Last week, Marcus Buckingham was a guest on the Oprah show.  I’ve seen Mr. Buckingham speak on a couple of occasions and his message of identifying and building on our strengths is a compelling one.  I’ve been a proponent of this notion of focusing on strengths ever since I learned about the concept of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) when I was studying organization development in graduate school.  The idea in AI is to discover what is working well in an organization and build on that foundation instead of focusing on the problems and on what is not working well.  I see the ‘strengths movement’ as AI at the individual or personal level.

On the Oprah show that aired on Friday, April 18, 2008, several women discussed the changes they are making in their lives and careers as a result of identifying their strengths.  One way to discover your strengths is to become more aware of the activities you enjoy doing.  Strengths and enjoyment are closely aligned.  We enjoy doing the things that require us to use our strengths.  Similarly, we don’t enjoy doing those things that we find difficult and tedious.

What are your strengths?  Does your current job give you ample opportunities to use your strengths?