Written by Olin and Laura Jennings of The Jennings Group. Both are SDI Master Trainers

Applying Relationship Awareness Theory and the SDI tool to build emotional intelligence as a practical skill set in ministers and pastors has transformed them.  They were confident spiritual leaders, but now they have relaxed into their roles as leaders and motivators of people and their churches.  They now are better equipped to impact their churches and communities.  They applied this new awareness to difficult members of their staff, elder boards, and congregations.  Suddenly, they understood why they were having such severe problems.  They were able to identify more constructive ways to deal with their own negative emotions and take the lead in solving these difficult people issues.  Many of the people issues that kept them awake at night and were constant emotional discussion topics with their spouses (as part of the church leadership team) were resolved.  They also applied this new knowledge to their own marriages, strengthening their marriages and their leadership influence as the first leadership team of their churches.  This case study includes personal growth metrics achieved during the training program. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for more ways to link self-awareness and workplace behavior? Consider building an activity around an organization’s values and mission. With the organization’s values statement (or similar document) in hand, try one of the following levels of activity: Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Justus Lewis, PhD, facilitator, educator, consultant and coach working in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. This article is from her e-zine newsletter.

This issue of the e-zine focuses on Relationship Awareness Theory. I have personally found it to be a very practical and helpful tool in understanding myself and other people. Both in working with teams in organizations and coaching individual clients, I have found that Relationship Awareness Theory, the associated Strength Deployment Inventory, and other related ‘tools’ give people the ‘Ahah!’ experience, and help them to understand and resolve some of the dynamics of conflict.

I was recently talking to a sales manager who described a conflict with one of his suppliers. This supplier had a history of being frequently on the telephone to the manager about one thing or another. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Lea Symonds, Director, Personal Strengths, Australia

Recently I read an article by Patrick Lencioni about “Addressing Team Dysfunctions”.  It made me think about how the SDI could be used to think about those times when a team is not functioning effectively.

In his article, Patrick recommended that some simple questions were useful to identify warning signs and as I read, I started to wonder how SDI might be able to add some valuable insights. Perhaps these questions would be useful when using SDI with teams.

Consider…

Do team members openly and readily disclose and share opinions, or information that is relevant to others? Which styles might have difficulty doing this and what would they need in order to be more willing to share. Are there any current situations that are working against openness? Thinking about team member MVS –- are there any situations that some people might find confronting and so they are reticent about disclosure or pointing a point-of-view forward?  Read the rest of this entry »

click to view samples

WHAT’S NEW IN #4:

SLIDES: We’ve freshened up the design and improved graphics to make complex concepts easier for participants to understand and apply. We’ve also removed the PSP logo and made the slides co-brandable — adding space for you to add your own logo on slide masters.

EXPANDED CONTENT: This edition includes five PowerPoint slideshows, seventeen reproducible forms, and twenty-one activities including: “Where Do You Stand,” “Overdone Mailbox,” “Conflict Communication Process,” as well as Read the rest of this entry »

QUESTION: A lot of coaches that I have talked to say that we should work on our strengths and not work at all on our weaknesses, do you think that’s right?

ANSWER:   I think that’s certainly a workable way to approach things — to focus on our strengths. But I think we need to be aware that sometimes our strengths turn into weaknesses. When we think about weaknesses in terms of overdone strengths, whenever we’re contemplating a weakness, we are in fact trying to figure out how to turn it into strength. Now this is more relevant to our inner strengths and not so much to skills.  A lot of the people who suggest that we focus only on strengths are saying that in a skills or competencies context – they’d say “Don’t waste time trying to overcome your computer programming weakness if you are successful public speaker.” And I’d agree wholeheartedly with that.

I’m reminded of a story from a client that was doing some SDI work with people in Welfare to Work programs. These women came into the training with very negative self images. They saw themselves in terms of their weaknesses. These were people who had difficulty acknowledging that they had strengths at all. The facilitators were able to start by focusing on weaknesses. Then, once the participants agreed with their weaknesses, they were able to show them how to see their corresponding strengths. Ironically, the women would get defensive about their weaknesses and start to explain what they were trying to do — which was almost always something productive. Then they would talk about how they failed.  In this case, it was the initial focus on weakness that generated the defensiveness and a window into positive intent and finally a discovery and acceptance of their inner strengths.

As a result of this program, the administrators in Los Angeles found that they had a lower return rate. The participants went out and got jobs and began to see themselves as people who had strengths, instead of people who had weaknesses. Because of that they were able to keep their jobs, and the program saw a reduction in the number of these same people coming back a second or third time – which of course saves money.

Tim Scudder, CEO, Personal Strengths, USA

To Whom It May Concern:

In 2008, Süd-Chemie Inc. embarked on a company-wide effort to improve leadership and the effectiveness of how our people work together.  We sought a program suitable for our entire employee population, from our hourly workforce to our executive management.  Following an inspirational introduction by Keith Catchpole of Personal Strengths which included a pilot program involving key managers throughout our organization, we selected Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI).  The program focuses on one of the most important aspects of diversity in the work place…differences in personal motivation that leads to conflict and productivity losses.

Thus far over 500 Süd-Chemie Inc. employees have participated in a one and a half day workshop and the results have been remarkable.  Our employees have adopted a new vocabulary that indicates a refreshing level of appreciation for differences in personal styles and approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by George Norton, SDI Master Facilitator

What makes a strong leader?  Some believe that comprehensive knowledge of employees is the single most important factor in good leadership.  Others think that managing the working environment is imperative.  And many argue that leaders who exploit their own strengths make the best leaders.

But merely maximizing their own set of strengths can actually limit the ability of a leader to be their best.  If we assume that each of us possesses a different set of strengths, then none of us can be totally accomplished on our own.  In fact, it may be valuable for us to at least learn about others’ strengths and try to incorporate those winning behaviors into our own leadership roles.  Perhaps it is not necessary to incorporate them on a regular basis but, rather, to borrow them for a short time only when we need them. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlsbad, CA — March 3, 2009  – Personal Strengths has announced the session line-up for Relationship Awareness 2009 conference. For three days in October, SDI facilitators from around the world will return to the charming coastal community of Carlsbad, California for the biennial event.

“We had a record-breaking number of speaker proposals submitted this year. The result is a top notch agenda — sessions focused on maximizing the SDI training investment, creating lasting behavior change, and boosting the SDI’s impact and reach within organizations,” explained Kent Mitchell, Director of Marketing Communications and organizer of the Personal Strengths event. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Tom Beasor, Managing Director of the Personal Strengths, South Africa

I met a lady this week and we did the SDI inventory and the main talking point about her score was the long arrow into the red in conflict. She readily agreed that this represented her well. She rose to the challenge in conflict and wanted fiercely to fight her corner when life got tough. The problem for her was that she was from a culture where women cannot readily speak up and have their say. This frustrated her mightily and she had to find a coping strategy whereby she could express herself to her own satisfaction while at the same time satisfying cultural norms. Read the rest of this entry »