Using your Positran Strengths Cards

According to Professor Alex Linley, “a strength is a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is authentic and energising to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development and performance” In fact, the strengths concept is so central to positive psychology nowadays, that the knowledge and utilisation of one’s strengths is considered to be one of the most direct routes to personal and professional fulfilment.

So what is the value of strengths and how can they be applied to help us live our life to its fullest? Research has demonstrated that by simply following our strengths, we can gain insight and perspective into our lives, generate optimism, confidence and even enhanced sense of vitality. More importantly, strengths appear to have a preventative mechanism in terms of buffering against certain types of physical dysfunction such as allergies, diabetes, chronic pain and even some mental disorders. Finally, strengths help build psychological resilience, whilst the use of signature strengths in work, love, play and parenting generating positive emotions. Finally, the strengths approach is argued to be at the heart of successful psychological therapies and coaching.

So how can you use these cards to identify, develop and use the strengths to the max? The following activities can be carried out in one-to-one conversations and sessions, within a family circle, with friends, and of course, in many training and team building situations. These activities are written with the end-user in mind, so if you are a coach or a therapist, please note that by “you” we actually mean “your client”.

1. Who am I?

Simply identifying your signature strengths can significantly enhance your well-being levels (Seligman et al., 2005). Looking in the cards in front of you, pick the top five you feel are most authentic to you. When you are doing this, think about:

•  Does this strength reflect who you really are?

•  When you are demonstrating this strength, do you truly enjoy yourself?

•  Are you energised during and after its use?

2. Strengths introductions

In groups of no more than 5-6, looking at the cards in front of you, pick three that you consider to be your top strengths. Have a brief look at the description and strengths questions at the back. Introduce yourself to the group giving concrete examples of using these strengths (not just “I think I am a creative person”). Each member of the group takes turns to do the same.

3. At your best

Please turn to the person on your left and ask them to describe a situation when they were at their personal best. What did it feel like? Ask them to describe the beginning, the middle and the end. They need to reflect on the personal strengths displayed throughout the event and pick them up from the strengths pack. Once they have finished, please switch the roles and do the same yourself.

4. Strengths nominations

Nominate one or more other strengths for other people in the group, giving concrete examples of when you saw them using this strength. This exercise is contagious; you will see the whole group nominating strengths for each other within minutes. It can be quite emotional as well.

5. Strengths sort

This exercise is best done on your own or one-to-one with a coach or a friend. Create five piles in front of you and place each of the cards from the pack into one of the piles.

1) Not me – a card that you see in front of you is neither your strength, nor your potential, competence or weakness. It simply does not apply to you.

2)  My strengths are the strengths that you already are aware of and use frequently, which, in turn, enable you to be and perform at your best.

3)  My potentials are strengths that you may not be able to express on a daily basis due to your environment and work situations. However, when you do display them you derive energy and satisfaction from exhibiting these attributes.

4)  My competences are the behaviours that you have, over time, learned to do well, however you do not derive pleasure or energy from performing them. In fact, quite the opposite, they seem to suck the energy out of you, even when the results are perfectly satisfactory.

5)  My weaknesses encompass the behaviours that you just can’t do well and that seem to drain you. These attributes can create issues and need to be managed so that they do not hinder your success in life

Next, pile by pile decide what to do with the outcomes. Are you using your strengths well (see strengths-based work) or are you over-using them? How can you develop your potentials (see strengths stretch)? How can you minimise the use of your competences (if they drain you, they can’t be that good for you)?

Finally, what would you like to do with each of your weaknesses? You can try to develop them (see activate your strengths), ignore them (if you can get away with it), or find creative ways to compensate for them (by using strengths partnering, for example).

6. Strengths stretch

You can try using your top strengths and potentials in a new way every day, for at least one week. Infusing your daily life with variety in how you express your strength has a lasting effect on increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for up to 6 months (Seligman, et al., 2005). You can see some suggestions for strengths stretch on the back of your strengths cards, or generate some new ones with your coach.

