Q3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

**Summary**

-   Encourage employees to be honest with themselves and with their
    managers about their preferences.

-   Identify and maximize the strengths of their employees.

-   Challenge their employees to find out what they do best.

-   Help their employees put together effective career plans to do a
    better job.

-   Do not dwell on trying to fix an employee's weaknesses.

**Key Findings**

*\"This is something else I\'ve never been able to explain. When I give
out an assignment, \[the employee\] says thank you. The person I\'m
giving it to thanks me for giving them an assignment.\"*

Finding the best fit for each employee means finding the best fit for
FSA. Gallup's research indicates that great managers keep in mind each
individual's talents and strengths, build a relationship with each
employee, and hold a mirror up to people to help them identify their
talents and be in a position to use them.

Great managers in FSA: 1) identify and maximize the strengths of their
employees, 2) challenge their employees to find out what they do best,
3) help their employees put together effective career plans to do a
better job, and 4) do not dwell on trying to fix an employee's
weaknesses.

Most FSA associates agree that having a chance to do what they do best
is a process of self-discovery. To many of the best practice managers,
this question refers to the importance of assessing individual employees
and their unique strengths, and then fitting together a team in which
each member's strengths and talents complement one another. Many also
agree that people who do what they like to do best make for more engaged
employees.

Several managers discussed spending one-on-one time with their employees
to make sure that finding the right fit for individuals led to the most
efficient and productive teams. We heard stories about small-scale teams
working well together because of the right players being in the right
positions. Best practice managers would often talk about the ongoing
process of getting to know their employees and how their strengths and
weaknesses or likes and dislikes would surface during this time.

Great managers at FSA understand that not only is it important to make
sure that their associates understand their strengths but that they
recognize their weaknesses as well. To do this, most sit down with their
people individually and let them talk about what they think their
leading strengths are in terms of skills, knowledge, and innate talent.
Many managers write these strengths down and have their employees do so
as well. As one FSA manager said: \"If you choose good people and give
them a particular assignment, they will identify what needs to be done
and they\'ll get it done. . . .Ultimately that\'s the most effective way
for an organization to work because you can\'t have management trying to
define from above the job and classically that\'s the way a hierarchical
bureaucracy works. What you need is to have individuals who are
competent and motivated give them an assignment and they\'ll go to it
and far out perform any requirements.\"

Another key aspect of this question item is freedom. Employees tend to
recoil at micromanagement, but value being allowed the leeway to define
their own paths, to discover, enhance, and pursue their talents. Space
for growth helps employees to develop along their career path. One
employee explained how his manager's \"laissez-faire approach\" led to
an increased opportunity for personal growth within his position and a
subsequently improved customer service. \"\[His approach\] is basically
communicating to me: 'I have confidence in your ability to carry out
your job so I don\'t need to micromanage what you\'re doing from day to
day, minute to minute.' . . .That\'s what I like and that\'s what allows
me the opportunity to do what I like to do and that\'s help the client
do what they want to do.\"

Another employee stated: *\"We have the freedom to do our work and we
can also be people, make mistakes, learn and we\'re not penalized.\"*

**Relevant Quotes From FSA Interviews**

I have spent some time getting to know them, you know, what is it, I\'ve
had them, you know, we exchange backgrounds, I tell them a little bit
about what drives me as a manager so they kind of have a sense of my
style. I have asked that specific question, what do you think, consider,
I\'ve asked them what they feel their strengths and weaknesses are, I
did that for a reason trying to figure out whether they are aligned with
the right job, whether it leverages all their talents so one, I\'ve
asked them; two, I have validated that through working with each of
these folks on various tasks, you know, projects that they\'re
responsible for, watching how they approach (inaudible word) how they
discuss or relate with me, courses of action to take and so I can kind
of glean where they\'re sharp, where their strengths are. I can also see
areas where they can grow and even be better overall as a professional.
I also validate that by feedback I get from their key customers of their
products and services. And, you know, I also look at their bios so I
mean I understand their education, I know (inaudible words) wants to be
informed at least what I can (inaudible word) I try very hard to try to
leverage where they\'re good because that gives them a sense of
satisfaction and accomplishment. I don\'t always hit the mark but I feel
that we\'re professional enough and, you know, where that they, they can
bring that to my attention so we try to work through that. I don\'t want
to be the problem solver for every one of their problems. I want to be a
sounding board where appropriate. I do want to engage where I feel that
they\'ve come to an impasse trying to work that out on their own.

