Aligning Strengths, Expectations for Powerful Partnerships

On a recent Called to Coach, we spoke with Gallup Senior Practice Expert Lisa Peterson. Lisa has more than 30 years of experience as a consultant, coach, and human resources executive. Her wealth of expertise includes human capital strategy, organizational development, talent management, human resources management, and executive coaching.

Lisa was introduced to strengths during her career at Stryker. While there, she primarily used strengths for the early identification of individuals' talents in order to produce and develop exceptional teams. Knowing individuals' talents also gave managers a great resource to maximize the performance of their respective teams.

One of Lisa's favorite books is Power of 2, which she has found to be a great resource for leaders and managers to understand just how important it is for individuals to collaborate. As individuals more frequently collaborate with one another, their engagement and overall happiness often increases as a result.

To piggyback on the spirit of collaborative partnerships, Lisa also talked about how to use strengths in a mentor-mentee relationship. Mentors need to know the strengths of those they are mentoring in order to understand how they can leverage their own strengths for a perfect partnership. It's also important for the mentee to clarify his or her expectations going into the mentorship process. When both individuals are on the same page with their expectations and how their strengths work together, it lays the foundation for a powerful relationship.

To learn more about Lisa and her experience with strengths, watch the full video above.

Lisa Peterson's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Responsibility, Maximizer, Relator, Achiever and Learner.