By Kelsey Boudin
Executive Director, Strength Solutions
Today’s business world is more than fast-paced. It’s mercurial. The work world changes all the time, for so many different reasons, whether it’s evolving alongside new technologies, adjusting to hybrid work environments or even re-imagining the metrics of productivity itself. Many business leaders have embraced professional development training to improve skills and philosophies on their teams.
So why does professional development training so often fail?
You’ve likely seen how quickly staff members’ eyes glaze over while attending yet another training seminar on conflict resolution or some new best practice that most workers will forget – or ignore.
The Virtues Project™ is a workplace training model that actually could make those skill-building efforts more fruitful. After all, it’s still essential to continually learn and develop their skills to stay ahead of the game.
To answer that glaring question above, the reason professional development training so often fails is most training models teach the rote memorization of some skill. It’s boring. It’s difficult to apply in the day-to-day when most others are tuning out. It does nothing to build your organizational capacity if the team doesn’t have the character to learn, care and work together in the end.
The Virtues Project™ is a global initiative that provides tools and strategies to help individuals and organizations recognize and build their personal and interpersonal character strengths. Here are just some of the benefits:
Our training provides individuals with an opportunity to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and identify areas for personal growth. This self-reflection increases self-awareness and a deeper understanding of one’s own character and motivations. It’s astonishing how few people out there truly know themselves deeply.
Strength Solutions, Inc. encourages individuals to cultivate virtues such as honesty, compassion and mindfulness, which are essential for personal and professional success. Through the Virtues Project™, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of their own character and explore how to apply virtues to their daily lives.
Individuals further develop and fine-tune important workplace soft skills such as communication, teamwork and problem-solving. Need better collaboration and innovation? It all starts with team-building.
The Virtues Project™ emphasizes recognizing and valuing the strengths of others. Again, the strengths of OTHERS. Too often, we’re locked into our own bubbles. We’re improving ourselves. We’re focusing on our gifts to the table. But how much do we focus on the vital skills Aaron from accounting or Laura from legal bring, too?
By focusing on the good qualities of others, individuals can build stronger relationships and create a healthy work environment. Our professional development training promotes a culture of appreciation and respect; a roadmap to interact with empathy and understanding.
It’s not a lecture. It’s not just discussing the Virtues™ and how they may be used in daily life. Team members may sit around the table and discuss their daily realities – both personal and professional – for better understanding of each other. Understanding viewpoints, pain points and priorities helps us to view others with compassion rather than judgment and criticism.
This can help to break down barriers between team members and build trust and cooperation. By promoting communication, we help organizations to resolve issues before they escalate into bigger problems.
Strength Solutions, Inc. helps individuals and organizations to develop more open, honest, effective and respectful communication. The side effect? Reduced conflict and improved teamwork. This positive approach to communication leads to stronger relationships and improved teamwork.
Our professional development training program emphasizes active listening – arguably the most key component of effective communication. By actively listening, your valued team members can better understand their colleagues and respond more thoughtfully.
The Virtues Project™ also helps individuals develop a more comprehensive vocabulary – “Speaking the Language of the Virtues™” – to effectively express their feelings and opinions. Communicating ideas and opinions more clearly and confidently goes so far toward building workplace harmony and improving productivity.
Team members feeling more heard and validated – while also hearing and validating others – also leads to greater workplace productivity, creativity and innovation. (Related reading: Case Study: Teenagers Setting the Bar for Productivity.)
Identifying our strengths and weaknesses, enables us to focus our efforts where we have the greatest impact in alignment with the organizational mission. This recognition process works as well for the individual as for co-workers and supervisors who, through discussion, grow to understand your experience, skills and expertise are best used in certain ways. This communal awareness and reflection greatly enhances productivity and effectiveness in the workplace.
The team functions best when individuals focus on the good in themselves and others. Overall, the Virtues Project™ increases productivity by helping individuals to become more engaged, motivated and effective in their roles.
The Virtues Project™ also improves the reputation of organizations that use it for professional development training. By fostering a culture of personal and collective growth, reflection, and character strengths, organizations demonstrate commitment to an uplifting work environment.
What’s that equal? Increased job satisfaction and an improved reputation as an employer of choice. And who wouldn’t love attracting (and retaining) top talent? Studies say every time an organization replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months of that salary in recruiting and training expenses to replace them.
Of course, these benefits also trickle down to the people and communities you serve. When organizations prioritize the development of their employees’ character strengths and virtues, a natural result is improved relations with clients and customers. This can increase loyalty to your brand – the ROI of which is repeat business and positive word-of-mouth referrals.
Training, at one point or another, is always necessary to build skills and improve your workplace. What that improvement means and how it’s measured vary from place to place. But one thing’s for sure, the Virtues Project™ focuses on positive character virtues for teams to not only upgrade their skills but also the character required for sustainable growth.
By incorporating Strength Solutions, Inc. into your professional development training, individuals and teams enjoy a more well-rounded, productive and fulfilling work experience. To get started, email me at kelsey@strengthsolutions.org or call (585) 307-7389.
