Understanding my Own Strengths

Understanding My Own Strengths (change this depending on which profile tool being used)

We draw from the work of Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Chris Peterson, along with other top scholars in the country, led the research effort to create the VIA Classification. VIA = One way for us to focus on strengths – the 0-10 area.

Martin Seligman and his colleagues studied all major religions and philosophical traditions and found that the same six virtues (i.e. courage, humanity, justice, etc.) were shared in virtually all cultures across three millennia.

They found surprisingly strong agreement worldwide with regard to six general categories, or "virtues", which were labelled: wisdom, courage, justice, humanity, temperance, and spirituality.

They then defined the paths by which each of these virtues are expressed resulting in 24 "character strengths" that are distributed across the six virtue categories. 

SLIDE XX: VIRTUES

NB: Only use these if they add value and don’t conflict with the particular strengths profile tool you’re using.

It is from these virtues that your strengths are determined

1. Wisdom and Knowledge

2. Courage

3. Humanity

4. Justice

5. Temperance

6. Transcendence 

Since these virtues are considered too abstract to be studied scientifically, positive psychology practitioners focused their attention on the strengths of character created by virtues, and created tools for their measurement.

SLIDE XX: CRITERIA FOR EACH TRAIT

The main criteria for characters strengths that they came up with are that each trait should:

1. Be stable across time and situations

2. Be valued in its own right, even in the absence of other benefits

3. Be recognized and valued in almost every culture,

4. Be considered non-controversial and independent of politics.

5. Cultures have role models that possess the trait so other people can recognize its worth.

6. Parents aim to instill the trait or value in their children.

It is from these virtues that your strengths are determined.

SLIDE XX: FINDING THE GOLDEN MEAN

There are costs for overusing and underusing your strengths. There is also a point or ‘sweet spot’ where there is optimal use of your strengths. It is when you apply the right combination of character strengths, to the right degree, in the right situation.

SLIDE XX: BREAKOUT ROOMS - 15 MINS (PAIRS) .

• Share your top five strengths.

• Were there any surprises for you?

• Had you thought about yourself in this way before?

• When have you underused or overused your strengths?

• Coach each other to deploy one strength more effectively.

Debrief top two strengths only from two or three people.

Introduce, debrief, discuss participant’s profile results.

OPTIONAL

Step 3: Group Strengths (depending on the tool used, do a group exercise to highlight the patterns across the group). For example, at TLS we most often use the Clifton Strengths Finder). Example…

Group Domain Sort

Ask people to write their top 5 strengths on five post-it notes (with the domain and their first name), and then place of four flip charts (one for each domain).

This is a great exercise for any group, but particularly teams as they see where they may have a bias/gap. 

This group realised they had a few issues in the Strategic Thinking domain!