Can You Map Your Talents and Character Strengths?

With a growing number of organizations investing money and resources in the use of their people’s strengths, it has to be worth asking: “Exactly what is a strength?” Are they talents, values, interests or resources? Are they something we’re born with or something we’re able to develop?

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Researchers have found that strengths are patterns of thinking, feeling, or behaving that, when exercised, engage and energize you and allow you to perform at your optimum level. Your strengths are the things you look forward to doing, that you do well and leave you feeling satisfied and fulfilled. They represent you at your best.

Dr. Ryan Niemiec, a psychologist and one of the world’s leading strengths teachers, suggests that our strengths include:

• Our talents – the “what” we like to do in our work and be paid and recognized for in our jobs. For example, the Gallup Research Organization suggest people with the talent of Analytical like to search for reasons and causes; people with the talent of Communications easily put their thoughts into words; and people with the talent of Relator enjoy close relationships with others.
• Our character strengths – the “how” we like to work and that will show up whether anybody pays or recognizes us for these behaviors because they’re aligned to the value we hold. For example, the VIA Institute suggest people with the character strength of Bravery will act even when it’s risky; people with the character strengths of Honesty will speak their mind; and people with the character strength of Humor like finding reasons to laugh at work.
• Our interests – the topics and activities that naturally grab your attention and that you feel driven to pursue. For example, our interests may include fields of study like positive psychology; community issues like sustainability; and passion projects like maintaining personal wellbeing.
• Our resources – factual knowledge, experiential knowledge and networks you have to draw upon and achieve what matters to you most. For example, formal or informal learning bases we can extract information from; the information we gain through engaging in action; and the social networks that provide us with support, encouragement and an appreciation of our strengths.

Increasingly, researchers are also finding that while our strengths exist within us the environments we find ourselves in also shape them. For example, prior to 9/11 the character strength of bravery was found to be one of the middle strengths for a group of New Yorkers, but re-testing after the tragic events that unfolded found that bravery had become their top strength because this is what their circumstances now required.

So just how are workplaces meant to help their people discover changing patterns of talents, character strengths, interests and resources and apply these in practical ways as they go about their jobs?

Tal Ben-Shahar, one of the world’s leading teachers and authors on wellbeing suggests that when it comes to putting our strengths to work it helps to map out where our zone of greatness lies – where what you love to do, what you care about, what your calling is, and what you’re good at all start to overlap.

He suggests mapping this out by:

• First, completing the Gallup Strengths Finder survey and uncovering people’s top five talents and listing these inside a circle with the heading “What I Like To Do”. For example I would list my top five talents of: strategic, learner, maximizer, achiever, and activator.
• Then, completing the free VIA Survey to uncover people’s top five character strengths and list these in an overlapping circle with the heading “How I Like To Work”. For example I would list my top five character strengths of: zest, gratitude, hope, curiosity, and creativity.
• Finally, ask people to reflect on the best moments in their work – the times when they’ve felt engaged, energized and enjoying what they were doing – to see where their talents and character strengths overlap with the interests and resources they have to help them perform at their best.

For example, I found that when my talent of learner and my character strength of curiosity come together to fuel my interest in how you bring out the best in people at work and I use my resources of formal knowledge, experience and social networks to explore these ideas, what I discover adds real value for the people I work with. And when my talent of maximizer (which loves to take something that’s good and make it great) is combined with my character strength of creativity to fuel my interest in sustainable ways to create behavior change and I use my resources to create online tools to embed these approaches, what I create helps people to make lasting changes.

I realized that this intersection between my talents, character strengths, interests and resources are where my moments of greatness are consistently found. It’s when I feel more confident to show up, to truly shine in the projects I’m undertaking and to succeed by delivering my very best work. And more than a decade of research suggests these results are not unique to me.

So where might your people’s zone of greatness lie between what they like to do, how they like to work and the interests and resources they have when they’re at their very best? For a free play sheet to help you map your talents and your character strengths click here.