Turning Talent into Performance

Turning Talent Into Performance – TB Tech Talk

Recently, the president and CEO of Churchill Leadership Group, Jayne Jenkins, spoke at Tampa Bay Innovation Center’s TECH Talk program. The following is a summary of her shared insight. Churchill Leadership Group works with executives and organizations to help raise productivity and performance by maximizing leadership and team performance through a focus on Strengths.

Stanford, Carnegie, and Harvard studies have indicated that up to 85 percent of business success comes as a result of people’s soft skills. It should be no surprise, then, that focusing on one’s inner innate talents is an integral part of improving leadership impact, increasing productivity, and obtaining better results in the workplace. In other words, the strength of one’s business or career is dependent upon how much a person can harness and maximize his/her natural potential.

When asked “Do you get to use your strengths every day at work?”, participants in Gallup’s research who said “yes” indicated that 38 percent of them experienced higher productivity, 44 percent had higher customer satisfaction, and 50 percent reported less employee turnover (Gallup and TMBC).

Discovering and using personal strengths

Strength is not just what a person is good at. That description is incomplete; rather a Strength should also include those activities that make a person feel strong and create a natural competitive advantage or give him or her their “edge.” Sadly, today, very few people – as little as 17 percent – use their strengths every day, while 83 percent typically use their strengths at least once a week. People who use their strengths report feeling confident, powerful, and enthusiastic, while those who do not feel more drained, frustrated, and bored.

Why is this? Following are a few misconceptions and the corresponding truths:

Myth 1: As we grow older, we change. The truth is that our personalities and “how we are wired” don’t change, personality traits do become more pronounced. In other words, we become more and more of what we already were.
Myth 2: We grow most in the areas in which we are weakest. The truth is that we grow the most in those areas in which we are already strong – where we have natural talent.
Myth 3: My team needs me to put my strengths aside and do what the team needs. The truth is that we need to volunteer our strengths and use them often. If we all do that the team is more powerful.

So how can each of us start using our strengths every day rather than once a week? Think of the three “A’s” of awareness, action, and accountability.

Make a personal strength chart.

When participating in an activity, write down the feeling of doing this activity – does it make you feel strong or weak? Through this, it will become easier to start to discover the strengths that lie within you.

Dig deeper and work with a Strengths expert.

They can use assessments and coaching to help you identify your Strengths and, more importantly, bring them alive so that they become actions focused on your personal goals.

Develop your strengths.

Once identified, it’s essential to nourish and cultivate this potential. Focus on activities that will grow your specific talents. For example, if a strength is communication and you enjoy public speaking, take additional training courses and workshops that will increase your storytelling impact. You will feel strong and passionate, and the measurable growth and your greater effect can be limitless.

Strengthen your team.

The ability for teams to work in sync and rely on each other is crucial in most circumstances. With the identification of personal strengths, each person can depend on the Strengths of each other better. This also helps improve trust and communication and thus increases collaboration, allowing performance to expand — all because strengths have been identified and maximized.

Bottom line – People and teams excel where they are strong.

The reasons only 17% of us use our Strengths each day are many, including the belief in myths and a deeper understanding of our Strengths.

If you, your team, and your organization are ready to discover your Strengths and put them to work, we offer a free consulting session. Companies hire Churchill to help them understand how they can most effectively accelerate their performance and realize the potential of the people on their teams. They choose Churchill over other leadership development companies because all of our expert coaches have extensive corporate and business experience. This means we understand their needs and provide sustainable solutions that work.

To take advantage of this great opportunity contact us.