What gives you joy and pride in your work?

THERE’S another way of looking at yourself and determining the types of opportunities that you and your employees are most likely to take joy and pride in at work. Dave and Wendy Ulrich said that Marcus Buckingham and colleagues in his firm and the Gallup organization have also identified work-related skills and characteristics. The Ulrichs added that they find such skills difficult to train for but easier to hire for. Either you have them or don’t have them as a result of their personal value system; they are not easy to acquire. They have identified 34 strengths a leader should consider when hiring an individual for a job—strengths that have little to do with specific work experience or job skill but a lot to do with the qualities it would take to work well in a specific culture or with a certain kind of customer.
Buckingham’s Strengthfinder Attributes

• Achiever: Driving relentlessly to get things done and to accomplish

• Activator: Getting started quickly to take action on decisions

• Adaptability: Flexing and responding to the demands of the moment

• Analytical: Looking for patters, questioning, objective, data-driven

• Arranger: Jumping in to manage all the variables and find the best layout

• Belief: Maintaining strong core values around family, spirituality, altruism’

• Command: Taking charge and getting others on board despite risks, differences

• Communication: Bringing ideas to life through writing, speaking, focusing

• Competition: Measuring performance by comparing and winning

• Connectedness: Seeing how everything and everyone is connected, interdependent

• Context: Looking to the past, the context, for answers about today

• Deliberative: Being cautious, vigilant, aware of risks, and serious about handling risks

• Developer: Seeing potential in others and enjoy helping them grow

• Discipline: Liking routines and structures to maintain productivity

• Empathy: Tuning in to others’ feelings and viewpoints

• Fairness: Treating everyone equally and by consistent rules

• Focus: Being goal-driven and tangent-avoidant

• Futuristic: Imagining the future with hope and vision

• Harmony: Looking for agreement and avoiding conflict

• Ideation: Getting energized by ideas, connections, insights

• Inclusiveness: Bringing others in and valuing commonality over differences

• Individualization: Valuing what is unique and special about each person

• Input: Acquiring and filing away ideas, things, relationships, images

• Intellection: Liking to think, introspect, reflect in private

• Learner: Loving the process of learning and always being engaged in it

• Maximizer: Driving toward excellence and making something the best it can be

• Positivity: Praising generously, seeing what is right, optimism

• Relater: Delighting in close friends and deepening relationships

• Responsibility: Conscientiously focusing on doing what you promise

• Restorative: Liking to solve problems, facilitate healing, fix things

• Self-assurance: Having deep confidence in your strengths, abilities, and judgment

• Significance: Desiring recognition, admiration as a credible professional

• Strategic: Seeing the consequence s and contingencies to chart a course

• WOO: “Winning others over” through getting others to like you
To find out your own strengths, take the test from “Now, Discover Your Strengths” to obtain a code for the online test.

ASTD 2011. To be held May 22-25 in Orlando, Florida, this premier event for workplace learning and performance professionals welcomes attendees from more than 70 countries. The conference features 200+ educational sessions from industry leading experts, and a world-class EXPO filled with the latest products and services available from top suppliers. Marcus Buckingham will be a keynote speaker. For details, go to http://www.astd.org/content/conferences/international/.  -Moje Ramos-Aquino, Fpm

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