BRINGING MY REFLECTED

BEST SELF TO LIFE

How to use Feedback from the
Reflected Best Self Exercise for
Personal and Career Development
LAURA MORGAN ROBERTS
Assistant Professor of Business
Administration
Harvard Business School

JANE E. DUTTON
William Russell Kelly Professor of Business
Administration and Professor of
Psychology
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan

GRETCHEN SPREITZER
Professor of Management and
Organizations
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan

with JENNIFER SUESSE

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan
701 Tappan Avenue, W7715
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 647-8154
www.bus.umich.edu/Positive/
Copyright © by the Regents of the University of Michigan 2006
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America
Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship
Manufactured in the United States of America
Acknowledgments

WE WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE OUR COLLABORATORS, Brianna Barker

Caza, Emily Heaphy, and Robert Quinn, Ph.D., for their contributions to our
ongoing research on the Reflected Best Self exercise. This research served as the inspiration
and conceptual anchor for this book.
We thank the Stephen M. Ross School of Business for their continued support of the Center
for Positive Organizational Scholarship, which sponsored this research.
We appreciate the questions and comments we have received from those who have already
completed the Reflected Best Self exercise. Thank you for sharing how you have brought your
best self to life!

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments i
Executive Brief iii
Becoming Extraordinary 1
What is the Reflected Best Self? 3
Six Things Your Reflected Best Self is NOT 5
Now What? Five Steps Towards Bringing My Best Self to Life 9
Step One: Compile Reflected Best-Self Portrait 10
Activity 1: Compile a Reflected Best-Self Portrait 13
Step Two: Analyze Data and List Enablers and Blockers 14
Activity 2: Identify Enablers and Blockers 15
Step Three: Personal Vision Statement 16
Activity 3: Compose Personal Vision Statement for Becoming an Extraordinary Leader 17
Step Four: Identify Contribution Gaps 18
Activity 4: Identify Contribution Gaps 19
Step Five: Personal Development Agenda and Action Plan 20
Activity 5: Establish Personal Development Agenda and Action Plan 22
Lifelong Journey 24
Moving Beyond “Good Enough” 25
Suggested Readings 27
Background 28

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Executive Brief

AS PART OF THE REFLECTED BEST SELF EXERCISE, you have received

feedback about who you are at your best. You may already have gone on to create
your reflected best-self portrait, or are ready for that step now. Compiling and reviewing
this positive feedback can be affirming and rewarding, but it can also be overwhelming. You
might finish the exercise and say, “This is nice to know, but what next? How can I apply this
new knowledge about my best self to help me do my job and live my life?” This guidebook
describes a range of strategies to use as you seek to bring your best self to life.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Becoming Extraordinary

MOST OF US YEARN TO HAVE AN IMPACT—to become extraordinary—to push

ourselves beyond the “good enough” bar to maximize our potential fully. But many of us
just don’t know how to get there. We hope completing the Reflected Best Self exercise will
help you discover something new about yourself and your potential. The following booklet
aims to help you make sense of your feedback and devise a plan for future growth and
development.
Some people find that completing the Reflected Best Self exercise pushes them into new, and
unfamiliar, territory. Too often when we engage in self-reflection or personal development
exercises, many of us focus only on our weaknesses. We may do so because we think that
this is the key to ensuring our survival and continual improvement. Yet, in so doing, we
inadvertently ignore our strengths—the very things that make it possible for us to have a
positive—even extraordinary—impact on our workplaces, homes, and communities. While
it is important to understand our own shortcomings and limitations, too much attention to
one’s deficiencies can be demoralizing.

Being extraordinary does not necessarily mean obtaining a position of honor or glory or even
becoming successful in other people’s eyes. It means being true to self. It means pursuing our
full potential.1

Becoming extraordinary is not about being better than everyone else, nor is it about fixing our
weaknesses. Rather, it is about learning how we can engage in fulfilling and purpose-driven
work that makes a difference. Through reflection on your best self, you can better understand
how you impact your family, friends, colleagues, clients, and community members in positive
ways.
In the Reflected Best Self exercise, you gathered feedback about who you are at your best. Ten
to twenty different people in your life took the time to share a few stories and memories about
times when they felt you were making valuable contributions to the world. Taken together,
these moments illustrate not just a catalog of your competencies, but a living, breathing

Quinn & Quinn, 2002, p. 35.

