In this chapter the author will present a number of emerging trends in positive psychology theory and research and explore their applications to coaching. I’ll walk you through studies of positive emotion, flow (accessing the zone), hope therapy, and classification of strengths. Each set of studies offers a rich resource of knowledge that can be mined for potential coaching interventions. The chapter is not an overarching perspective on the coaching process, as this is described in other chapters in this volume. Instead the focus is more narrow as we examine primary and secondary source material in positive psychology and invite coach practitioners to integrate what they learn into their ongoing professional practices. One model of applied positive psychology, Authentic Happiness Coaching (AHC), developed by the former president of the American Psychological Association and the father of positive psychology, Dr. Martin Seligman, will be described in detail. A process-coaching application of AHC with two clients follows.

The heart of positive psychology, like coaching, lies in the practitioner’s choice to shift attention away from pathology and pain and direct it toward a clear-eyed concentration on strength, vision, and dreams. Despite this intent, many coaches are still steeped in the culture of therapy and can find it difficult to transcend the medical model (Williams & Davis, 2002). A review of the executive coaching literature by Kauffman and Scouler (2004) suggests that practitioners still carry a deficit-conflict perspective of clients even when working with high-level executives. One aspect of this challenge is that most psychological language and nearly all assessment tools are firmly grounded in the mission of identifying pathology and problems. As a result we are steeped in a medical model culture and often aren’t aware of how it forms the background of our thinking. The ramifications of this are enormous in terms of what issues are framed, how clients are assessed and what interventions are selected.

An explicitly positive psychology framework suggests that a language of strength and vision rather than weakness and pain be the firm foundation upon which the coaching work rests. Coaches with a positive psychology orientation also develop a different internal decision tree when selecting what material to follow, what to let pass by, and what cause-effect sequences to focus on. In essence, the clinician is trained to follow the trail of tears. If someone is dissatisfied with life, for example, a coach needs to resist the inclination to immediately hone in on client skill deficits or automatically search for signs of depression, anxiety, or emotional conflict as the true cause of the client’s challenge. Instead coaches need to get their bearings by attending to how clients can use their existing strengths to identify their vision of what they want and turn it into reality. To follow this new train of thought, one follows different signposts and landmarks. In essence, coaches shift attention from what causes and drives pain to what energizes and pulls people forward. They follow the trail of dreams.

From the outset, I must emphasize that positive psychology is not interested in pretending all people are paragons of virtue, maturity, and mental health. As you will see, for example, too much “positivity” isn’t good for you or your work team’s level of performance (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). We are interested in disseminating information that offers theoretical and empirical support to the coaching orientation of attending to client wholeness and strength. Of course pathology exists, but we tend to focus upon it exclusively. To illustrate this kind of shift, you may recall the famous gestalt picture of a black vase on a white background. When you reverse focus and concentrate on the background (instead of the vase), you see two profiles facing one another. One perception isn’t real and the other false, or a defense; both are equally true and each informs the other. Without the vase all you have is pale blankness, but if you zoom in and see only the vase, you lose perspective and imagine all is darkness. Coaches and clinicians need to learn how to shift attention back and forth as necessary (Lopez, Snyder, and Rasmussen, 2003). New research is even suggesting there is an optimal ratio of balance of how much you zoom in on the positive or negative (described below; Frederickson and Losada, 2005).

An additional challenge coaches face is describing how and why coaching is effective. Often testimonials and anecdotal evidence are used to support their assertions. Practitioners are often hard-pressed to have access or find theoretical, scientific, or empirical explanations to support their assertions of coaching effectiveness. The body of positive psychology research, however, indicates that a coaching orientation is an effective and valid perspective. It is our belief that positive psychology theory and research will provide the scientific legs upon which the field of coaching can firmly stand.

