Pathways to Flourishing: interview with Ryan Niemiec

We’re proud to present our interview with clinical psychologist Dr. Ryan Niemiec, the Education Director at VIA Institute of Character, and a key thinker on using strengths. Ryan covers a wide range of issues including defining strengths, looking at how we can use them, and using movies to demonstrate psychology principles. He shows how a strength-based approach increases productivity, wellbeing and sense of purpose. Click on the link above and watch for yourself, or read our summary:

Strengths

For some people, the idea of strengths can get confused with skills and abilities. Ryan shares a straightforward way to thinking about strengths:

1. They are “core qualities of our identity”: they are consistent personality traits, or ‘character’ strengths. While an innate strength such as ‘bravery’ or ‘humility’ can be developed further, it is different from a skill such as ‘public speaking’, which can be learned.

2. They are “linked with many different outcomes”: working with your strengths has positive benefits, because you’re going with the grain. These benefits extend across your life, not just in delivering the work itself, but in how we feel about it, and about others.

3. They “contribute to the greater good”: strengths are focussed on the positive, on aspects of life that are advantageous for society as a whole.

Ryan suggests that use of character strengths is a “pathway to flourishing” – leveraging strengths is beneficial for all aspects of your wellbeing.

Value + Action = Strength

Ryan expounds on the idea that a value – for example for family or hard work – lives in our heads. It is only when the value is put into action that it leads to anything. For Ryan this is the definition of a character strength.

Finding and using signature strengths

It is not a question of which of the 24 strengths you have, more the extent you have each strength: remember the idea of strength as a ‘potential’ that you can tap into. Ryan explains how working with your top-five ‘signature’ strengths has been found by research experiments to have the most positive impact – including boosting happiness and lowering depression.

But what does ‘using your strengths’ mean?

Ryan suggests this is as simple as choosing one of your signature strengths and consciously using it each day in a different way.

He suggests a number of ways that he could use his curiosity strength

These are just some quick, practical ways of putting his values into action, of building and developing his signature strength even further.

But you may ask why bother working on your signature strengths, which must already be well-developed? Surely I can get more movement on improving my lowest strengths? Ryan suggests this is a common thought, but although we can increase our lower strengths, it is the signature strengths where we can make a real change, with exponential growth when we use those strengths in new and different ways.

Another approach Ryan mentions is character strengths alignment, following the research by Willibald Ruch and Claudia Harzer. They found significant positive benefit from this approach:

• Identify and list your top seven strengths

• List your top five to seven work tasks for the day

• Create an action plan that uses the strengths in each task

for example:


The benefit was increased workplace satisfaction: this approach helps workers align what they are doing with what they are both good at and what they value. This helps them feel “that it is more meaningful work, that it’s an extension of who they are”. And this is not just about wellbeing: boosting engagement and happiness leads to increased productivity.

Weave it in vs. ‘one more thing’

Ryan suggests the key is to weave strengths into everything you do, not to use them as an add-on. Think holistically: how to bring strengths into the design of your office environment, your lunch breaks, and not just the actual work. Think about how strengths can be added into 360 appraisals, performance reviews.

You’ve convinced me – but how do I begin?

Ryan has four simple steps to help you start using strengths more:

1. Know thyself: you need to know your own strengths before you can progress (see our ‘5 of the best’ article for details). Other tips include keeping a journal to record when you use these strengths, how these strengths benefit your team, and to plan how to use your top strength.

2. Model: if you’re actively thinking and planning about how to use your strengths, you’re tapping into your best abilities. And that is authentic leadership: “you’re expressing who you are, and you’re putting who you are out there to the organisation, to your teams, to everybody.”

3. Finding strengths: quite simply, look for strengths in your team members. Ryan points out this is an easy and straightforward approach, which doesn’t even require workshops or for the organisation to be ‘ready’ for strengths, but which has a massive positive impact, and begins to embed strengths into the team culture. He gives a template for the feedback conversation:

• • Label the strength

  • Describe the behaviour you saw

  • Express appreciation

Don’t underestimate the importance of appreciation : Ryan cites a New Zealand correlational study which found “those workers who felt appreciated were 30 times more likely to be flourishing than workers who did not feel appreciated.” Ryan suggests you build this approach into your regular practice, and ensure you spot strengths and show appreciation for each one of your team members.

4. Leverage those strengths: once you know others’ strengths, Ryan encourages you to use them, calling on individual members when you have a problem that needs their specific strengths.

Ryan Niemiec is Education Director at the VIA Institute on Character, which promotes the use of strengths, and shares the lessons from high-quality science and research. Ryan is tasked with sharing the language, concepts and benefits of strengths to a wider audience.
Ryan’s books include Positive Psychology at the Movies, Mindfulness and Character Strengths, and Character Strengths Interventions.