I know I like numbers and now that I know what my strengths are because
I\'ve been with this section for so long but I think you\'re always
discovering yourself and sometimes I have areas that I\'m not too happy,
or I think I\'m not too happy working with and then I\'ll get a project
and find out this wasn\'t as bad as I (inaudible words) this was kind of
interesting. So I think you can always rediscover yourself.

It\'s sitting down, talking with the people, getting the responses back
from them and, you know, place them in that function and then watching
them react to it.

I have seen situations where people have talents and because the
perceived need of the organization was paramount, talents were wasted
and so I think that particularly in the federal government not only at
making the individuals aware of their talent but managers (inaudible
words) this gets back to putting people first, they\'re tied in together
to putting utilization of your staff\'s talent above or at least on a
par with perceived organizational imperatives.

I\'ve seen a heavy emphasis on things like adaptability, perseverance
and risk taking, those three things are, to me have played a major part
in (inaudible).

I have the opportunity to do what I do best because we have a branch
chief who if you\'re engaged, he lets you have a lot of leeway to
create, do in your job (inaudible words) and he has a lot of trust in
that. So that\'s why I have the opportunity to do what I like best.

I think it helps that we like what we do, we\'re not, like if a
person\'s really creative and they really want to be an artist or
something and they don\'t like doing this kind of work, they\'re not
going to be happy, they\'re not going to be fulfilled so it helps that
we\'re task oriented, type A, whatever, people because that helps us
like what we do.

I like to see in people things that they don\'t even know are abilities
or even skills or things that they\'re, that they\'re extremely maybe
good at but they are either afraid to try or haven\'t had the
opportunity so we\'ve often structured work different so that they could
utilize that as more of a major part of their function. You know, I\'ve
seen people grow from, you know, just unbelievable, they had no idea,
they had no confidence in themselves, they didn\'t realize that, you
know, that they could do that, that they had ability to do and we\'ve
taken the decision level as far back as we can, we formed a more team
environment, we went to the process of saying I don\'t have a job, you
know, we are a division, we\'re here, we have tasks, it belongs to
everyone here.

I don\'t know if he actually has that confidence but he leads us to
believe he has confidence in our ability to do our job by kind of having
that laissez-faire approach. And (inaudible words) a lot of people would
say he doesn\'t care what his employees do. No, he is basically
communicating to me I have confidence in your ability to carry out your
job so I don\'t need to micromanage what you\'re doing from day to day,
minute to minute and how you carry that out unless (Name) comes to me
and asks a question, then I need to know what you\'re doing and how
you\'re going about doing and I have confidence that you\'ll be able to
explain that to me to the satisfaction of my boss. And so that\'s what I
like and that\'s what allows me the opportunity to do what I like to do
and that\'s help the client do what they want to do.

I think basically yes, I have an opportunity to do it every day and
pretty much however I want to do it because, you know, it isn\'t like
there\'s somebody right there looking at everything on my desk and
telling me to do it this way or that way or the other way so it kind of
helps, the hands off approach kind of helps a lot in that.

This is something else I\'ve never been able to explain. When I give out
an assignment, the (specified title) says thank you. The person I\'m
giving it to thanks me for giving them an assignment.

I get to work independently because I\'m trusted, I\'ve gained this
trust and I don\'t have to be, I don\'t have to have somebody saying
well, now what are you doing or give me a progress report. I can get out
there and just kind of do my thing and I know what I\'m doing and I
think I\'ve got management\'s confidence in that I will get there and
with the proper product.

Interact with each other because, you know, while we\'re coworkers I
guess, we\'re all informal and friendly with each other and I think try
to complement what our different areas are trying to do and realize that
we\'re all in this together and we\'re not like five little independent
operations.

**Development Questions**

**Managers:**

How did you discover the strengths of the individuals in your group?

Describe a situation in which you had the right person in the right
role/wrong person in a role?

**Employees:**

What do you do best? What do you think you do really, really well? How
did you learn about your strengths?

Think about what your friends have always told you, in grade school or
junior high or high school, that you do really well or what you're known
for, what your talents are.

Has anybody helped you know what your talents are, what you're good at?

**Development Guide Tips:**

1). Keep in mind individual talents and strengths

2). Build relationships

3). Hold a mirror up to people-help them find their talents-and put them
in a role to excel