Throughout my career I have been subjected to all manner of performance management systems, which usually resulted in a list of weaknesses, that I should work on. I often wondered why I was being asked to work on my weaknesses, which always seemed counter intuitive. Sure, if one of my weaknesses was’ mission critical’ (e.g. if I was an accountant and I was poor at figures) it would need to be addressed, but why not work on my strengths also, particularly in a leadership role.

Do you know what your innate strengths are? During this forum you will be given the opportunity to complete the Clifton Strengths Finder Profile which will identify your top 5 innate strengths. We will  look in detail at developing your strengths and as important, explore how to recognise the strengths of others and deploy them. If you know someone at work who ‘is a natural’ at whatever he or she does, they are most likely working to their strengths. Looking at it another way, how many people do you know that really excel at something they really do not enjoy doing and have no talent, skill or knowledge about?

Tiger Woods is recognised as the most naturally talented player the professional golf arena has ever seen. He is also the worst professional golf player on the tour at getting out of bunkers. The reason for this is, he never practices getting out of bunkers, he solely practices missing them. In other words he only works at developing his strengths.