Employee Engagement Monday Morning Percolator #34
This is part 4 of a 5 part series on leadership strength development through the application of StrengthsFinder 2.0.
Click here to read the first article in the series.
Here is the schedule outlining my strength focus:
- Maximizer (Week 1)
- Strategic (Week 2)
- Positivity (Week 3)
- Ideation (Week 4)
- Empathy (Week 5)
Here is a quick review of the process of working on our strengths:
- Complete the StrengthsFinder 2.0 inventory.
- Scan your top 5 strengths
- Study your first strength
- Outline strength based actions for the first week.
- Implement your action plan
- Review your progress
- Repeat the the process with the next strength on your list.
- Click here to download a one page PDF form to assist in your strength work.
Review Week 3: Last Week’s Strength (Positivity)
It was very beneficial to monitor my positivity-strength during the week. I would start the morning feeling upbeat and optimistic and watch some of this fade as challenges mounted and the day progressed. It was helpful to capture how happiness can slowly dissipate away during the day and to renew my commitment to get the most from my strength of positivity.
In the future, I will plan a short “positivity” break to begin the afternoon. Over at Slacker Manager, a blog I co-write with Phil Gerbyshak, I am compiling a list of inspiring videos and I will make it a practice to watch one of these videos to start my afternoon.
Outline Week 4: This Week’s Strength (Ideation)
People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
Positivity Action Plan
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I love working with ideas and combined with my Maximizer strength I can bring out the best in others. I need to ensure I have partners who can help me bring the ideas to life.
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Because I can generate many ideas I also need the freedom to let the poor or weak ones go.
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I am working on a leadership network and this will be the idea week to outline the benefits, features, and key ideas of the project. I will also be catching 7 flights this week and I will use all the waiting time to add weight to the ideas I generate for this project..
Next Week: Review of Ideation and Strength#5 – Empathy.
Photo Credit: Idea by http://flickr.com/photos/mazakar/1720761226/
Written by David Zinger, M. Ed.
David,
I suspect this quality is what makes for interesting bloggers too. I enjoy the challenge of finding connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. Go figure, my original degree was in Advertising. I wanted to be a copywriter and eventually a creative director.
I have another blogger friend who performs improvisational comedy; something I thought I might pursue when my children are older. This is yet another venue for finding connections while standing in front of the audience. What a way to turn up the heat!
I suppose it’s like a drug. Once you become good at making connections, you get less of a kick from doing it the “easy way” so you have to add some risk to the process, potential humiliation and time sensitivity, in order to get the same kick. Right now I get that need met from conducting training.
Oh, there I go again, making connections! Honestly, that wasn’t planned!
Regards,
Michelle
Michelle,
I appreciate you comments. I have just finished an impovisation course. I loved the basic principle: you are in this to make others look good. You have to feed off of other’s ideas and generate ideas yourself that others can feed from.
Thanks for the ideas and connections.
David