What does the term strengths mean?

“the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific activity”. – Gallup

Strengths are natural talents developed to a point where applying them consistently and optimally results in high performance.

Strength-based development then, is adding relevant skills, knowledge and experience that would enable us to identify our strengths and leverage them to reach our highest potential and toughest goals.

This may sound like something that’s done often but in reality, most organizations base their employee training and development on Areas of Improvement (AOI). At the end of each appraisal cycle, Managers identify Areas of Improvement and recommend employees to attend trainings that can help them overcome these ‘weaknesses’.

This approach – as Gallup proved in its exhaustive study – leads to mediocre wins.