To increase Strengths, 15Five recommends...

  • Improve role clarity

    Encourage People Ops/HR to improve role clarity by adding team member's job title and job description to Career vision within Home of 15Five.

  • Discover team member's top strengths

    Encourage team members to take strengths assessments, such as VIA Character Strengths or Gallup’s CliftonStrengths, and identify their top strengths. Add top five strengths to Career vision within Home of 15Five.

  • Encourage strengths-role alignment

    Encourage managers and team members to compare their role description to their top five strengths. If there’s a gap, encourage managers to find at least one way to leverage top strengths in the role.

  • Complete the Best-Self Kickoff

    Encourage managers to complete the Best-Self Kickoff Template with team members to understand what they need to do their best work.

  • Encourage strengths spotting

    Encourage team members to highlight a person's top strengths when sending a High Five.

  • Encourage strengths awareness

    Encourage People Ops/HR to leverage the Best-Self Review’s Growth & Development Recommended Question Template Question #1 to help team members with strengths awareness and role alignment: What are your top three strengths & how did you apply them to your work since your last review?

  • Encourage external strengths feedback

    Encourage People Ops/HR to leverage 15Five’s 360° Best-Self Review™ Peer Review Growth & Development Recommended Question Template Question #1 to help team members gather strengths-based feedback: What are [Name’s] top strengths?

  • Encourage external strengths feedback for managers

    Encourage People Ops/HR to leverage 15Five’s 360° Best-Self Review™ Upward Review Growth & Development Recommended Question Template Question #1 to help managers gather strengths-based feedback from team members: What are [Name’s] top strengths?

  • Hold managers accountable for strengths-based development

    Encourage People Ops/HR to leverage 15Five’s 360° Best-Self Review™ Manager Expectations Recommended Question Template Question #3 to hold managers accountable for strengths-based development: [Name] helps me understand my top strengths and align my work with those strengths.

Additional resources

A Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow (1943)

Motivation and Personality by Abraham Maslow (1954)

Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow (1962)

A Primer in Positive Psychology by Chris Peterson (2006)

Positive Psychology: An Introduction by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2000)

Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Intervention by Martin Seligman, Tracy Steen, Nansook Park, & Chris Peterson (2005)

Building Human Strength: Psychology's Forgotten Mission by Martin Seligman (1998)

What (and Why) is Positive Psychology by Shelly Gable and Jonathan Haidt

Positive Psychology FAQs by Martin Seligman and James Pawelski (2003)

Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Martin Seligman and Chris Peterson (2004)

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman (1991)

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin Seligman (2002)

Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being by Martin Seligman (2011)

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor (2010)

The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky (2008)

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by  Jonathan Haidt (2006)

Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology by Chris Peterson (2012)

Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth by Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener (2008)

Positive Psychology in Practice: Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and Everyday Life (2015)

Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert (2007)

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Lee (2018)

From the Paleolithic to the Present: Three Revolutions in the Global History of Happiness by Darrin M. McMahon (2018)

Findings All Psychologists Should Know From the New Science on Subjective Well-Being by Diener, Heintzelman, Kushlev, Tay, Wirtz, Lutes, & Oishi (2016) 

On Happiness and Human Potential: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

Investing in Strengths by Donald Clifton and James Harter (2003)

Productivity Through Strengths by Asplund & Blacksmith (2011) 

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton (2001)

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath (2007)

Your Strengths Are Calling by Harzer & Ruch (2016)

Character Strengths Interventions: A Field Guide for Practitioners by Ryan Niemiec (2017) 

Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Chris Peterson Martin Seligman

Strengths of Character and Wellbeing by Nansook Park, Christopher Peterson, and Martin Seligman (2004)

VIA Character Strengths - Research & Practice: The First 10 Years by Ryan Niemiec (2013) 

Strengths Spotting_Average to A+ Realising Strengths in Yourself and Others by Linley (2008)

Flourishing in New Zealand Workers: Associations with Lifestyle Behaviors, Physical Health, Psychosocial, and Work-Related Indicators by Hone, Jarden, Duncan, & Schofield (2015)

The Role of Character Strengths for Task Performance, Job Dedication, Interpersonal Facilitation, and Organizational Support by Harzer & Ruch (2014)

Positive Psychopathology: Social Anxiety Via Character Strengths Underuse and Overuse by Freidlin, Littman-Ovadia, & Niemiec (2016)

Composing The Reflected Best-Self Portrait: Building Pathways for Becoming Extraordinary In Work Organizations by Roberts, Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy, & Quinn (2005) 

Preparing the Self for Team Entry: How Relational Affirmation Improves Team Performance by Lee, Gino, Cable, & Staats (2016) working paper

Job Crafting and Meaningful Work by Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski (2013)

Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want by Wrzesniewski, Berg & Dutton (2010)

Bigony, C. (2019). 15Five: Technology aligned to the science of thriving. (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

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