How to Use Your Character Strengths in New Ways – Part 2.

In your annual appraisal / personal development meeting, does your boss focus on how to use your strengths more effectively, or how to improve your weaknesses (or ‘development areas’ if you’re being PC)?

According to Positive Psychologists Chris Peterson and Martin Seligman, using your strengths every day is one of the most effective ways to increase your level of satisfaction. And according to Marcus Buckingham and the late Donald Clifton , authors of ‘Now Discover Your Strengths‘ it’s a tried and tested way to increase staff engagement, moral and motivation, as well as improve productivity and profitability. Seems to good to be true doesn’t it?

Well, hopefully you have found 30 minutes or so to fill in the VIA-IS online character strengths survey. This is a free strengths survey, from which you get immediate results in the form of a report listing the 24 character strengths in order. As we mentioned in previous posts, you can do the CliftonStrengthsFinder* survey online too, but it’s not free. We’ll discuss applications of the Clifton StrengthsFinder in other posts.

Having identified their strengths, many people think ‘What do I do with them now?’. in Wednesday’s post we looked at ways of applying Fairness, Kindness, Open-Mindedness, Curiosity, Love of Learning and Creativity day-to-day. In today’s post we look 5 new strengths:

INTEGRITY:
i) Refrain from telling white lies to friends, including insincere compliments
ii) At the end of the day, identify something you did that was attempting to impress people, or put on a show. Resolve not to do it again
iii) Monitor yourself and make a list of every time you tell a lie. Try to make your list shorter everyday
iv) Think about your most important values and do something every day which is consistent with them
v) When explaining your motives to someone, do so in a genuine and honest way

LOVE:
i) Tell a boyfriend/girlfriend/sibling/parent that you love them
ii) Send a loved one a card/e-card to say you were thinking about them
iii) Give loved ones a big hug and a kiss
iv) Write a nice post-it to a colleague and leave it on their desk
v) Accept a compliment, just say “thank you”
vi) Do something with your kids that they really enjoy doing

HUMOUR:
i) Make someone laugh or smile every day
ii) Learn a joke and tell it to all your friends
iii) Watch a funny film
iv) Visit a Comedy Club
v) Learn a magic trick and perform it for all your friends
vi) Make fun of yourself, if only by saying, “there I go again”

APPRECIATION OF BEAUTY:
i) Keep a journal and record something you saw during the day that was beautiful
ii) Go outside and take time to notice something of beauty
iii) Go to a museum or art gallery and find something that inspires you or touches you because of its beauty
iv) Attend a concert and savour the sound

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE:
i) Meet one new person every day at work – chat to the person next to you in the restaurant queue or at the coffee machine for example
ii) Encounter someone by themselves and by being friendly, include them in your group
iii) When someone at work annoys you, try to understand their motives and concerns
iv) Go into a new social situation and try to fit in – if you’re the boss, for example, join a group of your staff for lunch and focus on making them feel at ease.
v) Notice when a colleague does something that is difficult for them, and compliment them

These are just some examples of activities, you can of course adapt them to suit your circumstances. Try picking one and stick with it for a couple of weeks. If you find it isn’t working after a day or so, just try something else.

We’d love to hear your experience of using some of these activities in practice, so please send us your comments. We’ll cover the remaining Character Strengths in future posts.

NB Despite the name, the Clifton StrengthsFinder doesn’t actually tell you your strengths. It tells you your Top 5 categories of talent, which you can then develop into strengths by applying skill and knowledge.

Thanks to Professor Jonathan Haidt , author of The Happiness Hypothesis, and the students in his psychology class at the University of Virginia for many of the suggested activities.

How to Use Your Character Strengths in New Ways – Part 1

Have you completed the VIA-IS online character strengths survey yet? We find it an excellent starting point for coaching conversations since many people are completely unaware of their strengths, so it can be an instant confidence boost, as well as providing insight into where to make changes to increase overall life/job satisfaction.

Having identified their strengths, many people think ‘What now?’ so in this post we look at new ways of applying strengths day-to-day. We start with the most common top strengths shown in the UK (Linley et al 2007):

Women: 1.Fairness 2.Kindness 3.Open-mindedness 4.Curiosity and 5. Love of Learning
Men: 1.Open-mindedness 2.Fairness 3.Curiosity & joint 4th Love of Learning and Creativity

FAIRNESS:
i) Act as a mediator – stay impartial in a disagreement between friends/colleagues despite your beliefs
ii) Allow someone to say their piece without interupting them
iii) Notice when you treat someone based on a stereotype or pre-conception: resolve not to do it again.
iv) At least once a day, admit a mistake and take responsibility for it
v) At least once a day, give due credit to a colleague you don’t particularly like

OPEN-MINDEDNESS:
i) Every day, pick something you believe strongly, and think about how you might be wrong
ii) Play devil’s advocate – discuss a work-related issue or business problem from the side opposite to your personal views
iii) Go to lunch with a colleague who is different to you in some way
iv) Go to a multi-cultural event or to a different church/religious event

