What Would Your Team Be Like if Everyone Was Working to Their Strengths?

At Happy, we use the Strengths Finder by Marcus Buckingham to find out what each team member's strengths are. In each team, everyone shares their strengths and the tasks that they enjoy doing the most to ensure that everyone can work to their strengths as much as possible. What would your team be like if everyone was working to their strengths? How much more productive would they be? In this short video from the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference, Cathy Busani, Happy's Managing Director, explains the benefits of working to your strengths.

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The first question I want to ask generally is what could your team be like if everyone was working to their strengths and at their best? What would that be like? Who fancies answering that question for me?

Perfect – a happy and productive team. Who else wants to share what that would be like? Definitely, focused and driven. Energised – lovely word. It’s really interesting, as leaders we often want to set the vision, but actually when people are working to their strengths they’re energised to go in the direction you’re going in. You don’t have to drag them with you. Yes, absolutely, if we’re working to our strengths we’re doing what we are best at, we’re much more likely to be working smarter.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m working to my strengths it’s effortless. There’s always ways I can improve. Just like Marcus Buckingham said, there’s always things you can do better and make better, but actually it feels effortless, it looks easy. When you see somebody making something look easy, chances are they’re working to their strengths.

So one of the very first things that you can do is have that conversation with your team – what do you love to do? What gets you up in the morning? What helps you feel magnificent? So just starting by asking those questions can make a difference.

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“What could your team be like if everyone was working to their strengths and at their best?” asked Happy’s Managing Director, Cathy Busani, at the 2019 Happy Workplaces Conference.

By working to their strengths, staff will feel happy, productive, focused, and energised. Very often (though not always!), tasks that work to their strengths is also the tasks that bring them the most happiness at work.

“As leaders we often want to set the vision, but actually when people are working to their strengths they’re energised to go in the direction you’re going in. You don’t have to drag them with you,” explained Cathy.

Working to their strengths also means that your staff will find smarter ways of working and will continuously look to develop their skills — increasing productivity and efficiency.

So how can you create strengths-based working at your organisation? “One of the very first things that you can do is have that conversation with your team – what do you love to do? What gets you up in the morning? What helps you feel magnificent? So just starting by asking those questions can make a difference.”

Resources and related content

Five Key Attributes of the Most Effective Leaders — This blog looks at the idea of Liz Wiseman’s book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Multipliers are leaders who can bring out the intelligence and unique abilities of the entire workforce. This comes through inspiring and challenging teams, engaging them in decision-making, and allowing them to use their talents.
Why a Non-Profit Scrapped Their Appraisals Process — Rather than using an annual appraisal to give staff feedback, embed a coaching culture in your organisation. “You can give effective coaching and feedback regularly, in short discussions, to help people come to their own conclusions on their performance,” explains Sophie Bryan.
The COOK Model for Great Relationships at Work — In this two- and a half-minute video from 2017 Happy Workplaces CEO Conference, Rosie Brown talks about how COOK has implemented a model for relationships at work, and how this has helped teams to work together better.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Claire Lickman

Claire is Head of Marketing at Happy. She has worked at Happy since 2016, and is responsible for Happy’s marketing strategy, website, social media and more. Claire first heard about Happy in 2012 when she attended a mix of IT and personal development courses. These courses were life-changing and she has been a fan of Happy ever since. She has a personal blog at lecari.co.uk.

Next Conference: 2025 Happy Workplaces Conference

Our Happy Workplaces Conference is our biggest event of the year, and we’d love for you to join us on Thursday 12th June!

This year’s event will be held in London, venue TBC. We may also offer a hybrid option for people to join us online simultaneously — do let us know if you are interested in joining online and we can add you to the waiting list.

As always, our next conference will be filled with interaction, discussion and space for reflection.

Book now and get our special half-price Early Bird rate — just use discount code Happy2025.