How can you find or create a work place that encourages you to use your strengths?
Finding or creating a work place that encourages you to use your strengths may not be that easy. However, there is considerable evidence that people are more motivated and more productive when they are using their strengths. It would follow that the more enlightened and/or knowledgeable employers will recognize this general principle and design their management practices so that their employees are encouraged to use their strengths during their work. It would also behoove you to review the research supporting this principle and share it with potential employers or co-workers, encouraging them to implement practices that help people use their strengths at their work settings.
It is also a good idea to articulate your strengths before you undertake the search for a work place that might encourage you to use your strengths on the job. If you can locate employers who might be open to you using your strengths while working in their work place, you need to be very articulate when describing your own strengths at the same time that you check out their openness to creating a work place where you can use those strengths.
By accessing (www.dependablestrengths.org), the website of the Center for Dependable Strengths, you can learn more about a 20-hour workshop that has been designed to help you articulate your Dependable Strengths™ and also look for work place settings where those strengths can be used. Participation in the 20-hour workshop will prepare you for finding or creating a work place that encourages you to use your strengths.
If you are not able to take the 20-hour workshop, you should at least familiarize yourself with the research of the Gallup Organization. The Gallup Organization has sponsored 40 years of study of human strengths. Clifton and Harter’s chapter titled “Investing in Strengths” in the 2003 book, Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline, edited by K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn, provides a good introduction to this extensive study of human strengths.