When I came across the January / February edition of Harvard Business Review whose focus is on the value of employee happiness, I noticed that it also contained an article written by Gretchen Spreitzer, professor of management and organizations at the University of Michigan. That reminded me of an executive education program that I had enrolled in at the University of Michigan a few years ago. The topic was positive leadership.

The program included one tool taught by Gretchen Spreitzer and Kim Cameron that I found particularly useful and that I wanted to share with you. It is called the “Reflected Best Self” (RBS). It helps people to understand and leverage their individual talents.

The RBS exercise stems from a research called Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS). It is an area of organizational behaviour research that focuses on the positive dynamics (such as strength, resilience, vitality, trust etc.) that lead to positive effects (like improved productivity and performance) in individuals and organizations.

Psychologists know that while people remember criticism, they respond to praise. Criticism makes them defensive and often unlikely to change, while praise makes people confident and produces the desire to perform even better.

Psychologists know that while people remember criticism, they respond to praise. Criticism makes them defensive and often unlikely to change, while praise makes people confident and produces the desire to perform even better.

The RBS method is a systematic way to help you to discover who you are when you are at your best. While in standard performance evaluation sessions in companies the focus is typically on “areas / opportunities for improvement” (even though the employee might have shown a top performance, we tempt to focus during the feedback talk on the one small thing the employee might not have been so good at), the RBS exercise allows only positive feedback.

Nevertheless, the RBS tool is not designed to stroke your ego. Its purpose is to assist you in developing a plan for more effective action.

Let me guide you briefly through the different steps of the RBS exercise.

Step 1: Identify respondents and ask for feedback

Approach 15 – 20 people who know you well and ask for their feedback. People should be from work (your boss, your subordinates, other colleagues, members of your professional network etc.) and from your private life (family members, friends).

Ask them to provide information about your strengths, accompanied by specific examples, stories of moments where you used these strengths successfully. Give them maximum 10 days to respond. Feedback via e-mail works fine.

Step 2: Recognize patterns

When you have gathered all the feedback, organize all the input in an analysis table. Cluster all the examples and stories that you have got and search for common themes in the feedback.

Typically, you will be surprised by the uniformity in the themes of the feedback, despite the rather diverse group of respondents.

For those of you who already know yourself very well, the RBS exercise will confirm your impression. However, if you are unaware of your strengths, the RBS exercise can be truly illuminating. In some cases, after thorough reflection, you might even rethink your career path.

Step 3: Compose your self-portrait

Write a description of yourself that summarizes and distills the accumulated information. Like this, you will have an insightful, authentic and powerful image of what led to your major achievements and success in the past. It can also serve you as a guide for future action.

Step 4: Redesign your job

As the next step, you should think how to create a better fit between your strengths and your work. Ideally, you should be able to leverage your strengths to perform better in your current work. However, there might be cases where someone discovers that his strengths don’t fit his current job. In such a case, the person might be better off looking for a more suitable job and even going for a career change.

The RBS exercise helps you discover who you are at the top of your game. Once you are aware of your best self, you can shape the positions you choose to play – both now and in the next phase of your career.

In case, you want to have more information on the Reflected Best Self exercise or even purchase and download it (US-S 15.–), you can go to the following website: