I had the fantastic opportunity to be part of the Entrepeneurs Conference this week. The speakers were many and varied.

The Gallup Organization – ran a session on strengths. The basic premise being “do you like what you do every day?”. Apparently only 20% of employees can answer yes to this.

We did a simple online test (that was developed after establishing 34 key strength themes from 2 million interviews – I love a small sample size)

The results were astounding…for me I could not believe how accurate my top 5 strengths were. It is an exact mirror of myself. As we reviewed each of the entrepreneur attendees results – there was not one that had the exact same strengths. Infact they were vastly different. (There are 33 million possible combinations for the top 5 strengths). So I discovered that my strengths are:

• Winning Others Over (Woo) – People strong in the Woo theme love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over. They derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person.- I make sure that I am at at least one event every week where I meet new people – I have been known to use 500 business cards in a month.
• Input – People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.- I’m forever reading and attending learning events and I see gold in it all.
• Positivity – People strong in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.- They like to laugh in the office that I would celebrate the paint drying – I see an excuse to celebrate in most things
• Connectedness – People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.- I’m a bit of a hippy some how I think if you give trust you get trust, you give love you get love – that what goes around comes around.
• Self-Assurance – People strong in the Self-assurance theme feel confident in their ability to manage their own lives. They possess an inner compass that gives them confidence that their decisions are right.- Tell me I’m hopeless and I will thank you for the contribution – and ask what exactly I could go to work on.

So rather than working primariliy in improving weaknesses – what difference could be made to an organisation that knows the strengths of its people and then really harnesses those.

That is what I intend to find out…I’ll keep you posted.

It is worth checking out Gallup Organization’s Strengths Work