my article

© Coert Visser Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade? - Benjamin Franklin Excellent performance is based on strengths This article is a follow up of Effective managers pay attention to strengths . That article explained how excellent performance is primarily based on identifying, applying and developing strengths. The statement is supported by solid research by Gallup. However, in everyday practice most (HR) managers seem to take strengths for granted and focus first and foremost on identifying and eliminating weaknesses and deficits. Large-scale international research by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O' Clifton (2001) has shown that effective manager do not emphasize weaknesses and limitations but strengths. From their research it has become clear that effective managers are led by the convictions that everyone’s talents are lasting and unique and that the greatest opportunity for development for each person lies in the area of their grea...

Positive psychology Until recently psychology has mainly been working within a disease model: a strong emphasis has been placed on discovering deficits in human behavior and finding ways to repair this damage. Psychologists hardly focused on doing studies and acquiring knowledge about healthy functioning and building strengths. In other words: they have focused solely on taking away something negative (the disfunctioning) instead of adding something positive (increasing mental and behavioral health). The result: psychologists know little about healthy and happy functioning. This situation has been changing now since the rise of positive psychology a few years ago. What is Positive Psychology? It is a new movement in psychology, originated by Martin Seligman and a few other prominent psychologists among whom Mihali Csikszentmihalyi (author of FLOW). It aims to be a psychological science about the best things in life. Main topics of study are: positive emotions, positive traits and posit...