Today on the show we are joined by Dr. Scott Whiteford, Director of Leadership Analytics at Talent Plus, a strength-based management company that is rooted in positive psychology. Their mission is centered on understanding an individual’s greatest strengths and how best to utilize those strengths, both for selection and development. In our conversation, we delve into what it means to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses, the importance of self-reflection, and how to become increasingly specialized as you progress in your career. Scott also shares his advice for young people on how to discover their strengths, the importance of looking at the whole person when you want to hire successfully, and how to form a constructive partnership with your hiring manager.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Get to know our guest, Scott Whiteford, and his career at Talent Plus.
• Scott’s role as Director of Leadership Analytics at Talent Plus.
• The size of the organizations that Talent Plus usually works with.
• How Talent Plus gathers the information they need to help their clients.
• What Talent Plus clients are typically looking for.
• Why Talent Plus is rooted in positive psychology and how they implement it.
• What it means to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses in business.
• What can be learned from the way sport approaches strengths and weaknesses.
• How to tell whether a Performance Improvement Plan is being made in good faith.
• The importance of specialization in your career.
• Scott’s advice to young people on negotiating with their superiors.
• How to use self-reflection to understand your strengths and weaknesses.
• What happens when hiring managers and leaders don’t understand the whole person.
• How Scott uses assessments as part of his role.
• The importance of building a diverse leadership team.
• Scott’s parting advice for hiring managers.

Tweetables:

“The companies that we work with are really interested in how they can help their employees, leaders, managers, [and] frontline folks to be more successful.” — Scott Whiteford [0:04:29]

“As I progress in my career, I actually become more specialized, even within the role that I have here at Talent Plus. By becoming more specialized, I tend to do more and more things that I really enjoy.” — Scott Whiteford [0:17:57]

“I really like it when my students and my young leaders take control of their careers, because they'll find it more rewarding.” — Scott Whiteford [0:21:46]

“Understand what parts of your job you like, what parts you don't like, where you're good, where you're not so good. The better prepared you are to have that conversation with your leader, the more likely you're going to see a strong outcome.” — Scott Whiteford [0:23:00]

“We really want a diverse leadership team with lots of independent thought.” — Scott Whiteford [0:32:49]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Scott Whiteford on LinkedIn

Talent Plus

Talk Talent to Me

Hired