1

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

portrait of the positive impact you have on others and your surroundings. All in all, we
hope that this increased understanding of your best self will help you to act with confidence,
integrity, and authenticity in all different types of situations.
It is also important to recognize that everybody will NOT be good at everything. The Reflected
Best Self exercise aims to help you become familiar with skills and strengths that you already
possess, which can help you to focus your efforts on maintaining and refining your unique
gifts. Research suggests that this approach can yield significant results.2
In the pages that follow, you’ll learn how to use the feedback you received as part of the
Reflected Best Self exercise. After you’ve read this booklet, you will have:

■ A better understanding of what your best self is, and is not;

■ A plan for developing and leveraging your strengths;
■ A strategy for managing around your weaknesses.

So, let’s begin.

Refer to Roberts, Dutton, Spreitzer, Heaphy & Quinn (2005) “Composing the Reflected Best-Self Portrait: Building
2

Pathways toward Becoming Extraordinary.” Academy of Management Review, October.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

What is the Reflected Best Self?

AS YOU REVIEW THE DIFFERENT STORIES you received through the Reflected Best
Self exercise, you can see that when you are at your best, you are drawing on your unique
combination of talents, skills, values and experiences to make a positive difference in the
world. By using your strengths, you are able to create a constructive experience for others
as well as a positive experience for yourself. This “sweet spot” is illustrated in the following
diagram (Figure 1):

FIGURE 1 Your Reflected Best Self

Situation Attributes

Constructive
Strengths experience
for others

Positive
experience
for you

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Your reflected best self is anchored in your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. We define
strengths broadly to include:

■ Your talents, or naturally endowed features and abilities;

■ Your core competencies, or personal skills and resources that enable you to add unique
value to any situation;
■ Your principles, or deeply held personal values about the appropriate way to accomplish
your goals; and,
■ Your identity, or the aspects of your personal background (e.g., culture, gender, education,
profession, socio-economic class) that enable you to provide a distinct perspective on
organizational and societal issues.

Note that this broader definition of strengths delves beneath the surface of your skills and
abilities to the essence of your uniqueness as a person. Your experiences and your values can
enable to you to make critical contributions to your workplace and your world. For example,
you may exhibit the character strength of persistence in the face of failure, or forgiveness
in the face of disappointment. Being at your best doesn’t mean that you always perform
perfectly. Instead, it means adding together your strengths in a way that constitutes valuable
resources; together they comprise your best self.
Notice that we are not highlighting the best in general terms. Rather, the Reflected Best Self
exercise seeks to help you identify your best. Your best self is what makes you unique, rare,
and difficult to imitate. It is your source of sustained competitive advantage. Becoming
familiar with these qualities helps you to see where you have the potential to add unique
value in the world.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Six Things Your Reflected Best Self is NOT

THE CONCEPT OF A BEST SELF OFTEN RAISES QUESTIONS when students,

executives or other individuals complete this exercise. Although we may be familiar with
absorbing constructive feedback based on someone’s analysis of our weaknesses, many of us
struggle to make sense of a barrage of compliments regarding our strengths! It is helpful,
therefore, as you begin to make sense of the feedback that you have received to be reminded
about what your reflected best self is NOT. Your reflected best self is:

1. NOT Based on a “Deficit Model.” The theories upon which the Reflected Best Self exercise
is based suggest that our best opportunity for progress toward excellence is not a function
of improving on our weaknesses, but is a function of building on our strengths. This type
of research focuses on the positive dynamics (strength, resilience, vitality, trust, and so on)
that lead to positive effects (improved productivity and performance) in individuals and
organizations.
Completing the Reflected Best Self exercise is the first step of an ongoing developmental
process:
■ First, you unearth how you are experienced at your best, by yourself and others.
■ Next, you extract and distill a core set of attributes, tendencies and enablers.
■ Third, you identify any gaps where strengths are underutilized or weaknesses
overemphasized.
■ Finally, you capitalize on your strengths and ability to add value.
Doing this kind of work is not easy, and can feel self-centered—even counter-cultural.
Most of us are uncomfortable when talking about our strengths and gifts, having been
chided not to brag or boast. We also tend to seek and value deficit-oriented feedback
because it helps us to feel that we are managing risks effectively. Plus, research also suggests
that we believe “bad” feedback more easily than we do “good” feedback, and that negative
thoughts, experiences, and emotions often have a stronger impact on us than the reverse. It
is a paradox of human psychology that while people remember criticism, they respond to
praise. The former makes most people defensive and therefore unlikely to change, while
the latter produces confidence and the desire to perform better.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

