Strengths and positive psychology

Citation

Brewerton, P. (2009), "Strengths and positive psychology", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2009.37208dab.002

Strengths and positive psychology

Article Type: Metrics From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 8, Issue 4

The latest ideas on how to approach measurement and evaluation of HR activities

Much has been made of positive psychology and the so called “strengths movement” in recent years, particularly in the USA but increasingly in the UK and Europe. It sounds interesting, but many HR practitioners have been left feeling that while the idea of a “strengths approach” may be exciting, there is little out there in the way of pragmatic advice as to how organizations can practically apply it. So then, is it really worth taking the idea seriously and if so, how can HR professionals make it work practically?

Harnessing the positives for individuals, teams and organizations

The modern positive psychology movement was sparked in the late 1990s, when a well-respected psychologist, Martin Seligman, addressed the American Psychological Association. He put forward the view that traditional approaches to psychology had missed out on a big chunk of human experience, by focusing exclusively on disease, disorder, dysfunction and deficit, thereby missing out on the “science of what goes right in life”. As a result, while psychology was able to deal relatively well with “illness” and with fixing people with psychological problems, it was less well equipped to help “normal” people to fully realize their potential.

This was true too at work, with the majority of HR interventions focused on employees’ development needs or weaknesses, while largely ignoring people’s natural strengths, motives and drivers. The positive psychology approach advocated the idea that people professionals should shift their emphasis to consider positives/strengths, as well as gaps/weaknesses, when considering the design of performance management, training and development and recruitment and selection approaches.

Most recently, the strengths approach has gained currency with the advent of a range of measurement tools purporting to assess employees’ strengths in order to make them more effective, productive and engaged at work. Among these include the Values in Action (VIA) tool developed by Martin Seligman and his colleagues, Gallup’s Strengthsfinder and, most recently, Strengthscope from the Strengths Partnership. But how can these ideas and tools be combined to make a real difference to employees’ work performance? We have found that by helping individuals and teams to gain clarity on their strengths (that is, what energizes them at work) and then supporting them in tapping into this energy by exploring where they could use their strengths to a greater extent as regards their current work task or role, and establishing how they could develop those strengths further, the untapped energy derived from strengths can be harnessed and guided in a direction that benefits the individual, team and organization.

Major bank team re-organizes according to its strengths

A good example can be found with work carried out by a major UK bank during 2008 to create a more appreciative, creative climate in one if its divisions responsible for strategic analysis and direction. The divisional head felt that the area lacked spark and required fresh thinking in order to better undertake its analytical tasks. In addition, it was felt that greater appreciation was needed in meetings to avoid team members becoming too critical of others’ thinking before new ideas had got off the ground.

The bank retained Dr Paul Brewerton of Strengths Partnership to run a program of workshops that introduced positive psychology concepts to each team in a bid to stimulate greater creativity in the division’s analytical approach. This began with a team leader session to introduce the twin concepts of strengths and “flow” (the latter relating to experiences of complete immersion and engagement in tasks at work), followed by one-to-ones with each team leader at which feedback was provided on their strengths using the Strengthscope assessment tool. This tool provided information on 22 work-relevant strengths such as collaboration, results-focus, creativity, strategic-mindedness, leading and so on.

Following this, team sessions were run at which team members were also introduced to the concepts of strengths and flow. Teams were provided with feedback on their Strengthscope profiles and were given the opportunity to showcase their “standout strengths” to other members of the team, so that teams could consider whether current task allocation was allowing each team member to fully play to their strengths. A team strengths profile was produced to help capture what energized each team and where strengths may be lacking in order to achieve business-critical tasks. Action planning followed, focused on re-allocation of tasks and re-crafting of roles where necessary to allow employees to play to their strengths to a greater degree than was previously thought possible. The discussion of strengths within the group also led to a developing climate of appreciation and understanding, where team members could see, for the first time, how individual team members’ strengths could be used to deliver team tasks most effectively.

The outcome from the project was very positive, with employees from the division reporting a greater understanding of each other’s motivations, more effective deployment of tasks, heightened morale and, ultimately, a more diverse approach to undertaking business-critical analytical tasks.

Paul BrewertonBased at The Strengths Partnership, Hurstpierpoint, UK.

About the author

Paul Brewerton, a chartered occupational psychologist and organizational culture specialist, is widely acknowledged as a leading practitioner in the area of organizational culture and culture change. He has helped many world-class organizations to map out and develop sustainable high performance cultures designed to achieve their strategic goals. Paul Brewerton can be contacted at: p.brewerton@blueedge.eu.com