If You're Not Having Fun ... You're Fired.

If You’re Not Having Fun … You’re Fired.

Does your organization have difficulty hiring and retaining quality staff? Perhaps it suffers from lack luster performance from some employees. I have an exciting and easy set of exercises that help implement a solution. In short, by helping people understand then develop their individual strengths, they can become a champion for the development of your company.
Over 80% of Americans are not satisfied with what they are doing for a living. The majority of U.S. workers are jumping through hoops, doing what somebody else wants of them rather than what they find is meaningful. Like organizational robots, they go through the motions of their day unchallenged and unfocused.
In their heart and soul they can feel the desire for something more in their lives but they just aren’t sure what that “something” is. This purposelessness begins to eat away at their spirit like a cancer. They crave an opportunity to make their mark on the world, to make a difference in life. The real tragedy is, they don’t know what else they can do.
Of course, if they don’t know what dream it is they want to chase—and if they don’t unequivocally know why—then the odds of them even getting out of the starting gate are about as good as a donkey winning the Kentucky Derby. This lack of focus is dangerous; for your organization and the employee. Without career purpose, workers will march along on a programmed treadmill of marginal productivity. How do you go about fully developing these people’s potential? How can their talents be harvested?
They have to DIG!

Discover their Gifts
Inventory their Successes and Accomplishments
Give their Gifts


Discover their Gifts
First, its essential for individuals to have a clear understanding of what makes them truly unique and what their personal strengths are. To do this they begin by exploring their life’s history and write down what I refer to as his love-tos versus have-tos. It’s important to not just consider experiences from the work setting. Rather, they need to go back and review all of their positive life experiences that standout, both inside and out of the employment environment. This list needs to represents experiences that have brought them great joy, their favorite and most meaningful activities. What accomplishments have brought them great satisfaction and fulfillment?
There’s a simple principal at play here. When someone enjoys an experience you will recognize there was a positive outcome, some level of success or at the very least they believe they performed well. The result of this exercise uncovers clues to their gifts, their strengths and the environment in which they will thrive. Once these gifts are brought into focus, we begin to see a pattern, that individual’s track record of success.

Inventory your Successes and Achievements

Now take the “best of” their love-tos, this is the top five of these favorite activities. Each one of these experiences needs to possess the following qualities:

They thoroughly loved doing it.
They met and overcame a challenge in the process.
They felt proud of the outcome.
They found themselves wanting to learn more about the subject.

For each of these top five experiences they now create what Dr. Bill Needler calls a C.A.R. mini story. These are brief stories that are based on three things:
What was the Challenge?
What kind of Action did they take?
What were the Results? Try to quantify as many of these outcomes as possible (i.e., I created a program that had 94% approval rating, 7% increase from any other previous program).

This exercise builds self-esteem like not other. It’s not uncommon for participants to report experiencing something he had never felt before: a sense of achievement. For the first time in their lives, they can finally describe, qualify and quantify his/her self-worth.

Give their Gift

Now armed with this powerful information, these individuals can and will more enthusiastically put their newly discovered gifts into action. A gift is not a gift if it is not given. They can better understanding their own strengths and what kind of impact their unique individually can make. They have more confidence in their skills and abilities and have a better sense of how and where to use them. They are now fueled to take ownership of their own career development. They can better build a plan of action and explore opportunities within your organization because they feel they possess the ability to make a positive difference.
So I end with posing a few questions. Do you think you have employees under your direction who, if given the chance to discover their unique strengths, would feel better about themselves? Do you think if these same individuals had the opportunity to explore potential career paths within your organization, your company might be the direct benefactor of their newfound enthusiasm? And, because you were the one who gave them “a shot to grow with something they love doing,” could they become for your organization the kind of employee companies are searching for: productive, loyal and engaged in the overall growth of the business?

© Susie Mathews 2004 All rights reserved