On the whole, high-quality appreciative feedback is rare. Sure, we often tell someone
“good job” but rarely do we take the feedback to a deeper level about what they did that
made a difference. We rarely seek it, and it is rarely offered. Some of us can be uncertain
about whether our best selves are valued or appropriate in different situations. Overall,
the aim of the Reflected Best Self exercise is to give you a better understanding of your
strengths in order to see which ones transcend specific situations and are broadly useful
in many different settings. Armed with constructive, systematic processes for gathering
and analyzing data about your best self, you can burnish your performance at work and
beyond.
2. NOT a Static Portrait Designed to Stroke Your Ego. The purpose of this exercise is NOT
to swell your head. The qualities described by your friends, colleagues, and loved ones
comprise a complex portrait of you at your best. It is nice to hear positive feedback, but the
information you received should not be interpreted as a static, or unchanging, view of who
you are. Indeed, we would hope that your best self would continue to evolve and develop
over time as you grow and experience all that life has to offer.
Thus, the aim of the Reflected Best Self exercise is to assist you in developing a plan for
effective growth and development. Without such a plan, it is unlikely that you will be able
to fully extract the learning and momentum that comes from this kind of reflection.
We realize that to be effective, this exercise requires commitment, diligence, and follow-
through. The lessons generated from this exercise may elude you if you don’t pay sincere
attention to them. If you are too burdened by time pressures and job demands, you may
just file the information away as a feel-good pat-on-the-back, and forget about it. It may
even be helpful to have a coach to keep you on track. The steps described in the next section
are challenging, but if employed with intention, can help you realize your potential in the
world.
3. NOT an Invitation to Ignore Your Weaknesses. Be forewarned that completing the
Reflected Best Self exercise and having a better understanding of your strengths does not
mitigate your responsibility to know yourself and manage around your weaknesses. There
are many situations in which you may be required to draw upon skills which are not your
strongest, and if you do not learn to perform at a reasonable level of competence, failure
may follow. Conversely, an over-reliance on your strengths can also be problematic.
Thus, you need to learn to operate within the “sweet spot.” In order to do so, you need
to identify any Achilles’ heels—those behaviors, personality traits, and performance

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

deficits that might interfere with your ability to leverage your strengths in a way that
creates a positive experience for you and a constructive experience for others—and
a plan for managing them. For example, if you enjoy organizing projects, but have
difficulty motivating others, you might want to try working with inanimate objects, or
seek opportunities to collaborate with inspirational colleagues. Managing around your
weaknesses may also involve learning to delegate certain tasks, or putting enough effort
into developing new skills in order to achieve an acceptable level of performance.
4. NOT an Abstract Catalog of Strengths. The feedback you obtain in the Reflected Best Self
exercise does NOT provide you with an abstract catalog of your strengths. If someone were
to give you a simple list of strengths (or weaknesses) you might find that interesting—but
it would probably not tell you very much about how to exercise those strengths in the
future. Words alone can be vague or confusing, and you might have questions about what
specific words meant, or when you were exhibiting those qualities.
In contrast, the Reflected Best Self exercise feedback provides you with a number of stories
about you at your best. By reading and analyzing the stories, you can see that your best
self emerges when embedded in a specific context or situation. You can return to these
stories again if and when you are trying to understand what “being creative” looks like,
for example.
5. NOT a Purely Individual Phenomenon. Some types of feedback that you may receive
are focused solely on you. The Reflected Best Self exercise, however, reveals how you are
experienced by others when you are at your best. By collecting stories from friends, family,
and/or colleagues, you have the opportunity to reflect on the experience you create for
others and yourself in different situations.
By definition, the Reflected Best Self exercise reveals your impact on a variety of individuals
and situations. It is inherently connected to others’ experience of you, as the Venn diagram
in Figure 1 demonstrated. The reflected best-self portrait you create is NOT about what
you love, but what others love and/or value about you. It highlights your presence and
your impact on others and your surroundings.
As you reflect on the feedback, you will probably find that it is easier to be your best self in
some contexts than in others. This is important to notice. Although you will not always be
able to choose your surroundings, and it is unrealistic to expect that you would be at your
best at all times, it can be helpful to raise your awareness about the social conditions that
shape your ability to be at your best.

