Average to A+, Alex Linley on Realizing Strength

Positive Psychology Findings on the Benefits of Using Strengths

Jul 15, 2008

The latest from positive psychology on personal strengths, how to spot them, and why you should use them.

Positive psychology researcher and entreprenuer Alex Linley's latest book Average to A+ Realising Strengths in Yourself and Others (CAPP Press, UK, 2008) provides everything an individual or business enterprise needs to know to begin harvesting the many benefits of individual and team strengths.

After years of research and interest in the application of personal strengths to life and business success, Linley left his position as professor of psychology at the University of Leicester in the UK to found the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP). CAPP's mission is Strengthening the World, an ambitious intent to help everyone understand the value of utilizing their unique strengths.

What Is a Strength?

Linley describes a strength as, "a pre-existing capacity for a particular way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is authentic and energising to the user, and enables optimal functioning, development, and performance." Whether one thinks of strengths as God-given or a result of evolution and early childhood nurturing, it is generally agreed that people have special skills and talents that set them apart, are demonstrable at a very early age, and persist throughout a lifetime.

Benefits of Utilizing Strengths

Linley summarizes the benefits to individuals of using their strengths as, "using strengths more is associated with significantly higher levels of happiness, well-being, and fulfillment, as well as a greater degree of authenticity and personal integration, feeling in touch with yourself and acting in ways that are right for you."

For businesses that focus on utilizing workers' strengths, Linley indicates greater productivity and performance, with specific data from research studies.

The theme of Linley's book, captured in the title Average to A+ is that when using strengths people are at their very best, performing at an A+ level in academic terminology. He challenges the reader to contemplate the individual and world-wide advances that could be made if a large percentage of the population, including organizations, worked at or very near their best.

What about Weaknesses?

Linley criticizes the widespread organizational practice of focusing on individual weaknesses during annual performance reviews, describing the process of expecting everyone to be good at everything as the curse of mediocrity. Instead of expending effort to get better at weaknesses, moving from below average to perhaps average, Linley suggests concentrating on growing and utilizing strengths, talents at which people already excel and deeply enjoy. He recommends, wherever possible, making weaknesses irrelevant.

This book may become the bible of strengths, how to recognize them, how to grow them, and how to use strengths to the best advantage of individuals, businesses, organizations, and the world.

The copyright of the article Average to A+, Alex Linley on Realizing Strength in Self-Awareness is owned by Jerry Lopper. Permission to republish Average to A+, Alex Linley on Realizing Strength in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.