7. Make a beautiful day using your strengths

Try some other creative ideas around incorporating strengths into your daily live, for example, creating ‘a beautiful day’ or going on a ‘strengths date’. To create a ‘beautiful day’, use your top strengths to create the perfect day (or even half day). Thus, if your top traits are love of learning and curiosity, your day might include a trip to a favourite museum or a few hours with a book that you've been meaning to read. If the capacity to love crowns your list, you might spend an evening with old

friends or summon family for a dinner. You can also take your ‘strengths day’ further and design a date with your significant other in such a way as to enable both of you to be within your strengths zone.

8. Strengths-based work

Examine how much you are able to exercise your top strengths in your current job. If you could start it all over, what job would you chose, taking your top strengths into account? For example, if your top strength is kindness, would you like a job with some form of mentoring element in it? If you are not using your strengths in your current job to the full, brainstorm together with your coach or your group/team how you can bring them in a little more, or how you can change your role somewhat to reflect your strengths better.

9. Activate your strengths

You can also choose five of your weaknesses (or lesser strengths) and try to cultivate them throughout the next seven days. Monitor the positive emotions, such as vitality, excitement, authenticity, etc., that you experience trying to put these lesser strengths to work. See some suggestions for activating activities at the back of the cards, or try to brainstorm some new ones with your coach or group.

10. Strengths partnering

This exercise is best done with your existing team. Introduce yourself to the group with both your strengths and some of your weaknesses that you prefer not to develop, if at all possible. Listen carefully to each other, examining how the strengths of one can compensate for the weaknesses of another, and vice versa. You might have to be creative in finding tangible solutions that could work for your team. 

Using Your Positive Organisational Development Cards: 10 Ideas To Get You Started

So you've got some of our Positive Organisational Development Cards - now what? We have produced a list of 10 ideas for ways in which you could use the cards to add value to your work with different audiences.

In General

You can use these cards in a number of ways to stimulate discussion; create commonality and motivation; and to identify agreed action. Some general ideas are:

• Use the cards as they stand, the questions and the action points
• Use a rating scale ‘To what extent is this present in our team/organization/group at the moment on a scale of 1-10? What would we like to be? How can we move towards this?’etc.
• As a prioritizing tool. ‘Which five of these are most key to our future success/our development/our strategy?’
• As playing cards. Each person has some. Someone starts by laying down a card they think is important (to the topic under discussion) explaining why they think so, the person who thinks they can build on this with one of the cards in their hand lays it down with ‘yes and...’. This is a cooperative card game, with no winners or losers.

With Senior Executives

1) Leadership

Use the Authentic Leadership card as a stimulus to the initial discussion.

Ask them to identify what other cards they see as being relevant to being an effective, positive leader (e.g. affirmation and positive deviance, mindfulness, engagement, virtuous practices, positive energy networks and strengths). Use the questions to stimulate discussion and the further notes to create possibilities for initiatives or personal development

2) Organisational Culture

Take the five culture cards (pink). For each card consider and discuss the questions and then make a rating for each concept (where are we now?) on a scale of 1-10. Then ask – Where do we want to be? Look at the action points and pick a few as a basis for planning how to start moving in the right direction

Leaders and Managers in General

3) Using micro-moments as a leader

Select the cards that leaders can have an impact on in every engagement they have (e.g. positive deviance, virtuous practices, authentic leadership, high quality connections, positive emotions, flourishing, mindfulness). Use the questions to stimulate discuss to raise awareness of the importance of these concepts to creating a positive organisational atmosphere. Then use pointers for action to help create action resolutions.

4) Performance Appraisal

The yellow cards (with the possible exception of the Appreciative Inquiry card) form a good basis for a performance appraisal conversation. Also include the blue cards engagement and flow and maybe the flourishing card. The key question is ‘When you do you experience this at work? What are you doing, who is around?’ and so on to help them learn about when they are at their best.

Alternatively, you can spread the cards out and ask them to pick a few cards that exemplify what they would like more of in their work. Or what they find most exciting at work e.g. using strengths, being affirmed, having great conversations and so on.