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6. NOT the Same for Everyone. The feedback you received on your best self is NOT based
purely on external standards of excellence. Instead, your friends and colleagues generate
a profile based on their own assessment of you and your moments of greatness. As you
read their stories and analyze the feedback, you should remember that your standard
for making sense of this information is an internal one. You may find that not all the
strengths people describe about you are important to you. They may be competencies that
are required by your job, but not part of your uniqueness as a human being.
Some generic assessment tools assume that each person can learn to be competent in almost
anything, and then rate individuals according to some universal standard of success. A
fable helps to illustrate the limitations of this approach:
Once upon a time, the animals got together and decided to found a school. They chose a core
curriculum of six subjects: swimming, crawling, running, jumping, climbing and flying. At first,
the duck was the best swimmer, the dog was the best runner, and the rabbit was the best jumper.
Following weeks of classes, however, many of the animals sustained injuries. The duck wore out
the webs of its feet in running class and wasn’t allowed in the water. After crashing in flying class,
the dog broke its leg and could barely walk. And, the poor rabbit injured its back after falling in
climbing class and couldn’t even make a small hop. So, by the end of the year, the eel, who could do
a little bit of everything, but nothing very well, became class valedictorian.3
The moral of this story is: we are not all trying to become eels!! Rather, we hope to be
extraordinary swimmers or jumpers or runners according to our individual capacity to
do so. External standards for achievement are necessary, but not sufficient indicators for
individual development. The best self instrument helps you to identify areas in which you
alone can improve. Your friends and colleagues judge you according to your own unique
capacity to contribute to the world, and the feedback you receive is customized.
All in all, the Reflected Best Self exercises challenges the myth that people are well-rounded.
In fact, as the above fable reveals, few high-performing individuals are jacks-of-all-trades. In
sum, remember that excellence is a function of uniqueness. Every person—including you—
has their own way of making a positive contribution to the world. The Reflected Best Self
exercise can help you shed a more nuanced, complex light on skills that you might take for
granted. By knowing your unique patterns, you are better positioned to capitalize on your
strengths. The next section makes some suggestions about how to go about doing this.

Source unknown.
3

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Now What? Five Steps Towards Bringing My Best Self to Life

AFTER RECEIVING AND REVIEWING YOUR FEEDBACK, are you pleased?

Surprised? Overwhelmed? For many people, this exercise generates positive emotions. It is
nice to be complimented! For some, this creates energy to address other perceived weaknesses.
For others, it builds hope and expands internal resources like courage. Completing the
exercise often strengthens the interpersonal connections between you and those who sent in
stories. Together, you can reminisce about shared memories.
The following chapter will help you start making sense of the information you’ve collected
(Figure 2 summarizes the steps ahead).

FIGURE 2 Five Steps Toward Bringing My Best Self to Light

Analyze data and list

� Enablers & Blockers
�
� �
Compose Personal
Vision Statement
Compile Reflected
� Best-Self Portrait
�
� �
Identify
Contribution Gaps
Establish Personal
� Development Agenda �

You begin by compiling your reflected best-self portrait. If you have already completed a
reflected best-self portrait in class or elsewhere, you can use this time to refine it or just copy
it in here. Once your portrait is complete, you can analyze your data and make a list of what
we call best self “enablers and blockers.” The suggested third and fourth steps are to compose
a personal vision statement and identify “contribution gaps.” Finally, you will be ready to
establish a personal development agenda which will be your action plan for moving forward
from here.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Step One: Compile Reflected Best-Self Portrait

Note: If you have already completed the reflected best-self portrait, you may want to review and
modify it as part of this step.
It can be good to step back and find a quiet, private place for processing your feedback,
because reading best-self stories can be an emotional experience. You may have been able
to predict some of what people wrote about you, but some of the feedback may be more
unexpected. Indeed, surprises are common.
You may have forgotten all about some of the moments that your friends, colleague, or loved
ones chose to share. Some of the stories might confirm your own sense of yourself and your
strengths. Other stories might mention aspects of you that seem so obvious, or intrinsic,
that you take them for granted. Some of the stories might bring up contradictory strengths.
These inconsistencies can be unsettling. Receiving consistent messages from a wide variety of
sources can be equally surprising.
Take the time to read and reflect upon each piece of feedback you received. This can lead to a
more sophisticated understanding of familiar strengths. As you identify patterns across your
feedback, some questions may emerge:

■ Who am I at my best?
■ How do I define “best”? How do others define “best”? How will I resolve the inconsistencies
that may have appeared between how I define “best” and how others define it?
■ How will I make sense of any contradictions that may have emerged in different
stories?
■ Whose feedback should I incorporate into my sense of self, and why?
■ What new insights did I gain as a result of participating in the Reflected Best Self
exercise?
■ What insights were reinforced by the exercise?
■ How should I apply this knowledge about my best self?

