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AliSalmanAAlhejab.pdf

Helping Individuals and Teams

Build Capacity from a

SOAR-based Perspective

Note: Your SOAR Profile Results contains an abbreviated version of the SOAR Profile Guide to help you interpret and understand

your results. Please refer to the SOAR Profile Guide for in-depth and detailed descriptions of the topics addressed in this report.

SOAR Profile Results for: Ali Salman A Alhejab

MGT2203 Summer

Your Name:

Event/Sponsor/Referral:

July 12, 2019Profile Completion Date:

What is Capacity?

What is Strategic Thinking (ST)?

What is Strategic Planning (SP)?

What is SOAR?

Strengths:

Opportunities:

Aspirations:

Results:

Introduction

SOAR is best known as a profoundly positive approach to strategic thinking and planning that allows

an organization to construct its future through collaboration, shared understanding, and a

commitment to action. 5 This approach is represented by the acronym SOAR, which invites you to

approach a series of strategic conversations based on:

The capabilities to do something well. What can you build on?

The innovations to achieve strategic goals. What are stakeholders asking for?

The achieveable outcomes. What are indicators to know we are succeeding?

Today’s challenging business and economic climate makes it necessary to create strategic thinkers and

build teams that perform well together and deliver results. Traditional ways of thinking about

strategy may limit one’s ability to effectively address and adapt to the ever-changing conditions and

turbulent environment in which organizations exist today. 1 A McKinsey Quarterly study of 1,300

global executives echoes this sentiment. Their research found that the highest performing

organizations had a clear purpose, an understanding of strengths , shared aspirations , and leaders who

knew how to unleash ideas (opportunities ) with a result -driven process. 2

The SOAR Profile is a rapid assessment instrument to help you understand and learn about your

natural capacity for strategic thinking, planning, and leading that can improve individual and team

performance. The SOAR Profile is developed from the theory and empirical research on SOAR. SOAR

stands for: Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.

“Strategic thinking is an innovative, creative, and right-brained process that encourages an open

exchange of ideas and solutions to meet the dynamic, often unpredictable challenges faced in today’s

economy”. 3 Strategic thinking involves both a disciplined focus on the desired outcomes of the

organization, and leveraging relationships among strategic elements to achieve these outcomes.

Strategic thinking identifies organizational purpose and goals, builds relationships to drive the

organization towards its purpose and goals, and identifies leverage points for organizational change.

The strong desires to achieve strategic goals. What do we care deeply about?

Strategic planning "maps out where a company is headed, establishes strategic and financial targets,

and outlines the competitive approaches" applied in achieving results. 4 A strategic plan includes the

organization's values, vision, mission, objectives, internal and external assessment of its environment,

strategy, and implementation (action plan and resources to allocate).

Capacity is the ability or potential to mobilize resources and create action to achieve objectives. It

provides all that is necessary to construct relationships and develop capabilities needed to achieve an

organization's vision, mission, goals, and strategy.

How Can SOAR Help You?

How Can the SOAR Profile Help You?

1 Selsky, J., Goes, J., & Baburoglu, O. (2007). Organization Studies , 28 (1), 71-94.

2 Isern, J., & Pung, C. (2007). The McKinsey Quarterly, 4 , 1-12.

3 Haycock, K., Cheadle, A., & Bluestone, K. S. (2012). Library Leadership & Management, 26 (3/4), 1-23.

4 Collins, D., & Rukstad, M. (2008). Harvard Business Review, 86 (4), 82-90.

5 Stavros, J. & Hinrichs, G. (2009). Thin Book of SOAR , p.2, Bend, OR: Thin Book Publishing.

6 Cameron, K. (2013). Practicing Positive Leadership , pp.2-3, San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler.

7 Fredrickson, B. (2009). Positivity. New York: Crown Publishers.

8 Dewitt, J., Covey, S., & Merrill, R. (1998). The Nature of Leadership , Franklin Covey Publishers. For more

information on Dewitt Jones research and videos, visit http://www.dewittjones.com

1) identifying and building strengths

2) creating innovations in the form of opportunities

3) encouraging individuals and teams to identify and share aspirations

4) determining results to know you are succeeding

References

What the Research Shows

Research confirms what you may know intuitively: that positive emotions resulting from a focus

on strengths and opportunities promote successful individual and team performance in

organizations. Empirical research by positive organizational scholars confirms that positive

practices and leadership improve organizational performance and individual physiological

health and well-being. 6 The research supports that high performing teams are more positive in

nature, ask appreciative questions, and are more outward-focused in order to help others. 7 These

are the attributes of SOAR.

SOAR is a way to help you learn how to have a more strengths-based and opportunity-focused

inquiry on the aspirations and the results desired for the team. A SOAR-based perspective

includes relevant stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, etc. In his research

on principle-centered leadership, and his two award-winning videos, Celebrate What’s Right with

the World and Focus Your Vision , Dewitt Jones advocates using a positive mindset to deal with

change. Dewitt says “connect with a vision that opens us to possibilities and gives us the

courage to soar!” 8 This reaffirms the attributes of the SOAR Profile .

We have found SOAR to be a useful framework for creating strategies and implementing

strategic directions and leadership for teams and organizations. Our intention is to have you use

the SOAR Profile to help you improve individual and team performance by developing your

capacity for strategic thinking, planning, and leading based on the following capabilities:

strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results.

