a limited scope for either as a corporate website manager.
By all accounts, my experience wasn’t unusual. In a recent poll of 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with the statement “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day”, not one single person felt emotionally engaged on the job.
According to Gallup’s research, if you don’t use your strengths at work, you likely:
Have you ever been part of a volunteer project that seemed to sap your will to live? Meetings drag on, people bicker, action moves at a glacial pace. A good idea, something you’re excited about and eager to help work, slowly becomes a chore, something you dread.
This happens all too often, and I think part of it is because we as a group don’t know our own strengths — and we don’t know anyone else’s.
With Five Senses and Touchwood Project, I get to use my strengths every day. This won’t mean much if you haven’t read the book, but mine are:
Gallup’s research shows people who use their strengths regularly in their jobs are “six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, and three times as likely to report having a better quality of life in general.”
I have a personal belief in StrengthsFinder and what I think it can do for people. Now we’re interested in how to marry such an intellectual tool with the outdoor-based activities we’re already doing.
If you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder test, post your results here if you feel like sharing them. I’d be particularly interested to hear how you think knowing your strengths has helped you and how you think it could help social enterprises and community projects be more effective.
