Invest in Your Strengths

Happy Day Everyone,

In our class, Business by the Book, we are reviewing a new book named "Now Discover Your Strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D

Our first discussion focused on one of the key premises of the book which invites us to make a fundamental change in our thinking. The authors ask us to focus on and invest in our strengths instead of your weakness. This goes against the traditional viewpoint where we typically identify our weaknesses and make huge investments in correcting those weaknesses. Believe it or not this begins in childhood. A child shows the parents their report card. There are 4 A's and 1 C. What happens? As parents or guardians, we might acknowledge the 4 A's but we spend most of our attention and planning on eliminating the C.

Everyone in our class agreed that this was a true point. We have experienced it. We see this same viewpoint transferred to the workplace. When a person is hired, weaknesses are quickly identified and a training plan is put in place to correct the weakness

The authors asks that managers take another approach especially after reviewing the following evidence which shows some positive results of focusing on an employee's strengths.

“The Gallup Organization asked this question to 198,000 employees working in 7,939 business units within 36 companies – At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day. When the employees answered “strongly agree” to the question, they were 50% more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38% more likely to work in more productive business units and 44% more likely to work in business units with higher customer satisfaction scores.”

That is great news

Unfortunately, globally only 20% of employees working in large corporation that Gallup surveyed felt that their strengths are in play every day. All hope is not lost because this is a great opportunity for companies to participate in this change of investing in our strengths.

The selection process which will cause the wrong person to be placed in the wrong position or with the wrong responsibility is not something new to mankind. We see an example of it in the bible where workers are not working according to their strength. Let's look at 2 Kings 12 4-6. Joash was king of Judah and wanted to repair the temple so he gives the following instruction.

4 Joash said to the priests, "Collect all the money that is brought as sacred offerings to the temple of the LORD--the money collected in the census, the money received from personal vows and the money brought voluntarily to the temple. 5 Let every priest receive the money from one of the treasurers, and let it be used to repair whatever damage is found in the temple." 6 But by the twenty-third year of King Joash the priests still had not repaired the temple.

Joash had a strategic plan, he had the funding for the project and the priests were willing to prepare the temple but by the 23rd year of King Joash, the priests had not repaired the temple.

The priests were not operating in their strength. Joash had to revise his strategy and bring in the people who had the talent, skill and knowledge to repair the temple. Let's take a look at 2 Kings 12:11-14 to see what happened as they changed their plan.

11 When the amount had been determined, they gave the money to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. With it they paid those who worked on the temple of the LORD--the carpenters and builders, 12 the masons and stone-cutters. They purchased timber and dressed stone for the repair of the temple of the LORD, and met all the other expenses of restoring the temple.

The work was given to the right people who had been given the talent to get the job done. The carpenters, builders, the masons and stone-cutters were the ones who have the talent, skills and knowledge to get the work done.

We encouraged our class members to identify their strengths, their gifts and invest in those talents through continuous improvement in knowledge and skills. This combination constitutes a strength.

Please feel free to come and visit our class, Business by the Book on Sunday mornings at 11:00 a.m. at Second Baptist Church at 6400 Woodway. We meet in Room 115 in Woodway Village. We hope to see you soon.

God bless you,
Theresa