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Spend some time thinking about any of these questions as you begin to create a reflected
best-self portrait for yourself. This will also help you as you work to determine the essence of
your best self. For example, Edward (all names are disguised) was a recently-minted-MBA
executive at an automotive firm whose colleagues and subordinates were older and more
experienced than he. He felt uncomfortable disagreeing with them. By contrast, his peers
appreciated Edward’s candid alternative views and respected the diplomatic and respectful
manner with which he made his assertions. As Edward reflected on his feedback, he noticed
that he might consider growing bolder in making the case for his ideas, realizing that his boss
and colleagues were listening to and appreciating what he had to say.
Some people find it helpful to review their feedback with someone who knows them well
and can help them to determine what strengths reside at the core of their best selves. Others
prefer to reflect on this information in solitude. There is no “right” way to process this type
of information. You should decide what seems most comfortable for you.
Naturally analytical people will most likely enjoy this review process, because it serves both
to integrate their feedback and to paint a larger picture of their capabilities. Intuitive thinkers
might find this analysis and review more frustrating, but it is useful to try to synthesize the
stories you received in order to put the information to use. Remember that the goal of the
exercise is for you to have a better sense of what activities bring out your best and enable you
to add value and make important contributions to your work and life. You might choose to
revisit these questions again in a week or a month or even a year, after the feedback has had
a chance to sink in.
Through this analysis, you may want to identify the conditions that amplify your ability
to make a unique and valuable contribution in your organization or profession. Through
reviewing your feedback, the following three areas outlined in the pyramid below should
begin to emerge (see Figure 3). It might be helpful to use this pyramid as a guide to help
you isolate your unique contribution. By outlining your generic competencies, your areas of
effectiveness, and your unique contributions, you can begin to flesh out those situations in
which you can be your best.

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The first band, generic competencies, includes things that many effective people in your
organization or profession do well. They include very general capabilities like “runs
meetings well” or “good public speaking ability” that might be important for everyone in
your organization. These competencies really don’t distinguish people in any meaningful
way. The second band, areas of effectiveness, defines high performers in your organization or
profession. They distinguish high performers from low performers, but they are not unique
to you. For example, in an ad agency, the higher performers are more creative thinkers than
moderate or lower performers. But these areas of effectiveness do not define what is unique
about your best self. These unique qualifiers are the top band of the pyramid. They define
what are your own unique areas of competitive advantage – those things that set you apart
from others.

FIGURE 3 Pyramid of Strength

Unique
Contribution

Areas of
Effectiveness

Generic Competencies

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ACTIVITY 1 Compile a Reflected Best-Self Portrait4

Note: If you have already completed a reflected best-self portrait in another context we suggest you
copy it here. Consider if there are any changes or refinements that you want to make.

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4
Additional instructions regarding the reflected best-self portrait are included in the Reflected Best Self Exercise: Assignment
and Instructions to Participants.

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Step Two: Analyze Data and List Enablers and Blockers

As you complete your reflected best-self portrait and begin to talk about your best self with
others, more questions may emerge. You may be wondering:

■ How can this knowledge be used to enhance the quality of my work and my life?
■ How might I incorporate my best self into my current job, relationships, and future career
plans?
■ Which situations will amplify my comparative advantage? Can those also help me to
grow and develop?
■ How can I manage my limitations?

These are important questions, and we certainly don’t expect you to be able to answer them
within the next hour. One step you can take, however, is to consider your best self “enablers”
and “blockers.”
As you review your data, look to identify elements that either helped or hindered your ability
to be your best. These enablers and blockers can be either personal or situational. Personal
enablers or blockers include the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that affect your ability to
leverage your best self in a given context. Situational factors, on the other hand, include any
contextual features (e.g., organizational standards, systems and practices) that promote or
inhibit leveraging your best self.
For example, Tina learned that she was at her best when she was working with others who
were supportive and coached her. As she reviewed her Reflected Best Self exercise feedback,
she realized that it was hard for her to be her best when she was isolated or working in an
impersonal environment.
Now is the time to analyze your data to see if it reveals any patterns or insights regarding
either personal or situational factors.

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ACTIVITY 2 Identify Enablers and Blockers

Enablers Blockers
(both personal and situational) (both personal and situational)

Once you have completed this second worksheet, you can set the analysis aside. You will need it
again for Step Five, when you can use this information to help guide the development of your personal
development agenda. But first, you need to identify your goals by composing your personal vision
statement.