By understanding your SOAR capacity and SOAR capabilities you will know if you are naturally

best at strategic thinking, planning, and leading based on:

What the SOAR Profile Tells You about Your AI Perspective

SOAR and the SOAR Profile leverage the foundation of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to build

capacity for strategic thinking, planning, and leading. AI is a positive philosophy with an

organizational change approach (the 4-D Cycle of Discovery, Dream, Design, and Destiny) that

builds on the strengths of the organization and seeks to understand the whole system by

including the voices of relevant stakeholders and accessing solution-oriented perspectives. The

whole system approach tries to understand the integration and dynamics of the many

relationships and interactions among people in the organization and even stakeholders in the

external environment. The whole system approach helps stakeholders understand and

appreciate at a high level how the system works and where their unique contribution makes a

difference. AI is also a method of dialogue that reframes traditional managerial problem solving,

such as, an organization is a problem to be solved, into, an organization is a solution to be

embraced. AI assumes every organization has something that works well, and these

organizational strengths provide the starting point for collaborative relationships, generative

conversations, and open communication to create positive change through shared dialogue.

On a 10-point scale (1 = never and 10 = always), your scores shown in Figure 1 indicate that you

naturally have a solution-oriented approach in which you can see the whole system and

approach stakeholder needs through collaboraitve relationships, generative conversations, and

open dialogue in your team or organization.

Collaborative Relationships, 10

Generative Questions, 10

Open Communication, 10

Positive Framing, 10Solutions, 10

Stakeholder Needs, 10

Whole System, 10

Figure 1

What the SOAR Profile Tells You about Your SOAR Capacity

Empirical evidence shows that when positive factors are given more attention, individuals and

teams tend to flourish. In building a high performance team and organization, each member of

the team can contribute to the organization’s success by understanding where their natural

SOAR-based capacity lies. Some people naturally think from a strengths-based perspective by

focusing on the talents, skill sets, and competencies they do well. Some people naturally

identify and create innovations for stakeholders. Some people have strong desires that are

aspirational towards achieving goals. Finally, there are other people who are good at

completing tasks, achieving outcomes, and obtaining results to implement new solutions. As

shown in Figure 2, on a 10-point scale (1 = never and 10 = always), your SOAR capacity scores

suggest the following:

Your Strengths score is 6 or higher. You are naturally paying attention to Strengths.

Continue to identify and build strengths in yourself and others.

Your Opportunities score is 6 or higher. You are naturally paying attention to Opportunities.

Continue to create innovations in the form of opportunities in yourself and others.

Your Aspirations score is 6 or higher. You are naturally paying attention to Aspirations.

Continue to actively focus on aspirations and sharing them with others.

Your Results score is 6 or higher. You are naturally paying attention to Results.

Continue to determine results to know if you are succeeding.

Strengths, 10

Opportunities, 10

Aspirations, 10

Results, 10

Figure 2

You understand the importance of

achieving results that reinforce and/or

activate the motivations, resources, and

commitments of yourself and others to

achieve the desired outcomes.

What the SOAR Profile Tells You about Your SOAR Capabilities

On a 10-point scale (1 = never and 10 = always), your SOAR capabilities scores indicate:

You understand the importance of inquiry

into the strengths of the system and how to

leverage capabilities to develop and

achieve goals and objectives.

You know how to identify ideas and

innovations to create new opportunities

that achieve results, and you are open to

hearing new possibilities within a favorable

activity of exchange.

You understand the importance of the

voices of stakeholders and what people

care deeply about (aspirations) to achieve

desired results; this allows you to focus on

the values, vision (future direction), and the

mission (present purpose).

Strengths, 10

Assets, … Capabilities , 10

Opportunities, 10

Ideas, 10Possibilities, 10

Aspirations, 10

Desires, 10 Values, 10

Figure 3c

Results, 10

Completed tasks, 10 Outcomes, 10

Figure 3d

Figure 3a

Figure 3b

7 What the SOAR Profile Tells You about Your

Strategic Planning

Inclusiveness of Strategic Elements

The concept of capacity building supports all the elements of SOAR by conceptualizing strategy

that allows an organization to build the internal relational components of the organization so it

can better use its resources (i.e., people, time, and money) to achieve its mission, attain its vision

and goals/objectives, and sustain these over time.

In evaluating your strategic elements scores in Figure 4, scores that are 6 or higher suggest you

focus on leading with key SOAR-based strategic elements. These elements should be included in

your strategic thinking and planning process. Over time, you want to use all of these strategic

elements to create organizational resilience.

What the SOAR Profile Tells You about Your Natural Approach to Strategy

Strategic Thinking and Strategic Planning are distinct but interrelated, and both are necessary for

effective strategic management. Your score suggests your natural approach to strategy is balanced

between both strategic planning and strategic thinking. As a strategic thinker, you use intuition

and creativity to formulate a vision of strategy. As a strategic planner, you break down a goal into

steps, and design, implememt, and estimate the anticipated consequences of each step.

Dynamic Capabilities, 10

External Environment, 10

Mission (Purpose), 10

Organization's Value Set, …

Positive Change, 10Strategic Inititatives, 10

Strategic Position, 10

Trust Building, 10

Vision (Future), 10

Strategic Thinking You

Figure 4