 Katie Ledger, TV presenter, presentation coach and conference host
“Mike uses the strengths way to tell it like it is. Without the use of fancy gadgets and gizmos he takes you back to the real issues and asks you what you’re passionate about, where you really want to be and how much you want to earn. He then helps you to think through steps you’ll need to take in order to reach your goals with the help of some very practical exercises. He gives some helpful reminders which I use on a daily basis, “take the best, leave the rest”, “everything is a choice but there are consequences” and my personal favourite “how are you CHOOSING to be today?” They really work…
|
 Roy White, VP of HR, Sony Europe
“Strengths mentoring has been cascaded throughout Sony Europe via our talent strategy and related programmes. It provides our people with practical tools, frameworks and know-how to help them take charge of their career, enabling them to consistently achieve ‘A’ performances and the company to stay ahead of its field.”
“One to one mentoring using the strengths approach is effective because it goes beyond the ceremony and clichés people often expect from mentoring. By focusing on personal strengths and setting goals it enables you to complete thought processes. People come to terms with, or gain a sense of realisation about, career related stuff they may have subconsciously been trying to avoid. For example, they may know in their hearts what they do best and how to make their best contribution to the company, but they can sometimes get drawn into a role that does not play to their strengths. We have found that people who recognise their ‘A’ talents go on to achieve and maintain peak performance. This benefits both them and our company.”
“Following the success of the strengths mentoring approach here at Sony Europe, we have started to implement the super teams workshop within some of our teams. It has been extraordinarily powerful because it relates directly to our results focused culture. It also provides a personalised shared vision to the teams partaking, leaving them with a practical, memorable and sustainable framework for success.
|
 Amanda Mackenzie, Group Marketing Director, Aviva
“The Strengths Way works because it enables you to excel by simply being yourself in your workplace–and encouraging others to do so too. This is refreshing in a corporate world that normally tells you to focus on combating your weaknesses to become a good general manager. After all, why aim for mediocrity? The real depth comes through in mentoring sessions. When faced by a tough challenge, I have found the approach provides many practical tools that you can use to find creative solutions. Then, when you put them into practice, they actually work. People intuitively know what they do best and how they work best. But sometimes it takes us years to learn the art of following these principles in the work place. Finally, when we learn to apply them with both creative and commercial sense, we find they work for ourselves, for our teams and of course our companies reap the benefits.”
|
 Nick Hynes, former CEO of The Search Works and The Technology Works, who are now part of the successful TradeDoubler group
“The Search Works’ continuing success comes down to employing great people with a similarity of spirit and a diversity of skills. The strengths way gave us the tools to do this. It wasn’t just about recruiting the right people though. It was about supporting them and giving them the environment they needed to excel. It was about creating a culture of shared values where positive self-managing achievers thrived. I recommend a strengths approach to anybody who wants to create such a culture. It works.”
|
 Kate Lavender, former Head of Customer Service, Air Miles
“Mike introduced me to the strengths approach over ten years ago. Since then I have used both the principles and practical ideas at boardroom level in the organisations where I have worked, including Air Miles, PPP Healthcare and Lastminute.com. Few people will argue with the principle of building on strengths. But it is only when you get into the nitty-gritty, practical detail that you realise its power. At first sight it can appear a ‘soft touch’. But I can vouch for how focused and effective the approach is, particularly when dealing with tough situations or having to make difficult strategic decisions. I would recommend both individuals and teams to take a look at the strengths approach. Certainly I have found it to be both encouraging and extremely effective.”
|
 Jens Bachem, Managing Director, Digital-Outlook
“Digital-Outlook is fortunate to have many creative people who want to make full use of their talents. The strengths approach is an excellent way of enabling them to do what they do best. We have found this to be really beneficial - for individuals, for teams and for the whole company.”
|
 Nick Mercer, Commercial Director, Eurostar
“The strengths way allows you, in a pragmatic way, to really understand what makes you tick and how, through this understanding, to find the best ways to really build and develop your strengths and career. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn and improve.”
|
 Paul Bird, former MD Boddingtons Hotels, turned strengths mentor specialising in implementing cultural change
“I have used the strengths philosophy throughout a highly successful career in the retail and leisure industries as a plc director and entrepreneur. It remains the core influence of my work today as an executive business coach and mentor specialising in business leadership, cultural change and personal self mastery. The strengths approach is effective because it is based on a universal truth - we all have ‘A’ talents (or a vocation). All we need is the confidence to believe in our talent and the commitment to take action. The strengths philosophy encourages us to break free from limiting self beliefs based on false perceptions and helps us to turn dreams into plans and plans into success. The essential ingredients for personal success are clarity of purpose, passionate self belief and persistent self discipline and as the strengths philosophy taught me, when we set out to be who we truly are we prosper, when we compromise or try to fake it we struggle”.
|
 Emma Wilson, Director, Harvest Digital
“Harvest Digital is a rapidly growing business full of ambitious people. Like any growing company, we need to harness people’s strengths to make sure we reach our goals. The strengths approach has really helped to make this happen. I would recommend it to anybody who wants to channel the talents of their people towards achieving peak performance.”
|
Alison Fulford, Customer Services Consultant for Marks & Spencers, The Environment Agency and others
“The super team’s approach is an extremely practical way of guiding a business to success. The key is to ensure that the people have an absolutely crystal-clear picture of results to achieve. The people can use the super team principles to make this happen.
“I’ve found that organisations aspire to give outstanding service to their customers, but they don’t always know how to do it in a simple and meaningful way. A common mistake is to focus on the process and make it too complicated - a bit like stretching your right arm over your head so you can scratch your left ear. I have found that by helping organisations to visualise and describe the ideal customer experience they want to create, they can build teams who want to use their talents and build on their strengths to turn that vision into reality. These teams are more likely to do fulfilling work and deliver ongoing success.”
|
Paul Mitford, HR Director, PC World
“Building on people’s strengths used to be a neglected part of employee development. During the past ten years, however, many HR practitioners have implemented this approach. Philosophies come and go, but the real test is: ‘Do they work in practice?’ The strengths coaching approach is one that I have found to be extremely effective in practice. It provides many ideas and tools that can be used to develop people at every level in an organisation.”
Clive McNamara, CEO, The Marketing Practice
“The Marketing Practice was founded on the central tenet of the strengths philosophy - focus on what you do well and know your niche. We do. We provide targeted demand generation marketing services for the enterprise software, IT service and consulting markets. We have adopted the strengths philosophy at the board level and are filtering it through our organisation with the super team workshop which is having a highly motivating and focusing effect on us all. The facts say it all. We have grown 50 % year on year since our launch in 2002 and last year The Federation of Small Business named us as finalists for Small Business of the Year. We have been able to achieve this because we know our strengths, have set some very challenging goals and are kept on track by the strengths approach.”
Alan Deller, former CEO Air Miles Travel Promotions and current Chief Executive Chairman, Trayport Ltd
“At Air Miles we worked with Mike to help us identify our values and build a people-focused, achievement culture. We were determined to recruit and retain people who were prepared to take responsibility and use their talents to contribute towards achieving the company goals. Our part of the bargain was to provide them with the environment in which they got support to deliver service to our customers— but also to provide them with the opportunity to develop. Amongst other things we gave people the opportunity to attend annual career development workshops and participate in personal mentoring programmes.
“The strengths approach is challenging, effective and particularly well-suited to forward-thinking, growing businesses. It helped us greatly at Air Miles and we have been using similar approaches at Trayport. “
|
|