Throughout the twentieth century psychology developed an extensive technology to measure and address human pathology. There is now in the twenty-first century a movement toward developing equally robust assessment tools, interventions, and research methods to study human strengths and virtues. Lopez and Snyder (2003), for example, have compiled a handbook of psychometrically robust assessments of such “soft” phenomena as hope, optimism, and spirituality. Ed Diener, Chris Peterson, Martin Seligman, and others have also developed standardized, reliable, and valid measures of levels of well-being, strengths, approaches to happiness, life satisfaction, and more (see http://authentichappiness.org). As a result we can now “diagnose” strengths, hope, optimism, and love in as precise and reliable ways as we measure anxiety or depression. Effectiveness studies of positive therapy (Irving et al. 2004) and positive psychology-based coaching are showing them to be very effective with sustainable impact (Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005).

Until now, most psychological research has focused on negative emotion, how we cope or overcome fear, stress, anger, sadness, disgust, and so on. Exploration of the positive emotions such as: joy, love, awe, gratitude, hope, or desire is now in progress. To begin, it seems clear that positive and negative emotions have very different purposes in our lives. Negative ones tend to ensure survival by galvanizing people into action when faced with life-and-death challenges. At those moments success requires an individual to have a narrow and sharp focus on the problem that must be solved quickly. In contrast, Fredrickson’s research shows that positive emotions boost other psychological functions. For example, they empower individuals to open up their focus of attention, to “widen the lens” and see the big picture.

A series of studies supports Fredrickson’s theory that positive emotions serve to “broaden and build” access to personal competencies (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). The research shows it is possible to precisely measure how positive emotions “broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertoires and build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources” (Fredrickson, 2001; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005). In the physical realm, positive emotions have been shown to: increase immune function, improve resilience to adversity, reduce inflammatory responses to stress, increase resistance to rhinoviruses, lower cortisol, and impact brain symmetry, and a number of studies show they predict longevity (see Fredrickson and Losada, 2005).

Positive emotions are central to psychological flourishing and have been found to have a significant impact on increasing intuition and creativity, and widening scope of attention.

They increase our capacity to use multiple social, cognitive, and affective resources and to take in an integrated long-term perspective—crucial skills in today’s complex world. With a moment’s reflection it becomes clear; positive emotions foster the very kinds of skills corporations want in their leadership teams and that our coaching clients would like to build in themselves. For example, positive priming of one’s emotions directly translates into increasing cognitive flexibility, speed, and accuracy. This pattern has been shown throughout the developmental spectrum, starting with preschool. One study (Isen, Rosenzweig, & Young, 1991) compared how quickly and accurately groups of internists made diagnoses of a patient with complex liver disease. Those primed to feel good (with a small gift of candy!) showed more flexible thinking and made accurate diagnoses more quickly than those primed to think humanistic thoughts or those not primed at all. Positive priming of one’s emotions directly translates into increasing cognitive flexibility, speed, and accuracy.

Another series of studies has shown that positive emotions have a powerful impact on how well work teams function and how this in turn has a direct impact on profitability. Losada (1999) studied 60 business teams and found that positive emotion played a primary role in how well the teams functioned. During strategy meetings, every statement was coded, and the ratio of positive (approving/supportive) to negative (disapproving/ critical) was calculated. At the same time the positivity ratio of the 60 teams divided them into high, medium, or low performance in terms of profitability, customer satisfaction, and performance evaluations. The results are remarkably strong and show that the positivity/negativity ratio was the key variable that differentiated team performance. High-performance teams had a ratio of about 3 to 1 (three positive emotion or support statements for every negative emotion or disapproving/critical statement). The lower the positivity ratio the lower the level of function and effectiveness of the team.

When the researchers assessed the moment-to-moment group interactions, they found the high-performance teams had a much wider range of behavior. Their discussions were more fluid and flexible. While there were more positive comments, there were strong criticisms and challenges as well. When negativity occurs in the context of high amounts of support and approval (e.g., ratio of 2.9:1) workers bounced back quickly after being criticized (Losada & Heaphy, 2004). In fact, pointing out problems or challenges served to ignite performance and inspire the executives to think with greater clarity and effectiveness. In essence, these strategy teams had the “wider behavioral repertoire” that Fredrickson’s theory would predict. In the groups where the positive/negative ratio was under 3:1 there was less resiliency and a narrower range of behavior. In particular, after negative comments, people seemed to lose creativity and authenticity.

