What are Strengths?

• There's more to the idea of 'strengths' than appears on the surface
• The value of different strengths is highly dependent on context and circumstance
• A definite strength in one situation becomes a weakness in others

What actually is a strength? That's a question that seems simple on the surface, but turns out to be more complex as we delve deeper. In career terms, for instance, most people would probably agree that qualities like decisiveness, assertiveness and motivation are distinct and definite strengths.

That begins to look a little less certain if we take time to unpack the meanings of words like these. Take 'decisive', for instance: a person is decisive if they can reach a definite conclusion and stay with it. That in turn implies that they can take difficult decisions based on limited information (since it's hardly 'decisive' to pick an obvious option).

Is that quality a strength? The answer, of course, depends on circumstances. For a manager or salesperson in a high pressure situation, there's no real doubt this kind of decisiveness is certainly a strength. For someone like, say, an administrator or project manager it might be useful at times, while in other roles it might simply be irrelevant. In some situations, though, decisiveness like this isn't a strength at all - in fact it's a liability. Would you climb aboard a plane designed by someone with this quality, for instance? Hardly! A designer's role like that needs someone who will avoid quick decisions, and instead research and examine every possible outcome until they're absolutely sure they can commit themselves.

So, in working out whether something is a strength or not, context is everything. An exceptional strength in one job can often be a hopeless weakness in another.

Personality Strengths

• Some strengths are innate to an individual personality
• Each strength in one dimension has an opposite weakness
• The relative values of these strengths depends on role and working environment

In particular, when we're looking at aspects of the personality, this is usually the case. That's because most personality traits lie somewhere on a continuum. Where one person is decisive, another is a careful planner, for instance, or where one is assertive another is patient and accepting. This diagram gives some idea of the range of different strengths: for every point on the circle, there's an opposite set of strengths on the opposite side.

Strengths that emerge from a person's personality are innate, and what this means in practice is that everybody - almost without exception - has their own set of distinct strengths.

These are only potential strengths, though: as we saw above, this potential is only translated into real strengths in the right context or role. So, to make the most of an individual personality, it's critical that we match that personality to the right role. That's important not just from the point of view of bringing out personal strengths, but also for building motivation.

Motivation

• Motivation derives from personal commitment to a role
• Commitment, in turn, relates to how well the role matches personal strengths
• New strengths can be trained to suit the needs of a role, but at the expense of existing abilities

Motivation is a measure of a person's commitment to their role, and that in turn tends to relate to their personal strengths. For example, a person who is fascinated by technical detail will find that a technically complex role not only meshes with their strengths, but also provides a stimulating and motivating experience. On the other hand, a more direct, urgent type of person will find a role like this frustrating and unfulfilling, with a consequent impact on their motivation and performance.

Naturally, it's possible for a person to adapt to the needs of their role, at least within limits. That's a common response, in fact, but its far from an ideal solution. In a case like that, the person and their role are mismatched: the individual is underusing their strengths and unmotivated, and the job isn't seeing anywhere near optimum performance.

Is it possible to train a person to refocus their energies? Yes, to some extent it is, but remember that strengths form a balance with other aspects of the personality. If we manage to develop a new approach to a job, that might suit a particular role, but we'll also lose something of the original particular strengths of the individual.

To put that in more concrete terms, consider a patient, thoughtful type of person: a person who's strengths revolve around taking time to assess ideas and consider consequences carefully. That's a valuable perspective in many roles, but often commercial pressures will demand a more responsive style. It's perfectly possible to use time management techniques, for instance, to gradually train that person to take a more active and direct approach, and in fact we often see a 'shift' like that in practice. On the other hand, by definition, some of that person's originally patient, accepting style will be lost.

Career Matching

• Making the most of personal strengths involves finding an optimum role for an individual
• Career Matching is the process of finding an role that makes the most of a person's innate strengths
• The DISC assessment system is an ideal vehicle for creating a career match

So, its possible to adapt people into different roles, at least to some extent. However, it's obviously more effective - and more personally rewarding - to find the optimum role for an individual's personal strengths.

This might seem obvious - actually, it is obvious - but the practicalities of recruitment and HR management mean that it's often difficult to achieve in reality. So, the more we can do to help find the optimum career path for an individual, the better. There are two important steps in this process:

• First, we need a consistent way to identify and describe a particular set of strengths. In terms of personality or behaviour we can achieve that with a standard profiling tool such as DISC.
• Second, we need to assess those strengths to find the optimum type of role for them. To do that, we need a library of strengths for different jobs and roles, and some means of cross-matching them against a person's individual style.

That second step is known as a Job Match. It works by comparing a person's own strengths (that's the graph on the left in the diagram) against a series of predefined ideals. The closer the match between these styles, the better suited a person's strengths will be to the role in question. In this way, we can quickly and easily narrow down the optimum career type for an individual.

If you want to try this for yourself, you'll first need a DISC profile to match against. You can create one online directly from this site: just visit our Profile Quick Start service. Once you have that in place, you can use the Job Match feature to see how career matching can find the best possible role for your own strengths.

• Create your own DISC profile now
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