When I think back to where Strengthscope began 20 years ago, I’m struck by how much has changed, and how much hasn’t.
Looking back: moments that shaped us
Early on in our story, we took Strengthscope® to a senior leadership retreat at Tesco. We had about fifteen senior execs from all over the world in the room, and they had been using another assessment tool focused on leadership derailers. Tesco decided to run both Strengthscope® and the other tool together and ask the group for their feedback afterwards. The view from the group at the end of the event was that there was no further need for the derailers tool because Strengthscope® was accessible to a global audience, used clear business language, had helped them understand what they were best at, and the strengths-in-overdrive concept had identified their potential derailers. So they carried on using Strengthscope® and dropped the other tool. It was a moment where I felt that we had something really special.
Achieving registration status with the British Psychological Society was a pivotal moment. Anyone who’s been through the process will tell you it’s not easy to achieve; there are only a few hundred tools that have managed it, and we were the first strengths assessment to make an attempt. I felt we were championing strengths as a concept as much as Strengthscope® as an assessment tool in itself. We got some very helpful feedback from the BPS about the need for robust ‘markers’ to compare Strengthscope® with, and when we did this, we found that, whatever tool we compared it with, Strengthscope® always added something different to explain behaviour or preference.
While we may no longer be the only strengths assessment tool with the BPS test registration status, we will always be the first. We’ve helped many organisations become more strengths-focused in their approach to people management and development.
When we surpassed 100,000 Strengthscope® uses at the global engineering giant Siemens, it was a great moment for the whole team. Everyone at Strengthscope works to deliver great service to our clients, and Siemens is one of our biggest. For every use of Strengthscope®, we feel it has the potential to be life-changing for someone. So bringing that possibility to the lives of 100,000 people was truly a moment to pause and reflect. The strengths approach has made a significant impact on Siemens’ global people strategy and has helped them build a strengths-based mindset throughout their workforce.
More recently, it was my great pleasure to let the Strengthscope team know that we’d been successful in gaining BCorp certification. Becoming a BCorp marks you out as a ‘business for good’ in terms of having a net positive impact on employees, customers, community and the environment. What’s been so powerful about the BCorp standard is the guidance it provides for our business to do more and be better in creating a positive impact in the world. As a business, we’ve now achieved a Top 10 ranking for inclusivity in the national Flexa awards, which identify the most flexible, inclusive and supportive employers worldwide. And we’re looking forward to our BCorp re-certification journey in the coming months.
Finally, I want to mention our annual Team Effectiveness in the Workplace report. We produce this extensive report each year to give a view from our research team on what Strengthscope® data is saying about leadership and team effectiveness.
We use samples of over 1,000 for leaders and teams, and we base our findings on both our strengths data and the behavioural ‘habit’ data we collect using our StrengthscopeLeader™ and StrengthscopeTeam™ assessments. For leaders, target behaviours include the extent to which they share their vision, are able to engage their people, execute against the plan, and continuously improve. For teams, we assess clarity of goals, roles and purpose, the level of trust in the team, as well as accountability for results, change readiness and appetite for learning and growth.
The results we’ve seen over the past years have been extremely helpful for clients in benchmarking themselves against a global comparison group and identifying areas for improvement.
Looking ahead: the next 5–10 years
As the world becomes more volatile by almost every measure, our strengths can anchor us, giving us confidence that we can weather the storm, pivot when we need to and continue to be successful, however our context changes. This has always been true, but the years ahead may be the most unpredictable in our lifetimes, and strengths, based on our core values, can provide us with an unshakable true north.
One of the major influences we are seeing at work right now is AI. In the context of increased automation of entry-level and repetitive tasks by these new technologies, the strengths approach becomes more vital than ever to help us stay human and continue to contribute value by bringing our unique, most human qualities to our jobs and careers.
We don’t need to be fearful of AI if we use our unique strengths – our cognitive, emotional and social energies and talents – to drive better decision making, creativity and care for others. AI has its place, but we need to double-down on what makes us most human. And understanding our strengths provides a great starting point.
If I had to summarise what 20 years has taught me, it would be this:
“While the strengths approach has become more mainstream over the past 20 years, human negativity bias makes a focus on strengths even more relevant today than 20 years ago. Strengthscope wants to help as many people on the planet as possible identify what makes them unique and how they can use this knowledge to make their strongest contribution at work. Here’s to the next 20 years of strengthening humans at work!”
– Dr Paul Brewerton, Founder and Chair, Strengthscope
