Dear Vikas

Now-a-day, organizations are talking about competencies. Therefore, yes employees' strengths (competencies) can be identified and capitalize on them for the future competitiveness of the organization. If an organization takes responsibility to retain the talents it has by capitalizing on its people strengths, then motivation and other positive outcomes improve.

I think the construct of "employee strengths at work, is a great thing in theory however, I honestly don't see many organizations utilizing their employees strengths to maximize productivity within the workplace. If employers were to really position employees based on their strengths and abilities to complete certain tasks or even re-align their employees to get the job done (based on  individual strengths), I believe life at work would be even better, however I just don't see much of that happening. 

I think to accomplish this construct, it requires supervisors/ upper level  management to step outside the norm, to be creative, to be open, and willing to take let their employees take control. 

What is proposed touches the organizational culture, so Ambika, you are right that applying the concept is difficult, it deals with human nature! Unless, a brave CEO steps forward.

Thank you, Hussin, Ambika, and Ben for your responses and insights. What makes practice all the more painful is the focus on weaknesses of employees. I see this happening in academics as well as research. The phenomenon cuts across organizations.

I have witnessed faculty members bring critical of students; the questions they pose for gaining better understanding is misconstrued as the student "lacking basic intelligence or understanding " and the student is humiliated in the class. In this case, probably the strength of a student being "curious" is misinterpreted. Many students experience de-humanizing effects due to the behavior of faculty members. 

In research, how many guides take the pain to understand the strengths of their scholars? How many guides deploy their own strengths in guiding the students and thereby facilitating superior quality of research outputs?   

Unless humans are placed in the center-stage rather than a mere input to the delivery of objectives (commercial or academic), the dehumanization experienced by employees in organizations will continue.

So methinks...

Playing on one's strengths (what comes naturally to them...the innate talents, skills, knowledge, its alignment to the job, leading to higher levels of engagement) can lead to higher levels of humanization in organizations.

I think it is highly relevant in academics as well as research.

Regards,

Vikas.

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In industrial situations, individual employee strength is an important parameter. Organizations must integrate all the employee strengths, in order to create core competence, which will eventually lead to creation of competitive advantage.It is a fact that many a times, organizations do fail to assess employee strengths in the proper perspective and thus miss opportunities of utilizing the same for stake holders' value creation.

Thank you Dr. Dattagupta for your comments. Deeply appreciate and value it.

What make things worst is that many organizations do not really know their employees, they do not recognize their special competencies, and even less prone to capitalize on them. Now-a-day many top managers simply threaten their employees if they speak up and simply throw on them the following words " I can replace you with 2 people who are cheaper than you!!"

Thank you for your insights Dr. Hejase. It seems that while leadership theory gallops towards shared, distributive, super leadership, the leadership practice remains anchored on directive leadership. I am getting reassured on the relevance of my research on working on employee's strengths !!!  

I agree with you Vikas, if a leader is at least democratic and takes informed decisions about employees, I guess will be the bottom line to build on and seek competitive advantage based on employees' strengths (core competencies).