5) Career Counselling

Pick a few appropriate cards like affirmation, strengths, positive deviance, authentic leadership, engagement, generativity, and ask them which of these features might be important to them in a job or their next career move? How can they find out whether a job or organization offers these? Alternatively get them to pick the five that seem most important to them to allowing them to give their best at work.

Groups – Development

6) Culture / Organisational Development

Take the pink culture cards and add any others you like, such as positive deviance, affirmation and flourishing, asking ‘What is important to us in our culture? Where is this already present?’ and so on, use the questions on the back of the card as well. Get the group to make a current rating of where the organization is, then use the suggestions on the cards to stimulate discussion of actions to increase positivity of the culture. These cards help individuals identify what they can do to move things forward.

Take the green cards and repeat the process. These give ideas as to how to create cultural change at the collective level.

7) Identifying our strengths as leaders and managers

Start with the strengths card, identifying what strengths are and working with the questions and suggestions on the back. You can then delve further into the individual and collective strengths using a strengths card pack (such as the Strengthscope cards or the Positive Insights strengths cards), or work with rest of the positive psychology concept cards to identify organisational positive psychology strengths. E.g. as an organization we are good at... ‘affirmation’ and the evidence is....

From here the discussion can move to how to build on the strengths we have and, how to discover hidden organisational strengths.

8) Divisional Groups or Teams – our local culture

Use the cards to help the group address the question of what kind of atmosphere do we want to create in our local part of the organization? How can we do this?

9) During Redundancy and Other Difficult Times

Take green cards and positive emotions and high quality connections as a basis for a discussion on, ‘How can we consciously work to boost all of these in our organisation even as we have to do this difficult thing?

Take yellow cards and ask ‘How can we build these into our process for doing what it is we have to do?’

10) Increasing Motivation and Morale

Take positive deviance, positive energy networks, positive emotions, flourishing, strengths, engagement and appreciative inquiry cards as a basis for discussion asking, ‘How can we increase these in our organization?’ Use green cards to help identify collective processes to engage and motivate.

These are just 10 ideas to help you get started, I hope you find them useful, please do write and let us know how you do use the cards, and any ideas you have for improvements to them.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715

Introducing The Positive Organisational Development Cards

The Positive Organisational Development Cards each cover a key concept from the field of positive psychology. 

The concepts reflect key findings from positive psychology research of things that make a positive difference to organisational life. Each card lists the benefits of the concept, provides three questions to stimulate discussion, and is followed by three pointers for development. Each is introduced briefly below, arranged in four groups, to help you follow them and get an idea of any you aren't familiar with as well as to help explain them to your audiences.

Presence Concepts (or Strengths) - Blue

Employee Engagement is positively related to: wellbeing and attendance, employee retention, effort and performance, quality, sales performance, income and turnover, profit, customer satisfaction, shareholder return, business growth, and success. According to research, only 19% of employees are highly engaged at work. For an engaged employee, job performance matters.

High Quality Connections are conversations that are generative in nature, affirming and life enhancing. They boost motivation, trust, innovation and information flow. They are particularly important for people who are excluded from more purposeful 'bonding or socialising activities’ e.g. causal workers, temps, interns - boosting stickiness and motivation to perform

Positive Energy Networks are mutually energizing, motivating and affirming, with a particular positive and affirming person as the node point. They are generative, they add value. Being part of such a network is highly motivating, encouraging individual commitment, performance and resilience.

Flow is the psychological state experienced when challenge and skill are sufficiently matched in an area of interest to produce complete task absorption. When 'in flow' people are working at their best, using all their abilities to achieve the task. Flow states are highly motivating.

We are displaying Mindfulness when we are paying attention in the moment to our internal state or the external world. Mindfulness and attentiveness require being present in the moment. They enhance the quality of interpersonal interactions and the thoughtfulness of decision making. In the mindless state induced by efficient routines, we can miss important signs of change.                  

