From The Iowa County magazine MARCH 2023 issue

To see the graphics with this article, view on the ISAC website.

Finding Strengths Paves the Way

Your county may have experienced staffing changes or the pandemic has shifted your office culture and you need help knowing where to begin to get the office environment back on track. As the saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work.” While that may be true, recognizing employees’ strengths and ensuring they are in the correct placement can improve your team, reduce turnover and help create succession plans. Sometimes viewing things through a different lens or taking a new perspective can considerably impact your organization's culture.

The phrase “we have always done it this way” may be brought up, but something that worked five years ago may not work now. Let’s reframe the objection to become “what haven’t we done yet?” 

Have you identified your employee's strengths? Many tools out there focus on team building through identifying employee strengths, including the Color Test, Enneagram Test, DiSC, Myer Briggs and Gallup’s CliftonStrengths, among others.

Personality/strength finding assessments are great resources to help individuals identify what they do best and provide a common ground for employees to better define, communicate with and understand each other. This is beneficial because, let's face it, explaining what you are good at can be challenging and may mean different things to each person. An assessment can offer insight into how to work more effectively  as a team because you fully understand your strengths and those of your teammates. “When you have people in roles that fit their strengths and talents, their energy and passion can fuel their own great performance and inspire the same from their partners.” (Clifton Strengths) This will also help you assign your staff to projects by pairing staff who can help balance each other out and spark new ideas and ways of thinking. When selecting an assessment, it is important to do your research and determine which assessment is best for your organization. Any test you select must be valid and reliable. Ensure the test has the necessary tools/training options and can be adapted to team building in conjunction with individual strength identification.

Changing it up
CliftonStrengths states, “individuals who know their strengths work together to form better partnerships, and more thoughtful partnerships create stronger teams. Strong teams start with the individual.” Once you understand how your staff collaborates and what each team member can bring to the table, your team becomes stronger. That being said, sometimes to leverage one’s strength, a change in duties or job responsibilities are in order. As a county, you are probably thinking, “How does all of this apply to us? Our city roles are pretty defined.” This is where the new lens comes in handy. Let’s say you have public works staffer; you have identified their strengths and learned what they do best. You found out they are analytical and like working with data. You could add maintaining database on equipment repairs and maintenance schedules to their list of tasks. They now have a task that they feel good about doing, which changes their mindset.

It is the administrator/manager's role to find what work fits their employee's needs versus work that will drain them. And yes, employees will still have to do some work they don't enjoy, i.e., filling out reports or crunching numbers, but knowing what gives your staff energy and allowing them to do those tasks as well can make up for it. In addition, having conversations with your employee on growth, development or new ideas will get them engaged and improve teamwork. Doing this shows that you are invested in your employees and can help them see what they can become.

Knowing the individual strengths is essential, but the collective strengths of your team are equally significant. If your team does the Strength Finder test, use the strength grid to show the order of a team's strengths and provide invaluable insights into how your team operates. This will help you manage your team based on their strengths. For example, if they are strategic thinkers, you will manage them differently than the relationship-building group.

Putting it into Action
Start by reviewing job descriptions, do the current descriptions reflect the actual duties required for the position? It is also important to determine if the employee is doing what matches their strengths; if not, is there a way to change up roles and titles? Employees who are allowed to utilize their strengths and interests have a higher level of satisfaction and engagement. Empowering your employees empowers your team. “Excellence is created through the merging of people's differing strengths. Once each team member's strengths are aimed at the same purpose and teams are aligned on goals, true excellence and success happen. So, encourage collaboration among team members who have complementary strengths. Better yet, model these healthy partnerships and show that teamwork is important.”

Fostering the Team
Establishing the team and their strengths is not enough. A manager must also foster the team relationship to keep the department running smoothly. This can be done in the following ways (not an exhaustive list):

  • Managers - set a time on your calendar to check in with each of your employees. Learn what they are working on, ask about their family and take some time to connect.

  • Employee appreciation - a little bit goes a long way.

  • Staff - reach out to your manager and request a time to check in. Have a few talking points that you want to discuss. Then ask about making check-ins a regular occurrence if you aren’t already.

  • Go on team/department lunches- get out of the office and connect.

  • Fostering teamwork - ensure roles and responsibilities are clear, collaborate via brainstorming or team discussions, set team goals and reward as a team, communicate effectively via listening and feedback.

Team bonding doesn't have to be formal or restrictive. Try to schedule fun monthly activities that bring team members together and provide a way to connect. It can be as easy as chatting about work, about life - just take the time to start forming those meaningful relationships.

  • Start planning fun lunches such as taco day or potlucks and give your staff some to chat.

  • Desert baking contest or a chili cookoff – give a trophy to the winner and hold it yearly, so the champion can defend their title.

  • Try an escape room – create teams based on their strengths and see how they work together.

  • Take walks.

  • Do a book study as a team.

  • Create a game time.

  • Get coffee and chat at the coffee shop.

Changing the mindset to “what we haven’t done yet?” can open up new possibilities within your team. Teams working together is a universal key to success, including boosting employee morale, creating better processes, reducing turnover and helping create a transition/succession plan based on what your current employees bring to the table. Henry Ford said it best, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is success.”

Jessica Vogel is the communication coordinator for the League and may be reached at jessicavogel@iowaleague.org and Lisa England is the human resource/management adviser for IMWCA and may be reached at lisaengland@iowaleague.org.

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