The Losada research also refutes the notion that one should be positive all the time. When people get really positive team performance levels fall. It seems that if everyone is supportive and approving without a healthy balance of criticism (e.g., real reactions) the behavior range is constricted, just as was found in the highly negative groups. According to Fredrickson and Losada (2005) there is an upper limit of positivity. If the ratio of positive to negative comments goes above about 12:1 (11.6:1) behavior seems rigid and unresponsive. This is true with groups as well as with individuals. If one reflects on this information the implications for coaches are enormous. First, it suggests an ideal of being positive, and second a clear limit on how positive to be; in other words, you need enough sugar, but not so much as to make the relationship unpalatable.

Fredrickson examined positivity ratios with individuals and found very similar results. When she examined students’ month-long diaries, the positive/negative ratio seemed to differentiate those who were languishing from those who were flourishing. Subjects whose diaries showed an average ratio of 3.2:1 (a bit above the 3:1 ratio) or higher were doing much better than those at 2.3:1 or below. What bears notice is that the difference between those who are flourishing and those who are languishing was very stable, but quite small; sometimes just a couple of positive experiences a day swings the balance. This has important ramifications for life coaching, as it suggests that just a bit more positive experience leads to a very different quality of life. Research on couples found similar results. Studies used the positive/negative affect quality to predict (on the basis of three minutes of observation) which newlyweds would divorce (Gottman, 1994).

This confluence of data supports the idea that positive emotion plays a crucial role in life. While negative emotions serve to quickly negotiate life/death challenges, positive emotions are interconnected with the kinds of competence needed a majority of the time. This work also has enormous ramifications for executive coaches, as it shows the importance of positive emotion and also the importance of grounded, critical thinking, and the most ideal ratio between the two. As such it provides an empirical, theoretically grounded model for optimal performance that can guide executive coaches on how to assist companies in management consultation, communication, and training.

In addition, it provides compelling, scientifically informed rationale with empirical support for why coaching, which clients often describe as a joyful experience, might have a very positive impact.

A series of national and international studies collected data on hundreds of thousands of subjects in order to examine what makes people happy. Ed Diener (2000) has pioneered the study of “subjective wellbeing” and examined national norms, comparisons among countries, different professions, and so on. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi has also been exploring this issue for more than 30 years with thousands of subjects from all over the world. Together these two research traditions give us a fairly good idea of the contours and correlates of happiness. They’ve explored how happiness is (or is not) associated with macrosocial factors, genetics, chance, personality, behavior, and many other variables.

Implicit in the research are possible avenues, or even “royal roads,” to increased well-being. Research shows that our automatic assumptions of what brings happiness are often incorrect. For example, in contrast to the popular belief that attaining the American dream of financial success will make you feel good, this belief is not strongly associated with happiness. In fact, the reverse is often found, as in the case of lottery winners (Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978). Diener (2000) and Csikszentmihalyi and Hunter (2003) found clear correlations between a sense of well-being and having one’s survival and safety needs met, but beyond that there is a surprisingly low correlation. The usual pattern shows us that jumps in success have a short-lived impact that wears off as individuals acclimate to their new possessions or positions. This phenomenon leads to what has been called the “hedonic treadmill.” Some studies indicate there is a negative relationship between materialism and happiness. For example, when you control for preexisting cheerful-ness and parental income, having monetary reward as a primary goal has a negative effect on satisfaction with family life, friendships, and one’s job (Nickerson, Schwartz, Diener, & Kahneman, 2003).

