At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

The Gallup Organisation posed this question to 198 000 people and found that only twenty percent of employees working in large organizations feel that their strengths are in play every day. This is unfortunate, as research shows that companies that focus on harnessing the strengths of their employees outperform their competitors in terms of productivity, customer loyalty and employee retention. Further research by Shane J. Lopez, author of Making Hope Happen, shows that people who love their jobs make sure that they are doing what they do best by creating opportunities to put their talents and strengths to work.

Despite the immense benefits of harnessing employee strengths, most organizations spend an inordinate amount of time and money on training programmes designed to address employee weaknesses and “plug the gaps in employee skills and competencies.” According to Marcus Buckingham, author of Now, Discover your Strengths, this is due to the fact that most organizations are built around the assumption that each person can learn to be competent in almost anything and that each person’s greatest room for growth lies is in his or her areas of greatest weakness. Well, brain research now shows that this is simply not true and as long as we continue to operate under these assumptions, organizations will never capitalize on the strengths of their employees. Buckingham suggests that we replace these old assumptions with a set of new ones:

1. That each person’s talents are enduring and unique and
2. That each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength

The problem lies in the fact that most people don’t know what their unique and enduring talents are, and those that do, are unable to turn these talents into productive strengths at work.

Dr Carly Steyn has developed an exciting workshop based on the pioneering work of Marcus Buckingham, Tom Rath and Donald Clifton during which participants get to discover their unique and enduring talents and then work to develop strategies to turn these talents into strengths at work.

Through participation in the workshop, participants will:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of strength based approaches to personal and professional development
• Be exposed to the latest findings from neuroscience which shows why each person’s talents are enduring and unique and why each person’s greatest room for growth lies in the areas of his or her greatest strengths
• Take the Strengthsfinder™ Profile test to discover their top five unique and enduring talents
• Develop powerful strategies to turn their top five unique and enduring talents into genuine strengths at work
• Learn to apply their strengths at work in such a way that it adds value to their role in the organization
• Learn to manage their weaknesses