Using Strengths to Increase Motivation

Using Strengths to Increase Motivation

Ariel Quick

MGT 312

August 04, 2016

Robert Muliero

Using Strengths to Increase Motivation

In taking the Big Five Personality Types personality assessment I recognized my strengths are; “Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.” ((McGraw Hill Education, 2016) I did find that my weakness lies with “emotional stability” ((McGraw Hill Education, 2016) I have to say I agree with this assessment as I feel am very extroverted when it comes to my personality but at the same time I do tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve and that tends to get me into trouble.

Strengths and Goal Settings and Job Performance

According to Kinicki & Fugate Extraversion is described as “outgoing, talkative, sociable, assertive” (2016) and that describes me perfectly in the workplace. I am extremely outgoing and innovative when it comes to new ideas in my organization. In November of 2015, I was given my dream job to work in the Corporate Learning and Development department on the technical side working with the Learning Management System and since I have been in that role I have moved up to the Leaning Management System Administrator. When I was first in the role the Learning Management System was barely used for messages and warm communication. I have taken the Learning Management System messaging capabilities to a level at which the company was unaware that it could do by creating transparency and accountability with our programs between the employees and managers. There used to be a question from the managers on what was the return on the training classes that the employees invested over 20 hours of their working in over the year, so coaching sheets were developed and it was my job to figure out how to deliver them. Many of the trainers did not think the Learning Management System was capable of delivering this message because the manager needed the communication also and I thought it was a great opportunity to create that accountability since the is the culture we are moving to in the organization. I was outgoing and assertive and stood my ground on my decision and to this day the manager and employees enjoy the deliver because it gives them a chance to talk about the class and ensure the skills learned are being used in the daily workforce. In that moment because I was “dependable, responsible, achievement oriented, persistent” (Kinicki & Fugate, 2016) my coworkers had trust that I was conscientiousness about the customer and the culture of the company and that was when they began to trust that I added great value to the team. In that moment they knew and I also knew that my persistence was not for my own success but it was the success of the those we serve in the company and that is the part of my personality that helps most in my job performance. There has been times I have wanted to make changes that may have not been best for the end user and one part of my personality that stood out in this assessment was even though my mind may have an “openness to experience” as described by Kinicki & Fugate, as intellectual, imaginative, curious, broad-minded (2016) my ideas my not always work best for what the team is trying to accomplish so I have to listen to the ideas and best practices of my teammates since they have been in the organization and the business longer. When I first started the team was doing all of the Instructor Lead Evaluation Forms in the form of paper and I had to enter them manually and that was not a task I enjoyed so I suggested that we use Survey Monkey and send them out electronically so that we can report on them easily. This was not an idea that was easily adaptable from the trainer since the evaluation forms are such a high percentage of their performance evaluations so instead of sending all of the classes out in an electric form I had to build a business case and become agreeable to the team that we would pilot one month to see if there was high participation before we moved to the forms for all of the classes. In this task I realized my emotional stability was tested because I felt that since I pulled the reports on the assignment and they completion rate was so high that the evaluations would be completed and I was wrong and I was not aware that this was something that was tried before with an unsuccessful rate of completion. One of my coworkers and I got into an argument because I basically did not want to complete the manual work and she did not want her performance to be tested because there was no data to attest to her training methods. I learned that day that I am not always right I and I need to learn from those who have the experience of best practices and my ideas may not always be the best and I should not get upset when I am not right.