People also assume that happiness is a response to what happens in life, such as getting a great job or finding or losing a spouse. While obviously big events do have an impact, if you study people over time, they usually return to their preexisting level of happiness (or unhappiness) leveling off after joy and rising up after sorrow. This leads us to a core issue: can one’s long-term sense of well-being be significantly increased or are we limited by how far we can rise? Diener (2000) suggests that people have a happiness set point, similar to the phenomenon of a weight set point. Events may shift one’s level of emotional well-being, but other homeostatic forces pull one back over time. Fujita & Diener (2005) examined this with life satisfaction, and about one-fourth of the study participants made significant shifts over 17 years; 10 percent shifted very significantly. Some suggest that happiness might be hardwired in, but further exploration challenges this notion. Studies of subjective well-being of identical twins show, however, that only about half of the variation of happiness seems to be based on genes (Lykken & Tellegen, 1996). Longitudinal studies show that over a two-year period, happiness seems to have a stable set point. However, if you widen the timeline and study people over four years, there is far greater variation (Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003). These research programs on normal populations suggest that over the short run people do have a tendency toward a set point of happiness, but if you study them over time there can be significant shifts. Other authors suggest that since external factors (events, success, etc.) are not the key to understanding variation in a person’s happiness, we should focus instead on internal ones. In other words, it isn’t what happens to people; it’s how they construct and interpret those events (Schwarz & Strack, 1999). In light of the hedonic treadmill, for example, it might not be what you have that matters, but how mindfully you experience it.

Flow, or “being in the zone,” is often described as an elusive, spiritual state that is available to only a chosen few. In contrast, Csikszentmihalyi has examined the conditions that make flow possible for ordinary, as well as extraordinary, individuals. His research shows that a number of conditions increase the likelihood of entering a flow state. Coaches can learn and then tailor this information to help clients find their own ways to access this high-performance state. What follows is a description of some of Csikszentmihalyi’s “conditions of flow” accompanied by examples of how to apply the information to coaching or peak performance training.

Imagine you are coaching a client—an executive, or an athlete—who is doing well, but wants to move toward higher performance. What can help?

Those who apply Csikszentmihalyi’s work to coaching executives, athletes, and performers also describe how important it is to adjust the external environment to support and enhance flow (Jackson, 2003). Jackson also emphasizes how the interpersonal environment is an important, if not crucial, factor in fostering flow during athletic or performance situation. The Frederickson and Losada work described above would support the idea that there probably is an ideal combination of encouragement and criticism/challenge that facilitates optimal performance. Sports psychologists also describe the importance of group support (Demontrond-Behr et al., 2004). Kauffman (2004a) emphasizes that multimodal resource training helps clients keep their foundation skills strong and increases their chances to have sustained flow states and “tap into turbo” for peak performance bursts. Clearly, the concept of flow and engagement has many potential applications that coaches can harness in their work.

Snyder (2002) has developed one of the first empirically supported programs for an application of positive psychology, called hope therapy. Over the past 20 years he has developed a complex theory of hope; a reliable and valid test to measure it (Snyder et al., 1991); and empirically supported interventions that have been shown to improve hope in children, adolescents, adults, and elders (Wrobleski and Snyder, 2005). This semistructured or narrative approach is described in detail in Snyder (2002). While hope therapy works well on its own, it also can be joined to other interventions. A five-week hope training orientation program with clients on a wait list was shown to boost the effectiveness of subsequent psychotherapy regardless of whether it was behavioral or dynamic (Irving et al., 2004). When other psychological factors were held constant, it appears that increasing hopefulness, not the client’s subjective well-being or level of coping skills, was a key reason for improvement.

Hope has two elements according to Snyder’s theory, and both components can be strengthened by hope training. These are: pathways thinking and having a sense of agency. Pathways thinking means that when the first route you try is blocked, you can produce alternative routes to get to your destination. High-hope individuals can think flexibly and change or correct course as needed. Low-hope people are less flexible and a second or third pathway does not feel viable to them. Thus, coaching to increase a client’s capacity to find alternate routes is a core component of having hope, which in turn sustains one’s effort.