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Step Three: Personal Vision Statement

After completing the initial phases of review and reflection, it is time to consider what kind
of impact you want to have in the world. Were you to have an extraordinary influence on
your surroundings, what would that look like? By writing a personal vision statement of
yourself as an extraordinary individual, you can describe the results that you wish to create
in your personal life, your organization, your community and/or society. Maybe you have
already written something like this once before. If so, revisit your goals and revise them if
necessary. Consider how your knowledge about your strengths and weaknesses will enable
you to make the contributions you desire. Do not be afraid to state grand goals! Now is the
time to dream about your ideal future.
Writing this type of statement can be challenging. For many of us, reflection and goal-
setting is a type of task we try to avoid. Research and experience shows, however, that those
individuals who take the time to state and clarify their vision for the future are more likely
to make progress towards achieving success. Even if you take just five minutes, putting
some ideas down on paper is an important first step toward actualizing your best self in the
future.
As you prepare to put some thoughts on paper, take time to consider some of these
questions:

■ Who do I want to become?

■ What is my “true” calling? (Is there such a thing?)
■ What standards will I use to define success in my life?
■ How will I organize my life to live up to these standards?
■ What tradeoffs will I make (now and in the future)?
■ How can I nurture the enablers and disable the blockers I identified in Step Two?

Answering these questions is an ongoing process, and your personal vision statement can
become more meaningful if you revisit it and update it periodically.

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Compose Personal Vision Statement

ACTIVITY 3 for Becoming an Extraordinary Leader
What kind of impact do you want to have in the world? Describe the results that you wish to create in
your personal life, your organization, your community, and/or society.

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Step Four: Identify Contribution Gaps

The next step in making sense of your Reflected Best Self exercise feedback is to identify
what we call “contribution gaps.” By doing so, you can learn to focus your personal learning
and development energies on the areas where they can have the greatest impact. Using your
personal vision statement for becoming extraordinary as the basis for action planning can
enable you to decide what areas need development in the short- and long-term. By reflecting
on your plans as well as your current competencies, you can better understand how to leverage
your strengths. You can also identify any areas where you need to learn new skills or extend
your knowledge.
What is a contribution gap, you ask? A contribution gap exists when you identify a strength
or core competence that is not yet fully developed. By cultivating that particular talent, you
have the opportunity to realize your potential to be your best in a wider variety of situations.
Taking the time to identify contribution gaps is important, as it will enable you to seek
assignments, learning opportunities, and mentors that can assist with the development of
these skills and talents.
For example, people told Beth throughout her life that she was a good listener, but her
respondents noted that her interactive, empathetic, and insightful manner of listening made
her particularly effective. The specificity of this feedback encouraged Beth to identify a
contribution gap. After completing this exercise, she sought opportunities to take the lead in
negotiations requiring delicate and diplomatic communications.

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ACTIVITY 4 Identify Contribution Gaps

What strengths do you already posses that will enable you to make the difference that you envision?
Which enablers or blockers have you identified (either personal or situational) that need attention?
How will you leverage your strengths to put your best self into action and create desired results?
What competencies do you need to develop or strengthen in order to make the difference that you
envision?

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It can be hard to anticipate just what you will learn from this analysis of your contribution
gaps. Jane, an engineer, believed she could analyze her feedback as she would a technical
drawing of a suspension bridge, believing her reflected best self was something to analyze and
improve. But, as she read the remarks from family, friends and colleagues, she saw herself in
a broader and more human context. Over time, the stories she read about her enthusiasm and
love of design helped her to fundamentally rethink her career path toward more managerial
responsibilities.
Jane’s example reminds us that it can be difficult, as you reflect on your own feedback, to be
open to different possibilities and dimensions. Keeping an open mind, however, can yield
astonishing insights.

Step Five: Personal Development Agenda and Action Plan

Once you have compiled your reflected best-self portrait, analyzed your “enablers” and
“blockers,” developed a personal vision statement, and defined any contribution gaps, you
are ready to establish a personal development agenda and action plan. By embarking on
the Reflected Best Self exercise, you have already begun the process. This type of agenda can
become a roadmap for you as you navigate choices about what type of assignments to seek
and what kind of skills to develop. Having a better understanding of your best self gives you
an opportunity to maximize the instances where you can have a positive impact on situations
and individuals. Your challenge, therefore, is to identify how to get there from where you are
today. This is precisely the purpose of articulating the following action plan.
By defining a personal development agenda, you are stating for yourself the skills,
characteristics, and opportunities that you need in order to have the positive impact you’ve
outlined in your personal vision statement. Outlining this agenda can help you to make
focused and exciting plans for improving your life and career.
A word of caution to you as you begin to make plans for the future: remember NOT to
ignore your weaknesses. While this exercise focuses on your strengths, neglecting any known
Achilles’ heels could interfere with your ability to capitalize on your strengths. Before you
make your action plans, be aware that in some cases, an initial source of strength can become
a fatal flaw if you take it to an extreme.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