Collective Concepts (or Strengths) - Green

Social Capital is the hidden capital of group relationships. Social capital releases the potential of investment capital. Social capital affects trust and information flow, and speed of adaptation. It is a basic requirement for a flexible, flourishing organization. High social capital promotes organisational resilience.

Collective Intelligence draws on the accumulated resourcefulness of the whole organization. Within organisations there is a huge, intelligence held by the whole workforce, not just a select few. In today's competitive world relying on a few key people for knowledge, innovation and decision-making is ineffective.

The degree of Connectivity amongst a group is a measure of their alignment. High connectivity promotes self-organization amongst a group, which reduces management cost. Well-connected organisations exhibit lower level, faster, better problem solving and decision-making. High performing teams demonstrate high connectivity.

Four key states characterise people's Psychological Capital: hope, optimism, self-efficacy, and resilience. Together these affect performance and satisfaction. Because these are states rather than traits they can be learnt, as can the ability to self-create them. These states are related particularly to motivation and performance at work.

Resilience refers to the ability to bounce-back from adversity. Resilience contributes to post-traumatic growth. Resilient people find sources of positive emotion even in difficult or upsetting situations. Resilient people and organisations are able to return to a functioning, productive state quicker following trauma or adversity.

Cultural Strengths - Pink

The Abundance Bridge includes excellence, exceptional performance, generosity, brilliant and benevolence. Flourishing organizations invest in building their abundance bridge as well as closing their deficit gap. While attending to the deficit gap prevents unacceptable performance, attention to the abundance bridge promotes exceptional performance.

Authentic Leadership is made up of four key attributes: openness, integrity, self-reflection and balanced judgement, that underlie surface style differences. Life experiences are more important than innate abilities in achieving formal leadership positions: leaders are made. Authenticity is a key defence against corrosive, demoralising organisational cynicism.

Positive Deviance is about learning from success and building towards excellence. It means paying organisational attention to building the abundance bridge as well as to lessening the deficit gap. Positive Deviance is one of the attributes identified as distinguishing flourishing organisations. Very few organisations really pay attention to learning from their successes.

Virtuous Practices are strengths such as patience, helpfulness, gratitude, appreciation, forgiveness, and humility that characterize the most successful and life enhancing places to work. Strong patterns of virtuous behaviour are a distinguishing feature of flourishing organizations. People are inspired by the virtuous behaviour of others, creating virtuous spirals of mutual benefit and increasing social capital.

Flourishing is a state of growth and abundance. Flourishing organisations exhibit positive deviance, affirmative bias and virtuous behaviour. Flourishing individuals experience positive emotions, engagement or flow, meaning, positive relationships and accomplishment. Flourishing organisations and individuals are likely to be more successful.                           

Appreciative Strengths - Yellow

To experience Affirmation is to be valued for who you are and what you bring. When we are affirmed we see ourselves reflected positively in the eyes of others. Affirmation aids personal growth. Affirmation is nourishment for the soul. Affirming the best in people, teams and organisations enhances performance.           

Appreciative Inquiry understands the organisation as a living system and develops it through growing more of the best. Appreciative Inquiry offers a positive psychology approach to organisational development. By working with the whole system, Appreciative Inquiry creates rapid, coordinated, energised change.                                

Generativity is a source of change: new, compelling ideas, generated by the group, garner commitment and energy. Generativity occurs when people come together: combining knowledge, inspiring each other and creating new possibilities and generating energy for action. High quality interactions promote generativity                                              

Positive Emotions include things like pride, joy, interest, serenity, awe, and excitement. When feeling good people are more likely to be creative, engage with others, manage complexity, be tenacious, and deal with ambiguity and novel information. The magic ratio of positive to negative experiences is 3:1 or above.

Strengths are the natural abilities developed over your life course. Using strengths feels effortless and highly engaging and energizing. Strengths underpin many aspects of performance at work. They are the source of motivation, development, high performance. Strengths are the most efficient source of excellence                 

More information on all of these concepts can be found in Lewis S (2011) Positive Psychology at Work. Wiley Blackwell, as well as many other positive psychology books.