Leadership RI Coaches
“What will happen when we think about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong with them?” – Dr. Don Clifton, father of Strengths-Based Psychology.
In March 2014, Leadership Rhode Island (LRI), the state’s premier community leadership development organization, launched ‘Make RI Stronger’, a multi-year initiative to dramatically improve both the Rhode Island workplace and the Rhode Island psyche. LRI’s focus is on helping Rhode Islanders discover their innate talents and show them how to develop and use these unique talents in their workplace and in their lives. The initiative emerged in response to Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report that showed Rhode Island had the highest percentage of ‘actively disengaged’ workers in the country. Gallup defines ‘actively disengaged’ employees as those who are emotionally disconnected and unproductive; jeopardize team performance; miss more days; and quit at a higher rate than engaged employees do.
DiPrete Engineering’s Managing Director of Administration, Karen King, has been involved with LRI since graduating from their career-based leadership program in 2013. In 2014 Karen became actively involved in the ‘Make RI Stronger’ initiative by becoming a Strengths Coach. In this capacity, Karen provides strengths-based trainings to Rhode Islanders all over the state in an effort to boost engagement and well-being.
“We launched StrengthsFinder at DiPrete so that we can develop our unique talents into strengths,” said Karen. StrengthsFinder is an online assessment that ranks an individual’s 34 distinctive talents, with a focus on developing the top five.
Some examples of applying Strengths at DiPrete Engineering:
• During performance reviews Strengths are recognized in individual achievements and in setting future goals and roles.
• Within teams, a grid of team strengths showcases the four domains of Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking to show how individuals contribute to the team and to help build collaborative partnerships amongst team members.
• The top 5 Strengths of the company are 1. Achiever, 2. Responsibility, 3. Adaptability, 4. Relator, 5. Harmony. These Strength’s contribute to DiPrete’s companywide focus on Lean, Quality, and Client Service.