For example, Eloise learned that there is a fine line between “attention to detail” and
“micromanagement.” Robert Kaplan has identified two common distortions in behavior that
are useful to consider here: overdoing and underdoing.5 In Eloise’s case, she learned that
overdoing her attention to detail led to unhappy subordinates who felt micromanaged. Steve,
on the other hand, failed to recognize his interpersonal skills as a strength and avoided regular
one-on-one meetings with others. By underutilizing his capacity for building relationships
with others, Steve could not realize his full potential. Figure 4 illustrates some other common
“fatal flaws”:

FIGURE 4 Avoid over-reliance on your strengths6

Sources of initial success . . . . . . can become fatal flaws.

Track Record Makes an impressive impact in ➟ Seen as too narrow in a particular

functional or technical area area

Brilliance Seen as uncommonly bright ➟ Intimidating; dismissive of other

people’s ideas

Commitment Extremely loyal to the organization ➟ Defines life in terms of work;

Sacrifice expects others to do the same

Charm Capable of considerable charisma ➟ Uses selectively to manipulate

and warmth other people

Does whatever is required to achieve ➟ Does what is necessary to

Ambition
success achieve personal success, even
at the expense of others in the
organization

Part of the purpose of the Reflected Best Self exercise is to remedy such misperceptions that
you might have about yourself. As you compose your personal development agenda and
outline your action plan, remember not to ignore your weaknesses or to rely too heavily on
your strengths. Learning to balance between them is a lifelong process.

See “Know Your Strengths” HBR F0203A.

5

From High Flyers by Morgan W. McCall, Jr. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998) page 29, figure 2-1.
6

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Establish Personal Development

ACTIVITY 5 Agenda and Action Plan
Reflect on your reflected best-self portrait, your list of enablers and blockers, your vision statement,
and your contribution gap analysis as you prepare to write your action plan. What can you do to
amplify the conditions or relationships that enable you to be your best? How can you work around or
lessen the “blockers”?

List the concrete steps you want to take to work towards the positive vision you have identified. In the
next 1-2 years, what actions will you take to enact your best self both at work and outside of work?
As you generate this list of actions, make sure it is a short list. Pick no more than 3-4 things to work
on, and put them in order of priority. Continued learning is a lifelong process, and you need to focus
your energies here.

Writing your action plan may be difficult, but you now

have a better sense of the strengths that undergird your
best self and can embark on the journey to bring your
best self to light.

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My Personal Development Agenda and Action Plan

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Lifelong Journey

DISCOVERING YOUR BEST SELF IS A LIFE-LONG JOURNEY. Completing the

Reflected Best Self exercise is one step in an ongoing process. You may have potential strengths
that you have not yet recognized or utilized. There are many formal and informal ways
of getting personalized, positive feedback that can heighten your awareness and deepen
your understanding of your best self on an ongoing basis. Once you know where to look,
these avenues can provide guidance as you continue to learn and develop. You can seek out
opportunities to collect this kind of information, if you find it to be useful.
Informal feedback often emerges in spontaneous and unexpected ways. Someone might
compliment you during a meeting or organize a retirement party for you. You might
encounter a situation in which you have a chance to exercise impromptu leadership, which
yields successful results. If you are paying attention, such moments or experiences give you
an opportunity to notice or recognize the contributions you are making to an organization,
community, or individual.
Formal feedback, on the other hand, might result from planned, organizational events or
managerial oversight. For example, you might work in an organization where each meeting
routinely ends with a round of compliments, or appreciative sharing. Or, you might be asked
to take on a stretch assignment, when you are asked to do something you’ve never tried
before. By completing the task effectively, you both develop new skills and earn credibility
that might offer additional opportunities for new projects.
Whatever their cause, these moments give you an opportunity to further your leadership
capacity and potential for positive impact on the world. Knowing your strengths can help
you to take advantage of these moments—or even create them—no matter how they present
themselves.