The second aspect of hope is to have agency, a sense one can reach desired goals. There are numerous ways to coach clients to greater efficacy, either by developing more precise and attainable goals or by helping them vividly recall past successes and solidify the cognitive/ affective state associated with their individualized sense of “I can-ness.” High hope individuals have both multiple pathways thinking and a sense of agency. One without the other does not foster maximum success. High pathways with low agency can surface as the client feeling: I know what to do, but I don’t think I can. Low pathways with high agency appear as: I feel strong and ready but don’t know what to do. Hope training can teach and coach people to develop both components of hope.

The power hope has on performance can be startling. For example, one study with female track athletes found that hope was the number one predictor of race performance (Snyder, 2002). When the authors statistically held raw athletic ability constant, hope still accounted for 56 percent of the variation in how well the athletes raced. The implications of these studies are that coaches will be well served by learning techniques to help clients become more hopeful. In turn this can have significant impact on the clients’ capacities to regroup when faced with difficulty and to feel more empowered.

Coaches may find Snyder’s work sheds light on explanations for the perceived effectiveness of well-known coaching interventions that, while not based on psychological theory, are in fact supported by it. For example, one familiar coaching intervention is brainstorming. From the perspective of Snyder’s work, brainstorming is a type of pathways training—for example, “Let’s think of five ways to get there!” An additional common practice in coaching is the use of positive affirmation and visualization exercises. These may help clients build a clear self-perception of “I can,” or a sense of agency.

The famous wheel of life or pillars exercise is another case in point (Whitworth, Kimsey-House, & Sandahl, 1998; Dean, 2004). For this the coach asks the client to identify a series of life domains (career development, relationships, leisure time, etc.). Then the client rates on a scale of one to ten how satisfied he is in that domain. For example, a client rates herself as a 4.0 in her satisfaction with use of leisure time. The coach asks the client to describe in detail what that aspect of life would look like if it were a 10 and if neither time nor money were an issue (10 might be going to the Cannes film festival, yachting, skiing the Alps). Then the coach asks (and brainstorms as necessary) what the client could do in the next six weeks to become a 4.5 (e.g., go to three movies or attend the local film festival, check out community boating, and/or, in season, sign up for ski lessons). One can see how this type of exercise, aided by brainstorming and clear visualization, could possibly foster both pathways and agency thinking, particularly when paired with accountability and occurring in the context of a warm coaching relationship.

The VIA classification of character strengths identifies six primary categories of strength (described as core virtues). Each of these has a number of subcategories, resulting in 24 potential signature strengths. After taking the test, individuals’ strengths are ranked from the top five (signature strengths) to the least developed. Usually, coaches focus on clients’ top strengths and help them harness these qualities. It is also possible to identify important less-developed strengths and bolster them.

The 24 strengths are organized by categories and subcategories:

At first glance the list of strengths may seem overwhelming, but after coach and client become familiar with the test and its results, the information can be very useful for coaching. Identification of top strengths provides a unique profile of who the client is at his or her best. In turn this information highlights what motivates and inspires each client. One can make choices of how to select interventions that might most powerfully help clients in the light of knowing their strengths. For example: a client trying to work through a challenging situation whose top strengths are love of learning and open mindedness might benefit from a different set of interventions from a client who has the top strengths of capacity to love and appreciation of beauty. Coaches can also use their knowledge of client strengths to design more optimal relationships as well as individually tailor homework assignments. When clients learn to bring their strength to a challenge it helps them tap into their intrinsic motivations and can help them improve performance and find more satisfaction in the task accomplishment.

