We just keep on returning strengths, because so much of what is good that we see in organisational life can be tracked back to people using their talents and strengths rather than slavishly developing or eradicating their so called 'weaknesses'.
Dr John Hunt is quoted in Buckingham and Clifton thus:
Concentrating on people's strengths...this and only this, will be the major differentiator for organisations in the future."
And Peter Drucker had it this way:
"Most people do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer."
Our executive coaching is based firmly on talents and strengths for the individual and team. It can take quite some time for clients, and their managers, to really let go of deficit models and tune in to their strengths. One client of ours worked assiduously on understanding their talents and turning them into true strengths via practical activities that improved their performance and that of their team. Yet, even after a year of work, the deficit model is so strong in that organisation that our client still feels driven to find and excise his weaknesses because that's what his manager demands of him, to prove he his getting value from coaching.
Our response? Understand the pressure he is under and acknowledge the paradigm the organisation works to, and help him to keep finding those real-world activities that let his talents shine and become long-term, sustainable strengths for him and the organisation. Not because it makes him happy, although it more often does, or because we deny his manager's view, which we appreciate the genesis of, but because those talent and strength-based activities deliver more effective performance, more often and to a higher standard than 'weakness fixing' ever does.