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Moving Beyond “Good Enough”

WE HAVE NOTED THAT WHILE PEOPLE REMEMBER CRITICISM, awareness

of one’s faults doesn’t necessarily translate into better performance. The Reflected Best Self
exercise, by contrast, helps you remember strengths—and construct a plan to build on them.
Ironically, knowing your strengths also offers you a better understanding of how to deal with
your weaknesses—and to gain the confidence you need to address them. It allows you to say,
“I’m great at leading but lousy at numbers—so rather than teach me remedial math, get me
a good finance partner.” It also allows you to be clearer in addressing your areas of weakness
as a manager.
When Tim, a financial services executive, received feedback that he was a great listener and
coach, he was also aware that he had a tendency to spend too much time being a cheerleader
and too little time keeping his employees to task. Susan, a financial analyst, had the opposite
problem: while her feedback lauded her results-oriented management approach, she wanted
to be sure that she hadn’t missed opportunities to provide her employees with the space to
learn and make mistakes.
In the end, the strength-based orientation of the Reflected Best Self exercise helps you get past
the “good enough” bar. Once you discover who you are at the top of your game, you can use
your strengths to better shape the positions you choose to play—both now and in the next
phase of your career.
In summary, we hope that completing this exercise have helped you to do three things:

■ Introduce a new mental model for how you think about your “best self.”
■ Create a personal development agenda and action plan for becoming consciously
competent and realizing your vision for making a positive impact on the world.
■ Provide others with a more appreciative, accurate, and complex understanding of who
you are.

As you become familiar with your strengths and begin working on your action plan, we hope
that you will notice yourself moving beyond “good enough.” We encourage you to explore
expanding your constellation of possible selves and experiment with expressing the unique
skills and talents that you have identified.

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Furthermore, we hope you will be a “social architect,” seeking ways to create opportunities for
your best self to shine through. Some of these opportunities may be found in your current job
or community. We hope that this knowledge will empower you to create more space in your
life for leveraging your best self to enhance your relationships with colleagues, family, and
friends. Finally, we hope that you make progress with eliminating any personal or situational
best self blockers from your life.
As you continue to move forward, we hope you will continue to discover your reflected best
self. You have the ability to seek feedback proactively from others about how they experience
you and what you have to offer. Another way to learn about your best self is to pay attention
to your experiences. Your successes and failures often reveal new dimensions of your reflected
best self.

Remember:
YOU ARE…
THE AUTHOR of your identity
AN AGENT of change
CALLED to make a positive impact on
your community, organization, and society
CAPABLE of being your best self

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 BRINGING MY REFLECTED BEST SELF TO LIFE

Suggested Readings

Buckingham, M., & Clifton, D. 2001. Now, Discover Your Strengths. New York: The Free
Press.
Clifton, D.O., & Harter, J.A. 2003. Investing in Strengths. In K. Cameron, J. Dutton, & R.E.
Quinn (Eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship: 111-121. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.
Collins, J. 2001. First, who . . . then what. In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the
Leap and Others Don’t: 41-64, Harper Business Books.
Drucker, P.F., 1999. Managing Oneself. Harvard Business Review, March-April: 65-74.
Quinn, R.E., & Quinn, G.T. 2002. Letter 4. Pursue Your Best Self. In Letters to Garrett: Stories
of Change, Power and Possibility: 47-72. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Roberts, L. Morgan, Dutton, J.E., Spreitzer, G., Heaphy, E., & Quinn, R. (2005). Composing
the reflected best-self portrait: Building pathways to becoming extraordinary in work
organizations. Academy of Management Review, October.
Roberts, L. Morgan, Spreitzer, G., Dutton, J., Quinn, R., Heaphy, E. & Barker, B. (2005).
How to play to your strengths. Harvard Business Review, January.
Zander, R.S., & Zander, B. 2000. Being a Contribution. In The Art of Possibility. Boston:
Harvard Business School Press.

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Background

THE ADVICE IN THIS PAMPHLET IS BASED ON RESEARCH conducted by

the authors and other researchers affiliated with the Center for Positive Organizational
Scholarship (CPOS), which is a center dedicated to conducting research on processes that
lead to developing human strengths, producing resilience and restoration, fostering vitality,
and cultivating extraordinary individuals, units and organizations (See http://www.bus.
umich.edu/Positive/. The Reflected Best Self exercise is currently being utilized by faculty
and students in both executive and MBA programs in the U.S. A paper version of directions
for doing the Reflected Best Self exercise and an extensive teaching note are available for sale
at the CPOS website under POS Teaching and Learning/POS Tools.

28
 Mission
The Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship is a community of
scholars devoted to energizing and transforming organizations through
research on the theory and practice of positive organizing and leadership.

Key Activities Domains of Excellence

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