Raise your hand if you’ve ever been in a performance review that spent too much time pointing out your weaknesses?
We’re not talking about mistakes or issues with your work — we mean the intrinsic traits, behaviors, and ways of thinking that none of us have much control over. For instance, are you habitually penalized for not being organized? Have you been asked to be more creative or come up with bigger ideas? Are you penalized for being a perfectionist who spends a lot of time on the details?
Whatever you’ve heard about your weaknesses, we’ve all heard them, too. It’s annoying. And frankly, unfair. Why do so many people focus on the skills you’re lacking, instead of celebrating the things you’re naturally good at?
At Two Rivers Marketing, we're all about celebrating our strengths and positioning our associates so they can use theirs every single day. One way we do this is by investing in CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder), a tool designed to help individuals discover and leverage their unique talents.
How CliftonStrengths Transforms Our Associates
When new associates join the 2RM team, they are given a passcode for the CliftonStrengths website — created by Gallup and author Tom Rath. They take an online quiz that assesses their natural tendencies and patterns of thought and are then presented with a personalized report outlining their top five strengths. There are 34 strengths total, ranging from achiever and believer to strategic and woo, but we choose to focus on an associate’s top five strengths. Next, our associates attend a workshop to explore all 34 strengths and gain a better understanding of them.
2RM uses CliftonStrengths to help our associates better understand their top strengths and how they can best contribute to their team. By knowing their strengths and their co-workers’ strengths, our associates can focus their energy on what they do best, leading to better performance and higher job satisfaction.
Why develop strengths instead of fixing weaknesses? The best-led organizations know that the direct path to individual, team, and organizational success begins with a primary investment in their employees’ greatest talents. Find what is naturally right with your people and build on it.
We’re Stronger Together
By building a team of individuals who each bring unique strengths to the table, we create a more dynamic and diverse working environment.
A team of associates whose strengths complement each other will come up with better solutions for our clients. For example, if a team member has a strength in "Strategic," they may excel at creating and implementing a marketing plan, while another team member with a strength in "Communication" may be skilled at presenting the plan to clients. Leveraging each member's strengths makes the team more efficient and effective and the work we do more enjoyable for everyone. And using the Strengths Finder search tool on our agency intranet, we can easily put together the strongest team for each project.
With CliftonStrengths, our team members can learn more about their abilities and find new ways to excel.
Have questions about how CliftonStrengths could help your team? Connect with us to learn more.
By Two Rivers Marketing
