So, quite literally the day I landed back in West Monroe from Orlando, I had like a one hour gap between airport and this elementary school. I had been asked to speak to the teachers of this school on Strengths Based Teamwork. I have to say it is probably my FAVORITE discussion topic!
I had the privilege of being the primary speaker at the school board's kickoff meeting for the year, attended by the incoming superintendent of schools, his central office staff, and all the principals of the parish. One of the principals felt it was so impactful, and could change the way her staff communicated with one another and how she led them, that she invited me to speak to them more intimately in their own school.
Each teacher takes the strengths finder test, and I have their results sent to me. I assimilate a graph of all the participants, so they can have an idea of the various strengths at a single glance. I teach strengths by explaining that God made each one of us very uniquely. I call these gifts, "God Sprinkles". When God made me, he grabbed a chunk of clay and said, "Melanie, this will be you. And this will be your path... and he said, there are 34 sprinkles over here in my bucket of gifts. I am going to give you these five... WOO (Winning others over), Communcation, Maximizer, Ideation, and Futuristic. It is your job to find a way to use these throughout your life. Everything you see, do, touch and hear will be shaded with these five talents. Go and make me proud."
And the same is true for every person in that room! I operate MMPT entirely by knowing my employees' five primary gifts per the strengths finder assessment. You could come into any of my five clinics and ask any employee what their five talents are, and they could tell you. Most could also tell you several of the strengths of their fellow employees. Because of this, they can better understand when they are at odds in opinions on how to handle any particular situation which may arise in a workweek. Similarly, when a particular situation comes up, and we need someone with good communication or who is high in influencing to take care of it, we know who to delegate to. If we need a problem solved and need someone to trouble shoot options for solution, we look for someone with the restorative strength. If we have an idea (usually ideation or futuristic strengths), and need someone to get it started STAT, we look to someone with activator strength (they take immediate action), and then someone with the talent of achiever will make sure it is followed through on to completion.
When people are operating in their strength zones, they are more energized, creative, and productive! That's why I have had several businesses lately asking me to facilitate weekly groups or give all day seminars on how to implement this concept into their own businesses. MMPT has a reputation for being positive, energizing, and definitely productive and effective. It is an intentional thing! We are a strengths-based team!
It is my hope that this group of teachers found this helpful and are using it to have a more cohesive group and better school year altogether. I have a couple more schools (and school districts for that matter), who are looking at their schedules to have a similar training in 2016.
If this sounds like something a business you operate or know of would like to know more about, I'd love to talk to you about options or set a date and get it done! I honestly didn't know that this blog post was going to take this turn! I just start typing, and my "communication" starts telling stories, and my "Maximizer" usually tends to make sure it is the BEST use of my words. Isn't that interesting?!
Anyway, I hope you have a great day. I have my photos loaded for about two more weeks of blog posts, in the order they were in my phone, so as I open one up, like today, I just start telling a story that goes along with it. I'm sometimes as surprised as you at what shows up! haha. True story!
Enjoy your weekend!
MO
( I think you can contact me through my website... melaniemasseygroves.com for more details. If not, email admin@mymojoy.com and we will reply!)
4 comments:
Everyone here at work takes the StrengthsFinder test as well and we have a psychologist that comes and discusses it all with us. I agree-knowing your strengths helps you maneuver difficult situation better, but most importantly, helps you leverage the best things about yourself to be the best you that you can be!
Excellant! I like the term "God Sprinkles", that sums it up pretty good. I always find your blogs or posts inspirational!
I love the StrengthsFinder - our church staff did it and each new employee takes the test. I really love the "God sprinkles" idea!!
I really found this so interesting. I've heard you talk about StrengthFinders often and always been intrigued by it. This post really made me think about how beneficial this can be. Having worked in several school districts I've seen what happens with there is no focus on people's strengths. A lot of what you said about learning your strengths and then knowing other coworkers strengths really spoke to me. I think it's really cool that your clinic workers know their strengths and especially those that know their coworkers strengths too. Would love to hear more insight from you about this concept.
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