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11 Ways to Build on the Strengths of Your Team Members

Here, I’ll talk about how project managers and team leaders can build on their team members’ strengths.

Project Managers are the ones best positioned to recognize the strengths of a team. And managers can empower employees to discover and develop their strengths and then position them in roles where they can excel. To start, let’s look at why it matters.

Benefits of focusing on strengths

Research from the Gallup Organization’s State of the American Workplace found that building on employee strengths is much more effective in raising performance than trying to improve weaknesses.
Gallup also found that when employees become aware of their strengths, they become 7.8% more productive. Teams that focus on strengths every day have 12.5% greater productivity; while individuals who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged on the job and less likely to leave their company.

Taken together, those measures are powerful drivers for higher levels of performance, profitability and productivity for organizations.

Here are some 11 ways to build on the strengths of your employees:

  1. Name the strengths. Don’t assume that employees know their strengths. People often take their most powerful talents for granted. Meet individually with team members to discuss how they—and you—see their core competencies and strengths. Name each strength out loud, and ask them how those might be applied to your project.
  2. Apply individual strengths to achieve the team’s overall goals. Help the team at large understand each other’s strengths and how these talents unite to create a powerful picture and improve teamwork skills. Speak to the strengths of individual team members in the presence of project compatriots. Suggest how the team might take advantage of others’ strengths, and hear what the team has to say about it. And why stop there? Look beyond your projects to the wider organization to see whether demonstrated strengths can be used in neglected areas of the broader business.

  3. Assign team projects based on employees’ strengths. You would never intentionally assign tasks based on weaknesses, but you might overlook strengths unless they’re surfaced.

  4. Incorporate strengths into performance conversations and reviews. Help employees set goals based on their core competencies and strengths.
  5. Help employees align their strengths to the expectations and responsibilities of their roles.

  6. Ask for “strength training” for yourself—a way to help identify and optimize the strengths of your team members. This type of training may be something your HR department can deliver, or you might, with your company’s support, find training outside of your organization.

  7. Open career growth opportunities or training for your team. Tell team members that if they have a strength they’d like to develop, you’re willing to support them. This encouragement may motivate employees to actively discover their strengths and do what they need to develop their professional skills.

  8. Offer training opportunities for employees who show strength in particular areas. Instead of waiting for team members to come to you, you approach them. Let them know what qualities you see in them, and make sure that they’re willing to build on these strengths for a specific type of career path by sending them to a course or training program. You don’t want to invest in anyone who’s unwilling to put in the effort to utilize their strength to benefit the organization.

  9. Encourage team members to act as “strengths advocates” to help others use their talents and gifts more fully.

  10. Consider cross training among teammates that have specific strengths. Partner strong employees with teammates who show a weakness in a corresponding area in the form of a mentoring relationship. This cross-training lets strong employees develop their training abilities, while the mentees receive some good modeling and a chance to strengthen their skills.

  11. Allow strong employees to take responsibility for their own career opportunities such as special assignments or off-site activities. Let your staff decide whether to pursue these activities, even if it means shuffling tasks on your project. Don’t push. Developing strength starts with initiative and drive. If an employee doesn’t have either, then it might not be worth the investment.

There are other side benefits to developing your teams’ individual competencies. Watching team members grow into their roles and develop their skills can be one of the most rewarding experiences in a career.

How else have you built on the strengths of your team members?

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

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