How GlaxoSmithKline Builds Employee Strengths

As consulting programs and services go, SF³⁴ IMPACT is remarkably effective at a very personal level. The first step of this Gallup program, StrengthsFinder, introduces people to themselves in great, sometimes startling, detail. It tends to give those who use StrengthsFinder to discover their themes of talent a novel feeling -- a feeling of absolute singularity.

Because StrengthsFinder -- a Web-based assessment tool -- is so individualized, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) personalized the program for their Marketing Analysis and Commercial Support (MACS) department from the beginning. Then they took it a step further. They made it a part of themselves.

In January 2002, Anna McClafferty, vice-president of MACS, invited Marcus Buckingham, a Gallup senior consultant, to speak at a MACS meeting about StrengthsFinder. Since then, a lot has happened.

All who heard Buckingham's message were inspired. As a result, McClafferty and her management team decided to implement a comprehensive program that would take advantage of StrengthsFinder and SF³⁴ IMPACT philosophies and tools. The program was launched that May.

Right at home

The path was particularly smooth for implementation of SF³⁴ IMPACT for MACS team members. They had already internalized the program's core concepts through GSK's corporate-wide Performance and Development Program (PDP). So learning about strengths -- how to deploy them and how to work with the strengths of others -- was hardly foreign.

Marcellette Wise is a director in GSK's MACS department, which has about 800 employees. "We already had the philosophy of leveraging our strengths here at MACS," Wise says. "But we wanted to maximize it through our commitment to SF³⁴ IMPACT."

Part of MACS' adoption process was to personalize SF³⁴ IMPACT. MACS branded its customized program as PDP^MACS, capitalizing on GSK's existing dedication to performance and development planning. The team also designed a logo for internal use: a person looking through a magnifying glass into a mirror.

The MACS team members read Now, Discover Your Strengths, which Buckingham coauthored, took e-learning courses, and participated in feedback sessions and Q¹² IMPACT planning meetings. Managers participated in "IMPACT days" and other forms of special training.

The MACS department also worked with Gallup to ensure that all new hires had an opportunity to learn about their talents through StrengthsFinder and e-learning. By the time they were done with this whole process, SF³⁴ IMPACT was an integral part of MACS.

Almost immediately after the program was implemented, the MACS team began to see the fruits of their labor and their strong commitment to the enhancement of the performance and development planning process to drive employee engagement.

That's me!

"As you walk through the halls of MACS, you will see that people have posted their Signature Themes on their doors. Others are using Signature Themes to sign their e-mails," Wise says. "Everyone is buzzing about their talents and strengths."

There's a lot to talk about. Gallup's taxonomy of strengths identifies 34 themes of talent. Talents, essentially, are behavior patterns that naturally exist. They manifest themselves in different ways in different people, but there's no way to ignore the Achiever talents in someone who can't leave work until the job's done, the aura of certainty around people strong in Self-Assurance, or the aversion to conflict felt by people with many talents in the Harmony theme. "As people were learning their Signature Themes, they were surprised that in most cases, the theme descriptions were just absolutely them," Wise says. "Everyone would come back and say, 'Yes, this is me.'"

The initial response to StrengthsFinder is often a kind of wonder at the eerily accurate results. But wonder wears off. For SF³⁴ IMPACT to work, people have to leverage what they've learned. It's not unusual for people to start managing their weaknesses, deliberately partnering with coworkers who have complementary talents, and reconsidering productivity and development in a strengths-centric way. In fact, Gallup encourages that.

It's no surprise that PDP^MACS' 800 practitioners are leveraging what they have learned in a very personal way. Says Wise, "The results aren't in yet, but we're beginning to see a more focused look at self-development and development of our teams professionally. Prior to PDP^MACS, some people might have articulated their aspiration as, 'In three years I want to be vice-president of marketing.' Now they're looking at what the actual opportunity is and the values they and their talents and strengths bring. They are more focused on the job than just the title."

And what did PDP^MACSdo for Wise? For starters, she notes that Gallup's fundamental commitment to rock-solid science made SF³⁴ IMPACT attractive. Fuzzy research isn't acceptable to someone with her Signature Themes (which include Input, Learner, and Strategic), career path (marketing, quantitative analysis, market research, survey work, database marketing, analyst management), and company (GSK is one of the top five pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world). "Much of the work that our organization does is based on data and analysis," Wise says. "So to see that SF³⁴ IMPACT is based on valid research was very reassuring to us."

And the results for Wise have been rather human, too. "Personally, it's been really amazing. My relationships with my colleagues have become stronger and more rewarding since we embraced PDP^MACS."