There is strong empirical evidence that supports the effectiveness of working with clients’ signature strengths. For example, in one exercise (described later) people were asked to use their top strengths in new ways for one week (vs. a placebo exercise). The results showed that those who worked with their strengths in new ways were happier, less depressed, and more engaged in their lives that those in the control group. The effect of this one-week self-administered exercise was still strongly evident at follow-up assessments six months later. Extensive research data comparing strengths across culture, gender, and age suggest few differences across categories. Of all the 24 strengths, the five most strongly correlated to happiness are gratitude, curiosity, vitality, hope, and the capacity to love and be loved. These last results suggest that strength-building exercises in these subcategories might be useful.

As a coach, the author has found the strengths survey to be quietly radical. Many clients have never had their strengths assessed and find that just reading the survey results helps them label or understand themselves in new ways. Our society has many words for nuances of pathology, but a much less developed language to depict subtle but profound differences in profiles of strength. In addition, my experience is that the survey offers information that is not readily apparent from simple observation and interaction, and it deepens our understanding and connection with clients.

The exercises described in the following paragraphs are for the CEOs, entrepreneurs, performers, and soccer moms and dads who are psychologically healthy but also want to lead more joyful, engaged, and meaningful lives. These are the individuals who can be well served by our being able to expand the repertoire of services available to include tested methods to achieve these ends, not just to reduce depression and anxiety. As we’ve seen, increasing happiness is not only an end unto itself; it also correlates with and may even help create greater competence, resilience, access to personal as well as social resources, improved physical health, and deeper connection to society and sense of personal mission.

I will describe a number of exercises and techniques from AHC in the hope that coaches will adapt them to fit into their own style of working. One can pick and choose among exercises or use them as a whole, in a more stepwise, manual-like manner. Process-oriented coaches can incorporate the exercises as issues unfold in coaching. They can be offered to clients as between-session homework assignments or as in-session experiential exercises. The material can also be presented in a didactic-process format to individuals or groups. For the latter, sessions can begin with 15 minutes of personalized teaching, then segue into process discussion. The members can then pair up with one another during a group/workshop session or between sessions, to practice the exercise and debrief. Pairs (or triads) can then share what they learned when they return to the larger group with subsequent process discussion. While not describing specific session format at this time, my hope is coaches can integrate the material to their own training or coaching programs.

In order to coach to increase happiness, we must first arrive at a working definition. Seligman has identified three pathways to happiness: (1) through the emotions, (2) through connection with internal or external activity, and (3) through personal meaning. He calls these the Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life. Most often people think only of emotion and Hollywood impressions of life when they think of being happy. However, the second two pathways are equally, and probably more, compelling and lead to greater life satisfaction. The Engaged Life refers to being fully involved in life activity in work, relationships, and avocational pursuits. Coaching to increase engagement focuses on helping clients find what is intrinsically rewarding to them. Positive emotion and engagement together, however, don’t automatically lead to deep satisfaction, as one can happily be engaged in “fidgeting one’s life away.” This leads us to develop access to the third pathway, finding meaning and purpose and connection to a greater cause. Together the three lives, Pleasant, Engaged, and Meaningful, help us to create the Full Life.

Variations: Ask some clients to write an introduction, as this draws on the natural strengths of those who are less verbally spontaneous. In workshops, having participants break into pairs for positive introductions is often very energizing. Peterson, Park, and Seligman (2005) use this when interviewing prospective graduate students and find it shifts the tone of the process substantially.

For simplicity’s sake the exercises are presented here in the following sequence: first the focus is on those that increase positive emotion; second, those aimed toward increasing engagement; and finally, those to increase one’s sense of purpose and meaning. In actual sessions there is great flexibility in what exercises a coach chooses and whether they are presented in a structured or process oriented way (see coaching scenarios below).

Purpose: This exercise is a pleasure/mindfulness experience that can help clients who are on the hedonic treadmill. In other words, they have acclimated to success and good fortune and no longer feel as happy as their life circumstances would seem to merit. It is also a useful balance for the work-driven client who moves quickly from success to success without stopping to notice or absorb their lives. Over time clients learn to weave this skill into every day life.

