How are your strengths your assets for tomorrow?

What are your 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses?

Have you ever heard or been asked this question during a job interview? What purpose does it serve? Why are we often asked it? Is it to get to know you better or just to change the atmosphere of the interview?

Quite often, people answer, "I'm meticulous, organized, a perfectionist," or something similar. We say anything, hoping to make a good impression, as if there were only five or six qualities that existed. And of course, we never reveal our real weaknesses. In the end, this question, so crucial for hiring and day-to-day work, becomes a trivial matter we no longer pay attention to. We make poor choices, placing people in positions that aren't a good fit. Due to a lack of time and follow-up, we approve the probationary period, and sometimes we even pay the price later.

But did you know that a person who uses their strengths daily is 6 times more likely to be engaged and fulfilled in their work? Teams that focus on their strengths are 12.5% more productive (Gallup Strengths CenterA meta-analysis of over 300,000 employees in 51 companies demonstrated that employees who used their main strengths daily were 38% more productive, while those who remained focused on their weaknesses saw a 27% performance decrease (Corporate Leadership Council, 2011). Furthermore, 44% of individuals who were able to leverage their strengths daily were more loyal to their companies (resulting in lower turnover) (Harter et al., 2002).

Testimony from a friend

My close friend, a brilliant computer engineer, passionate about his work, always in a good mood and fulfilled in his life and work, received an offer a few months ago to create and lead a start-up with a turnkey concept without any risk.

An offer that cannot be refused.

He hesitated for a long time because he wasn't sure he'd like it, but finally he accepted the offer. Two months later, I hardly recognized him. Before me was a deeply unhappy, depressed person, riddled with doubts. Not because business was bad, but because every day he was doing things that weren't his strengths. He met with clients, did marketing and communications. He wasn't doing too badly, but it was exhausting him, and what's more, he was no longer doing what he was really good at and what made him happy: coding!

It was simply a casting mistake. But the truth is, he didn't consider his strengths when making the right choice. Since he was already good at what he did, the person who offered him the position was sure he would do well managing a startup. This story ended very quickly; my friend decided to leave the startup to do what he truly loves and focus on his strengths. But often we don't really have that choice, or the consequences are too great, and we've already invested a lot of time, money, and health.

So how can we avoid this type of situation?

It's quite simple, really. Choose people based on their strengths, not just their skills and/or past experiences. Our strengths are the abilities that allow us to do our best and are naturally present. We lose energy or satisfaction when we can't use them.

Their opposites would be "flaws," or "weaknesses," which can create problems and must be taken into account so as not to hinder our life's successes. And if it's so easy, why don't we just do it? Generally speaking, people don't really know their strengths and don't know how to use them effectively because they've never really thought about it.

We are very focused on what's wrong and try at all costs to improve our weaknesses. By exhausting ourselves, we manage to do things well, but this makes us unhappy. In positive psychology, working on strengths has always played a central role. Working on strengths helps improve overall performance by strengthening commitment, which is based on a balance between well-being, individual resources and collective dynamics.

5 actions to follow to build strengths-based organizations

In business, I often recommend these five actions to build organizations based on strengths and not just skills:

Focus on strengths instead of trying to improve weaknesses,
Matching a job task with the appropriate skills to make people engaged,
Selecting and recruiting new talent based on strengths,
To use excessive force to motivate behavioral change,
Developing a shared language around strengths to improve teamwork (Happiness and performance at work)

Would you like to learn more about the forces?

Discover our games and in-house training programs related to these topics: https://positran.fr/collections/forces

Discover this article on the Paradigm of Forces: What is missing from the skills-based organization paradigm?

Offer group training in your company:
Group strengths assessment
Forces as levers of engagement
Leader by strength
Activating one's strengths in the face of stress
Optimize your team through job crafting

To go plus far:

Connelly, J. (2002). All together now. Gallup Management Journal, 2(1), 13-18.

Council, C. L. (2002). Building the high performance workforce. A Quantitative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Performance Management Strategies. Washington, DC.

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., Asplund, J. W., Killham, E. A., & Agrawal, S. (2010). Causal impact of employee work perceptions on the bottom line of organizations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(4), 378-389.

An article by Pr Ilona Boniwell