Talents are Born, Strengths are Developed

As an office, we recently completed the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test. This test, put out by the Gallup organization, is a research-based assessment tool that helps users discover their strengths – what they are naturally good at doing – and how to effectively utilize their strengths to produce positive outcomes.

Research from the Gallup organization shows that when organizational leadership fails to focus on the strengths of the employees, employee engagement is around 9%. On the other hand, when leadership focuses on employee strengths, this number jumps to 73%. When leadership invests in the strengths of their employees, employee engagement increases eightfold.

Through the use of this assessment tool, we were able to chart each of our top five strengths, showing us where there are overlaps and where there are gaps. We are then able to take these personalized results and use them in decision making and to assign roles within each of our projects.

The StrengthsFinder assessment has a total of 34 strengths outcomes that are grouped into four sections: Relationship Building, Influencing, Executing, and Strategic Thinking. The relationship building domain is all about understanding the human component and how individuals fit into the bigger picture. The influencing domain contains those who like to sell ideas – those who like to take charge and be heard. The executing domain represents those who will work tirelessly to get something done with speed, precision, and accuracy. Lastly, the strategic thinking domain contains strengths that relate to problem solving – taking thoughts and ideas and looking for the best solutions.

At KSA, we have a good variety of strengths represented across the four domains, with our strongest domain being the relationship building domain. This is shown by how we take into account the individual, unique needs of each of our clients and work closely with them to develop the best solutions for their space.