This exercise is so simple it may feel simpleminded to many. However, it is receiving strong empirical support. Subjects participating in the three blessings (vs. placebo exercise of writing about childhood) were happier and less depressed six months after one week of three blessings homework.

Variation 1: In a work setting the coach can switch the question: What three things went right with the project today? What did the client do to make those good things happen?

Variation 2: When lying in bed at night and unfinished business pulls at the clients’ thoughts, suggest they mull over: “When was I at my best today?” Often clients remember events that otherwise would have been overlooked.

Purpose: Research suggests gratitude is one of the key strengths most associated with overall well-being. Beyond the specifics of the visit, learning the skill of having gratitude for people in your past has potential positive ramifications. Can the client transfer this to people in the present?

When clients would like to feel more positive about someone who has had a negative impact on them, another exercise might be useful.

The client chooses a person he knows well who has done something hurtful. On a piece of paper he writes that person’s name down in the middle of the paper, captures in a few words what he did (the grudge) and circles it. Then the client makes 15 circles on the page and fills each one in with a phrase describing what that same person did that was helpful and generous and for which the client is grateful. The client then holds the page at arm’s length and tries to find the balance between how the person helped and hurt. Does the hurt get lost in what else this person did? Encourage the client to allow the situation to be complex and not black/white.

Variation for a work setting: If an executive is having a challenge with a boss/subordinate, have him write the problematic behavior/situation in the middle of the page and then balance it with 15 other things. This exercise can be used with both individuals as a precursor to conflict management sessions.

Variation: The client practices this in a small way during a week as events unfold. For example, one event is canceled—what takes its place?

Variation: Clients can do this as homework, or they can pick someone to help them “argue” with the pessimistic thought. The partner may also play devil’s advocate to help the client increase the capacity to dispute it.

Variation 1: Finding ways clients can use their strengths under adversity. When a situation is challenging coach and client brainstorm and practice how the client’s signature strength can be applied to improve or make the most of the situation. For example: For public speaking anxiety, how might clients pull on gratitude, love of learning, or capacity to love in order to center themselves in their core strength/value and find the energy or resolve to continue?

Variation 2: When engaged in an action that increases anxiety, read over the conditions of flow and slightly alter the parameters of the task to be in line with natural strengths.

Variations: In a work or team setting, take members’ natural skills into account when delegating (or volunteering) for particular tasks. Have work teams all take the VIA if they are interested. If a colleague or friend is unable or uninterested in taking the VIA, have the client guess what the other’s signature strengths might be and use that when planning an activity or choosing a gift for the friend.

Variations: Practice active/constructive responding in the work setting, saving criticisms until afterward. Notice whether conflicts are reduced and if behavioral repertoire of the team shifts.

Variation: In the Work Strengths Tree exercise, clients repeat the Strengths Family Tree exercise with people they work with on a daily basis. They think through the key strengths of colleagues, bosses, or subordinates and plan to relate to them differently in light of this information.

The preceding exercises are currently being tested for effectiveness for increasing happiness, reducing depression, and increasing engagement and meaning. While on the surface these interventions are most obviously related to individual and personal coaching, it is fairly clear how one might apply these in work settings. The Gallup Organization, for example, first assesses signature strengths of all the primary leaders of an organization, then continues down through the organizational hierarchy until every person in the entire institution has been tested on Gallup’s Strength Survey (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001; Stone, 2004). Then, once everyone is familiar with the language and comfortable with the philosophy, programs to make companywide shifts in optimal task assignment and management communication are implemented. In this way the strengths culture can permeate the system prior to explicit changes in management.

After making contact I’d ask Bonita for a positive introduction. As Bonita tells her story I’d listen for her natural strengths and notice her preferred relational style. Afterward I’d ask questions about her introduction in order to augment her appreciation of her strengths and help anchor this information more firmly into her consciousness and self-image. If she slips into describing weaknesses, first listen, provide support, but also redirect attention back to her best self.

