Recognizing Strengths: Key Beliefs

Source: Training Development Resources/Strengths-Based — slide deck, "Recognizing Strengths"

Key beliefs underlying strengths-based work: everyone has strengths, often untapped or unrecognized; strengths can be internal or environmental; solutions are built on strengths, not deficits; strengths foster motivation for growth; each person is the expert on their own experience; people are active participants in their own help, not passive recipients of it.

Three types of strengths, useful for a coach trying to actually notice and name them in conversation rather than just "being positive":

• Descriptive strengths — qualities or characteristics ("Sarah is patient and calm").
• Contextual strengths — the same quality shown in a specific situation ("Sarah is patient and calm when her baby is colicky").
• Functional strengths — an actual transferable skill or capacity ("Sarah is able to stay calm under stress").

The move a coach makes in conversation is "plumbing for strengths" — pulling a strength out of something someone already said, even when they didn't name it as one themselves ("You said you were cautious about choosing a provider for your child — what did you do or think about that helped you decide? Let's look at what skill that took.").

Question types for drawing out strengths, organized by what they're trying to surface:

• Open-ended: "Can you say more about that? What was that like for you?"
• Investigative: who/what/where/when/how, to gather detail on internal and external strengths.
• Survival questions: "How have you managed to survive/thrive given what you've been through? What have you learned about yourself in your hardest times? Which difficulties gave you a strength, insight, or skill you still have?"
• Support questions: "What do you want out of life? What's helping you move toward it?"
• Possibility / exception / esteem questions: "When things were going well, what was different? What do people say when they say good things about you? What gives you real pride?"

These question banks are directly reusable as a coaching conversation guide, not just background theory.