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Jerald
Forster, Professor Emeritus, College of Education, University
of Washington, collaborated with Bernard Haldane in 1987
to establish the Dependable Strengths Project at the University
of Washington. He, along with Bernard Haldane, Jean Haldane,
and Allen Boivin-Brown, later developed and implemented
5-day DSP Workshops designed to prepare professionals
to help others articulate and use their Dependable Strengths.
Jerald was one of the founding members of the Board of
Directors for the Center for Dependable Strengths. |
In 2001, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton authored a
book titled Now, Discover Your Strengths. In their
introduction, their first sentence is: "We wrote this
book to start a revolution, the strengths revolution."
On March 19, 2007, Marcus Buckingham came to Seattle as one
stop in his nationwide tour, and he spoke to a large crowd
about the progress of the strengths revolution. I attended
this session, along with hundreds of enthusiastic listeners,
and we were provided with his latest book, Go Put Your
Strengths To Work. A month later, on April 20, 2007, he
was the guest on the Today Show, the NBC morning program that
is seen by millions.
Actually, the strengths revolution is part of a larger revolution
that is occurring in North America and England. The field
of positive psychology was officially introduced in 1998 when
Martin Seligman proclaimed it to be one of the initiatives
he would implement during his year as president of the American
Psychological Association. He was very successful. The effects
of this movement have influenced many aspects of human functioning
in our society. Most recently it has caused an explosion of
changes in organizational activities. The 2003 book, Positive
Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New Discipline,
edited by Cameron, Dutton and Quinn, describes how the movement
is affecting people as they function in organizations. David
Cooperrider, one of the founders of Appreciative Inquiry,
an organizational development and change process, is one of
the contributors to this book.
As I read the many new books about these various movements
and revolutions, I am frustrated that the Dependable Strengths
Articulation Process (DSAP) and the other contributions of
Bernard Haldane are not mentioned. I am frustrated because
I personally know that these practices help individuals articulate
their strengths in ways that are more meaningful than would
have been the case if objective inventories had been used
to identify the strengths. When people articulate their strengths
using the DSAP, their ways of describing those strengths are
anchored to specific personal experiences that have been meaningful
for them. The DSAP approach is more subjective than objective,
which means that the DSAP evokes more personal meanings than
would be the case if an objective approach had been used to
inventory their strengths. It is true that everyone might
not share these subjective meanings, as they do the definitions
of words in dictionaries. Yet, subjective meanings are tied
to real-life experiences, and they are more reflective of
the ways people experience events. This is an important difference
and I don't know of any other strengths-identification process
that is as well developed, and yet as subjective, as the DSAP.
Various research studies, such as those done by the Gallup
Study of over two million people, demonstrate the success
of organizations where the strengths of members are valued.
Unfortunately, these organizations typically use inventories
that do not enable participants to articulate their most subjective
and meaningful strengths. If these same participants had used
the DSAP to explore their strengths, they would have articulated
strengths that were more personally relevant and meaningful.
Unfortunately, the DSAP takes longer than most articulation
methods and it requires facilitation by people who have been
trained to facilitate a rather complex process. It is difficult
to study the effects of the DSAP because it is difficult to
assemble data banks that include enough people to carry out
statistical studies. The positive results of the current DSAP
can best be seen in case studies where the complex changes
for individuals that occur over time can be recognized and
reported, one study at a time. Unfortunately, standard scientific
methods are designed for large numbers of participants, whose
behaviors can be measured by objective instruments, yielding
large numbers that can be analyzed by statistical procedures.
So, it appears to me that most other practitioners and theory
people in the strengths revolution are not aware of the DSAP
or its benefits. This is unfortunate because DSAP methods
would improve most efforts to facilitate the articulation
of strengths that are personally meaningful to the articulators.
How might we change this situation? What can we do to describe
the process more clearly, collect data on its benefits and
broadly communicate this information?
It seems to me that the DSAP is so complex, so long and difficult
to implement that it can hardly be understood without experiencing
the complete process. Possibly, we need to focus on an abbreviated
version of the DSAP, one that can be completed in less time
without the need of an experienced facilitator. With that
in mind, I developed a 90-minute version of the DSAP and tried
it out in two short workshops. The participants completed
it quite easily and reported positive evaluations of the experience.
I believe that more extensive use of this abbreviated version
would enable more people to experience DSAP methods. However,
we need to keep in mind that using a shorter version requires
a trade-off between depth and practicality.
After we have practices that can be more broadly used, we
need to document and communicate the extra value of using
these methods. Shorter versions will allow for more data collection
and the ability to demonstrate the benefits of the DSAP. After
we have demonstrated the benefits by using larger databases
for research, we might recruit someone like Marcus Buckingham
to learn about the DSAP and to help tell its story.
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