Page 86 - How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win

WHATAMIKNOWNFOR? (IDENTITY)

matches or protracted threats or shaming, all of which build
resentment, not change.
Identity-clarifying conversations will focus less on judg-
ment and more on description. As a leader, you might ask
your employees to share their perceptions of their strengths,
describe times when they demonstrated their strengths,
and explore how their strengths might be used to help oth-
ers (including coworkers and customers). You can describe
what you see and value in their behavior, the effect it has on
others for the good, and additional options for building on
strengths.
Other strength-identifying conversations might occur
in a team setting. More and more work is performed by
teams that bring differing skills to common problems. (See
Chapter 5.) A valuable team exercise is to ask team mem-
bers to describe examples of the strengths of each individual
on the team. This affirming report generally results in team
members bonding more tightly with each other.

Assignments

We learn by doing. When we perform familiar tasks, we dem-
onstrate our skills and take pleasure in our expertise. When
we act outside of our comfort zone, we may learn hidden
strengths we did not know we had. At other times we may
learn that what we had hoped would be our strengths are
actually not (e.g., Dave’s short-lived basketball career). When
we ask people how they learned what they care about and are
good at, they realize that this insight has often emerged from
tackling assignments both in and out of their comfort zone.
All talent management begins with hiring people who
have the right strengths for the job, and these “right strengths”
are customer defined. An executive once elaborated to Dave

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