Coaching for Strengths
EFFECTIVE LEARNING, INCLUSIVENESS AND BUSINESS RESULTS THROUGH A POSITIVE APPROACH TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Looking back, it seems I’ve been coaching others my entire life - as an oldest child grabbing my brother’s hand in the parking lot, a middle schooler coaxing contributions out of reticent classmates or a lofty soprano singing louder than I should so others could learn the notes. It wasn’t until coaching became a formal part of my professional responsibilities at McKinsey that I had any awareness of what I was doing, but from that awareness grew a purposefulness, an approach, a belief system about the kind of coach I wanted to be.
That belief system is influenced not just by my formal experiences at McKinsey or the Carlson School of Management, but also by the (often trickier!) informal coaching I’ve had to deliver to peers, clients and managers. And it’s always filtered through the lens of my many and varied personal experiences as a recipient of coaching. I have been both the beneficiary of exceptional, course-altering coaching as well as the victim of some really atrocious attempts at it. Through it all, a central theme of my approach to coaching is to center on the unique, enduring and compelling strengths of the human in front of me.
Why Strengths: Enhancing Performance and Fostering Diversity
As strengths-based coaching has gained popularity, so too has it accumulated naysayers. Rebutting their specific arguments will be the subject of a future blog post. For now, I offer my reasons for choosing a strengths-based orientation. Beyond the obvious - it is simply more fun to build capabilities than it is to tear them down! - a strengths-based approach is an effective method for enhancing performance and a critical component of a diverse workplace.
Strengths-Based Enhances Performance
The American Psychological Association (APA) studied 37 senior managers and executives, half of which received strengths-based coaching. The coaching process included six sessions focused on leadership, strengths, goals and development. Participants increased in their transformational leadership behaviors - including things such as building trust, acting with integrity, and inspiring others - as measured by the validated FLRM (Full Range Leadership Model) relative to the control group. The results were highly statistically significant, proving that coaching for strengths aids in developing leaders who will be transformational and effective in their work.
Strengths-Based Fosters Diversity and Rejects Status Quo
If that weren’t enough, it is my belief that a strengths-based orientation is an imperative and often-overlooked component to fostering diversity. The reason is that deficit-oriented coaching frames the issue around gaps, with those gaps defined against the way work is done today and has always been done. It leaves no space for new ways of doing things, whether they’re better or just different. Worse yet, it doesn’t even interrogate the standard against which we are defining gaps, but takes them as a monolith, an absolute truth – all of which simply reinforces the status quo.
Strengths-based coaching addresses these shortcomings by grounding the discussion in the best way for an individual to do their job - or indeed, how they might choose a job best suited to them. It creates space for entirely new ways of thinking and working, ones that might be just as or even more effective than traditional approaches, based on the foundation that already exists within a person. Better yet, it forces us to consider which of the traditional ways of working may be core to career success and which are fungible, replaceable, even discardable. If your objective as a leader is to create an environment rich with diverse ways of thinking, strengths-based coaching must be a core element of your leadership toolkit.
What is Strengths-Based Coaching?
Since I was first introduced to the concept of a strengths-based approach, the topic has exploded. In 1999, about 20,000 people took the CliftonStrengths Assessment; now, around 2.5 million people use it annually, and over 90% of Fortune 500 companies have given it a go. The term itself has erupted in popular search with at least ten pages of Google results, featuring organizations with researched tools and approaches, blogs with strengths quizzes haphazardly embedded, even individual service providers of dubious credibility. It’s nothing short of a fad, and laden with all the baggage that comes with that.
The proliferation of self-proclaimed experts makes it hard to know where to turn and who to trust, but Exhibit 1 summarizes the largest, most credible players in the space.
Exhibit 1. Largest, most credible strengths-based assessment providers.
My own definition is simple (and yes, I am self-proclaiming my expertise!):
Strengths-based coaching is helping people identify and build from their core, unique talents, desires and experiences.
Furthermore, when I refer to strengths-based coaching, I explicitly do NOT mean:
Taking a bunch of strengths assessments. Just taking a test and getting results is not enough. At their best, strengths-based skill inventories can be an interesting launching point for discussion.
Avoiding difficult conversations. In my view, strengths-focused coaching does not require ignoring deficits if they exist. It does demand a healthy skepticism around deficits - is this really a required capability or just the way it’s usually done? - and sometimes lends itself to creative approaches to closing deficits (for example, by leveraging strengths). But a strengths-based coach will still tackle deficits head on when needed.
An undiscerning view of individuals’ capabilities. A strengths-based orientation does not require coaches to view all recipients as equally capable. In addition to being differently talented, some people are simply more talented. And some may be miserably-suited to a given job or career with no amount of strengths-based coaching able to help them succeed. We needn’t blind ourselves to these truths.
Keys to Succeeding as a Strengths-Oriented Coach
I believe that the main reason more leaders don’t adopt a strengths-based approach to coaching is simple: it’s hard. In particular, it requires three skills that deficit-based needs very little of: humility, listening and creative problem solving.
Humility: In the most cynical sense, deficit-based coaching is just teaching someone to be exactly like you. A strengths-based approach, in contrast, requires the coach to de-center themselves from the advice they offer. It’s no longer about closing gaps between you and your mentee, but about helping them be their very best selves. That requires humility, recognizing that your way isn’t the only way; it may not even be the best way.
Listening: Since strengths-based coaching demands far deeper familiarity with the mentee, it requires more and more-skilled listening. And not just listening in the sense of hearing what someone says, but in probing for meaning, for understanding, for what is unsaid in addition to what is said.
Creative Problem Solving: Finally, it requires creative problem solving. A strengths-based coach can’t resort to advising their mentees to follow their own path or even, often, the path of others they’ve seen. They need to be willing to chart new ways, to invent and test approaches, to fail, re-design and try again.
What’s in it for the Coach?
If it’s harder to offer strengths-based vs. deficit-based coaching, why would anyone do it? In addition to the satisfaction of helping someone grow, a strengths-based approach stretches the thinking of the coach. It helps to remove your own biases and barriers, to recognize multiple pathways to success, some of which may even influence your thinking on your own career.
Perhaps most compellingly, there are tangible business results associated with motivated employees and diverse teams. Gallup reports that organizations committed to strengths-based development see higher profits and productivity, higher individual performance and employee engagement, and lower attrition (see Exhibit 2). As business leaders, we rack our brains to identify and bust our butts to execute on initiatives that deliver just a fraction of these results. Leaders everywhere should be willing to pour that same level of energy into strengths-based coaching.
Exhibit 2. Strengths-based development programs produce tangible business results.
So, let’s return to the human in front of you. By coaching them to utilize and embrace their unique strengths, they can achieve more than possible through a deficit-based approach. Strengths-based coaching might be difficult to navigate, but with a solid framework, it creates game-changing benefits for individuals, their coaches, and the organization as a whole. And, gosh darnit, it just feels good.
What do you think: if we cut through the hype, is there enduring value to the concept of strengths-based coaching? What has been your experience in delivering and/ or receiving strengths- and deficit-based coaching? Which works best for you? Leave your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to hear about future postings!