KINDNESS / GENEROSITY:
i) Do a random act of kindness every day. Make it anonymous if possible.
ii) Send an e-card to a different friend each day
iii) Pick up the whole bill when you are out with friends
iv) Ring a friend/family member/colleague specifically to find out how they are. Ask them how their day was and actually listen to the answer before telling them about your own day.
v) When driving, give way to pedestrians; when walking, give way to cars

CURIOSITY / INTEREST IN THE WORLD:
i) At lunch, eat something new that you never otherwise would have tried
ii) Ask questions in a meeting (if you don’t usually), or find a work-related online forum (such as the CIPDs) and ask questions there
iii) Travel to work by a different route
iv) Go to your local library and pick and interesting-looking book – spend 20 minutes skimming it
v) Read an interesting article in your professional/trade magazine
vi) Go to a meeting or lecture on a topic you know nothing about

LOVE OF LEARNING:
i) Read a different newspaper to the one you would usually read
ii) Find a mentor in a different department at work and set up a regular meeting
iii) Think of an area of the business where you know very little and find a colleague who is prepared to help you learn about it
iv) Take up a new hobby
v) Watch your children playing and reflect on how one learns through play
vi) Find a colleague at work who has a skill you want to learn and model them

CREATIVITY:
i) Keep a journal or work on a picture or a poem
ii) Find a new word everyday and use it creatively every day
iii) Pick one object in your office and think of new uses for it
iv) Wear a new combination of clothes/ shirt & tie to the ones you usually pick
v) Enrol in a pottery or painting class

These are just some examples of activities you can try, you don’t have to do them all! In fact, it’s recommended that you pick one activity and stick with it for a couple of weeks. And if you find after a couple of days that it’s not working for you, switch to something else.

We’ll cover the remaining 18 VIA strengths in subsequent posts. In the meantime, we’re always looking for new ways to apply strengths in practice, so please send us your comments.

Thanks to Professor Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, and the students in his psychology class at the University of Virginia for many of the suggested activities.

I’ve just returned from the Open University Psychological Society’s three day Psychology of Wellbeing Conference at Nottingham University. Amongst others, the speakers included Dr Richard Stevens (of BBc2s ‘Making Slough Happy’ fame), Oliver James (a man who enjoys courting controversy in e.g. Britain on the Couch , They F*** You Up , Affluenza ), and Dr Alex Linley, Director of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology in Warwick and currently researching the application of psychological strengths.

This morning, Bernard Gesch, Senior Research Scientist at Oxford University and Director of the research charity Natural Justice , presented ‘Reuniting mind and body: Diet, health and behavioural wellbeing’. The argument is straightforward  – what we eat has a scientifically proven impact on brain functioning and thus on behaviour. Clinical trials have been carried out in which the behaviour of UK maximum security prisoners has been shown to be vastly improved by remarkably simple changes in their nutrition .

Gesch is currently working on further prison studies, however, it is clear that the current government is slow to support this research, and unlike the Dutch government, hasn’t yet introduced changes to prison diets despite the compelling evidence that to do so reduces the amount of violence in prisons, as well as reducing re-offending rates if the nutritional changes are continued. As Gesch points out, dietary changes are a small price to pay for such a large benefit in society. Perhaps the diet at Whitehall needs to include more zinc, iron and Omega-3 in order for them to see sense.

In my next few posts I’ll be introducing highlights from some of the other conference presentations, including Oliver James’  argument that Positive Psychologists would be better off working out how to reduce the soaring depression rate in the UK and the USA, rather than waste time focusing on how to improve wellbeing. Perhaps he has a point.

And whether or not you were at the conference, do share your thoughts on these and other Positive Psychology topics with us.

Our last post looked at how to identify your character strengths using the VIA-IS on-line tool.

There is another on-line inventory called the Gallup Strengths Finder tool.

In order to access it, you need to buy Tom Rath’s book first; with the book you get a password which enables you to access the tool on-line. As with the VIA-IS questionnaire, you get a report of your Top 5 Strengths. There is guidance in the book as to how to interpret the results and apply them.

And as we mentioned before, please use the results as a starting point for a discussion about your signature strengths, and how you might apply them day-to-day. You can also use them as the basis for creating an alternative Personal Development Plan, one which builds on the aptitudes you already have and which you enjoy using.

As always, we’d love to hear how you get on.

Since our last blog on Strengths-based Management, several people have asked how to identify what their strengths are; there are a couple of easy-to-use questionnaires, the first is the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA – IS) .

Before you start, just a word of caution. As with all assessments of this kind, we would urge you to use the results as the starting point for a discussion about further personal development work, either for yourself or your team, rather than as an end in themselves. This is how we use them in coaching, to begin the process of Personal Development Planning.

The VIA-IS tool lists your strengths in rank order. You can access the it for free here . It is a very comprehensive assessment designed for adults, based on 24 character strengths . The full version contains 240 questions and takes about 30 minutes to complete.

You get a report of your Top 5 strengths immediately, which you can print out and/or save. If you want more information about character strengths, see Martin Seligman’s book, Authentic Happiness.

In order to improve work and life satisfaction and well-being, use your Top 5 strengths every day, both inside and outside work.

There is a shorter version (Brief Strengths Test – only 24 questions) as well which you can access here. If you work with children, there is also a young persons version (for age 10-17).