The next few sessions would explore Bonita’s signature strengths. I’d expect her VIA top strength profile to be:

The positive psychology orientation suggests that teaching Bonita to harness her natural strengths would be an optimal pathway to increase effectiveness in both these areas. Bonita has many avenues to increase her ability to engage in constructive conflict. The first work I’d do with signature strengths includes the assignment to identify top strengths and find new ways to use them in the current week. Then I would focus in on her goals regarding conflict and leadership.

Our work might evolve as follows:

By helping Bonita back to her central strengths, the coach empowers her to more easily access her already well-formed teaching and communication skills and use them in the service of conflict management. If her signature strengths were in the area of justice, the coach could tailor the conversation quite differently. In that situation, the coach might harness the client’s core values of fairness and justice. For each person, whatever the nature of the challenge, the coach tries to find the bridge connecting that challenge to the client’s primary strengths.

The primary challenge Bob is facing is that his multinational company is merging with its main competitor, a South Korea-based company, and his board worries that his high-powered American cowboy style will not be nuanced enough to allow the merger to go through. Bob’s goals are for the merger to go well and to leave his company in “perfect order” when he retires a few years down the road. He has been clear that he is not interested in the “soft side” of coaching.

As a positive psychology coach I would begin the first session in the usual manner by asking Bob to tell a story about himself at his best during a specific experience the previous week. As he gives the introduction, I’d build rapport, assess his strengths and values, and afterward explore these more fully.

Bob would also take the Values in Action questionnaire to assess his signature strengths. The second session would engage him in dialogue about these strengths and how he uses them in everyday life. People often have the invigorating “aha” experience of finding words for experiences they could never name until learning their strengths. Those not initially interested in psychological interventions often find it energizing to develop self-reflection skills in the context of exploring a new language for real and specific strengths (vs. flattery) and by focusing on health rather than pathology.

Bob’s top signature strengths would probably include:

I’d discuss and explore with Bob how these strengths have formed the powerful building blocks for his success. In Bob’s case he shows extraordinary strengths in two areas, courage and transcendence. In major leadership positions one hopes for a greater breadth of strengths, ideally one highly developed strength for at least four areas.

For Bob, it might be best to tailor a different signature strength exercise, for example, ask him to pick five people of importance to the merger and have them take the VIA. I’d then ask Bob to guess their strengths and assess his accuracy. The purpose here would be to make it interesting for him to begin thinking in a strengths language about others, and have the implicit support or confrontation of his social intelligence by how well he did.

Bob is a CEO with major strengths; to reach his goals, however, he is going to need to acknowledge the importance of areas in which he is not as strong. At home, he has his wife to cover him in these areas of weakness. At work, he apparently doesn’t have people he respects to fill this role. There is no way around this issue, and like the previous coach, we need to address his liabilities. As good coaches, we remain as unattached as possible to whether our interventions will get us fired. Circling the truth is a good way to lose a consultation job.

Bob now feels ready to connect to the challenge. If Bob’s primary strengths were in a different area, the coach would shift, framing the core issue in a way that would pull on what is intrinsically rewarding to the client, for instance, curiosity, justice, and so on. It is very important for the coach to set up assignments, inquiries, or confrontations based on the client’s signature strengths, not the coach’s strengths or agenda.

Advances in the field also explicitly and implicitly offer a wide range of possible applications. There are psychometrically robust measures to assess strengths, and empirically testable positive interventions that have been found to increase happiness, productivity, and life satisfaction. For those who have seen the power of coaching on a personal level, it behooves you to be aware of the larger science base that can support this perspective. Obviously all coaching doesn’t work; we are a new field and must make mistakes to move the process of discovery forward. While coaching is an art, it is one that can be built on science. At each phase of growth as individuals and as a profession, there is an optimal dialectical tension of art and science as the art informs the science which in turn can inform the art. It is time to transcend the notion that it is one or the other, and for coach-practitioners to become adept at both.