Leveraging Your
Strengths to
Reach Your Goals
Judith Albino, PhD
President Emerita and Professor
Colorado School of Public Health
AAL Senior Consultant
Learning Goals
 Use Appreciative Inquiry Skills to learn
about others’ strengths and potential
 Identify your Personal Strengths
 Understand the Johari Window as a tool
to optimize your strengths
 Elicit feedback to move toward greater
use of your strengths to reach your goals
Begin with a Goal in Mind
Think of a current
goal related to
your work or the work you would
like to do.
Write the goal
in simple terms
- large or small
- immediate or long-term
…we’ll come back to this
Small Group Exercise
Form a group with 2 others.
Speaker (each takes a turn) uses 7 minutes to
share a peak experience.
Listeners practice Appreciative Inquiry to learn
more about speaker’s strengths, jot down key
words. Probe about key issues; be curious.
Listen for actions, energy, motivation.
Rotate until each person speaks.
Appreciative Inquiry*
Approach to studying and improving human
behavior by focusing on the best of what is
in order to imagine the best that could be.
A solution-focused, rather than a problemfocused, orientation.
*Cooperrider and Srivastva,1987; Bushe, 1998
Rules for Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciate and understand by asking open
ended questions that:
•
•
•
•
•
Help understand and discover
Reflect what is positive and constructive
Reveal context and catalysts
Elucidate behaviors and feelings
Envision a positive future
No critiquing, no judging, no secondguessing
Peak Work Experience
Think of a time when you were at your
best at work, when you felt “in the flow,”
alive, and totally engaged:
•
•
What was the context: setting, task,
people?
What were you thinking and doing then?
Visualize…
Get grounded
in the memory of
your actual experience; explore
what about yourself, the situation,
the task, and others made this a
"peak" experience for you.
 Prepare
to describe this
experience.
Let’s review….
In groups of 3:
Speakers, in turn, take 7 minutes to share a
peak experience.
Listeners practice Appreciative Inquiry to
learn more about speaker’s strengths, jot
down key words. Probe key issues and be
curious, and note actions, energy, fears,
motivation, etc.
Rotate until each person speaks.
Assessing Strengths
You heard about a peak experience, when
someone was at his/her best….
Now, describe that individual’s greatest
strengths as demonstrated by features of
the story that was told.
Spotlight on Strengths
Strengths are useful to the extent that they
are visible to ourselves and to others.
Johari Window provides a framework for
understanding our strengths.
It allows us to compare what we know of
ourselves with what others know of us.
Strengths Worksheet
•
Worksheets for self and peer assessment.
•
In your group, read the list of Judann adjectives
describing work behaviors of individuals.
•
Choose 6 words that best exemplify the person
in the peak work experience story; note
behaviors that demonstrated those strengths.
•
Complete a Strengths Worksheet for yourself
and for the others in your group.
•
Each person will compile their own assessments.
Johari Window
Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, 1955
Four aspects of personality vary in visibility
Johari Window Panes
• “Arena” or “Open” (NW)
– Known to self and to others; goal to increase
• “Façade” or “Hidden” (SW)
‒ We know about ourselves, others do not see
• “Blind Area” (NE)
‒ Others see in us things that we do not see
• “Unknown” (SE)
‒ Neither we nor others see
‒ May represent our greatest potential
How Johari Can Help
Scoring Window Reflections
o
Compile your adjective lists.
o
Array sheets of JUDANN Adjectives.
•
o
Self assessment + your peer assessments
Copy all adjectives used to describe you
(by yourself or others) into appropriate
Johari Window panes.
Johari Window Example
Known
By Self
Unknown
By Self
Known
By Others
Open/Arena
Authentic
Calming
Analytical
Blind Spot
Innovative
Dependable
Positive
Unknown
By Others
Hidden/Façade
Principled
Strategic
Pragmatic
Unknown
All other adjectives
For Reflection and Discussion:
•
What surprised you most about what others see in
you that you don’t see (Blind Areas)?
•
When/why do others see these? Could you use these
strengths more frequently?
•
How do you feel about your Open area strengths?
Is this how you want to be seen?
•
What do you know about yourself that others don’t
seem to recognize (Hidden)? Would you like
anything to be more visible?
•
What areas in the Unknown frame would you like
to develop? Why?
Johari Experience
o
Successful leaders are clear about their
own strengths; they work intentionally
to develop them.


Self reflection is critical
Feedback reduces blind areas, unknown
o
Successful leaders build teams that
optimize aggregated strengths.

Caution: Your greatest strengths can
be your greatest weaknesses!
Use Strengths to Reach Goals
o
Return to your goals from the
beginning of this session; choose one.
o
Explore how to use a strength in
pursuing one of your goals

Choose one JUDANN adjective to target,
and state your goal as a question:
How can I use _________ to _________?
Get some help…
Let’s get as much input as possible in
the next few minutes, using:
Feedforward
What’s Feedforward?
Feedback – focuses on the past;
more often than not, it is about
what we did badly.
Feedforward – focuses on the future
and what we can do differently,
or better.
Feedforward Procedures
Two lines facing; begin standing opposite
someone you do not know well.
Bell rings: Begin: ask your question
Bell rings: Stop: say “thank you”
No discussing or explaining, no critiquing
or suggestions, no talking about the past
All suggestions are for the future
Move quickly; total time 1 minute.
Describe the Experience
Why is Feedforward Helpful?
o Others can help us reach goals.
o We get new ideas – some work!
o We can change the future, not the past.
o We don’t take it personally.
o Same as feedback – but positive!
o People listen more attentively.
o Anyone can help, especially peers.
Thank you for your
participation.
Judith
[email protected]