Operating as a Strengths Based Organization - A Case Study
I had the honor of speaking with JoDee Curtis, Founder of Purple Ink on Monday, January 31, 2022 via Zoom; JoDee founded the company in 2010 as a human resources services firm. However, JoDee has uniquely evolved her company to be what she now defines as JoyPowered®. In fact, JoDee has added author to her biography since she has written four books that describe the JoyPowered® concepts. I found this description on her company’s website,
“JoDee Curtis is the Founder of Purple Ink, Powered by Purple Ink, and the ink pad, author of four books in the JoyPowered® series, and co-host of The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast. JoDee has a passion for helping organizations and individuals discover their talents and do more of what they do well!”
Since I have a deep interest in positive psychology and positive business practices in general and the impact these practices have on the health of its employees and the organization overall, I was interested to learn how JoDee first had the idea to develop this approach and how she evolved it to be a sustainable way of operating for herself and her team.
To learn about JoDee’s company and the books she has written, check out this link:
The books are titled as follows: “JoyPowered®: Intentionally Creating an Inspired Workspace”, “The JoyPowered® Family”, “The JoyPowered® Team”, and “ The JoyPowered® Organization”.
Purple Ink has approximately 20 employees
9 fulltime
5 part-time
5 contractors
What led you to implement a strengths based approach or what you have now coined as a JoyPowered® culture at Purple Ink?
JoDee really liked Gallup Clifton Strengths and decided to get certified in 2015. She went through the process and it was a big financial investment. She knew she would need to offer this coaching and training in order to recoup the cost of the certification and it was eye-opening and energizing every time she would conduct a training program. She not only recouped her investment in the same year but she also trained 2 other people on her team to conduct the training. This helped to further amplify the strengths based approach. She shared that every time she or one of the other trainers teaches a class, it pumps them up.
She has embodied the JoyPowered® culture by living by her own strengths (maximizer is her top and positivity is another of her top 5) and by having all the employees her company hires (fulltime, part time and contract) take the Clifton Strengths Assessment. By taking the assessment, the results reveal the unique talents each brings to the organization; the top five strengths are displayed on the Purple Ink website at the top of each employee’s biography. They use it in their email signatures and utilize the strengths to help better interact with each other and for the clients they support.
She shared a couple of stories to illustrate how learning a person’s strengths can be of value. For example, her former director of marketing has intellection as one of her top strengths; it helped JoDee learn to better interact with and leverage that strength. Another employee had deliberative as a top strength and again it was useful to understand that strength and adapt accordingly. JoDee also has her family members take the Clifton Strengths and it has enhanced her understanding and appreciation for the gifts each one of them has.
Another way the strengths or JoyPowered® is reinforced is through their performance management process that involves an electronic weekly check-in and the first question in that process is How are you using your strengths? As a result of this process, JoDee feels more connected with her employees than ever before. Their performance management system (15-Five) also has a method of recognizing their colleagues by giving a “high-five” when they are caught utilizing one of their strengths. Every time someone gets recognized, it inspires more conversations and encourages more focus on finding ways to live out their strengths.
What’s been the biggest challenge of sustaining this way of operating?
JoDee shared that because her company is still small, it’s easy to reinforce being JoyPowered® internally but the biggest challenge is with the clients they serve. Many times only one team or small units of an organization will ask the Purple Ink Team to conduct a JoyPowered® training session. She explained that when only a small part of a company is focused on their strengths, it’s difficult to spread that momentum throughout. Ideally, an entire organization at all levels learns about their strengths and then takes on a strategy to embed a way to build on and reinforce a strengths focus in the way they operate.
After speaking with JoDee and seeing how her organization has grown, I can’t help but to correlate the JoyPowered® way of operating with the expansions Purple Ink has experienced.
They started as a traditional human resources services firm and now offer JoyPowered® coaching and training, a JoyPowered® workspace podcast (available wherever you listen to your podcasts) to share JoyPowered® concepts, offer the Ink Pad which is a unique training and meeting space that clients can rent out), and a Powered by Purple Ink Network (which is a people powered membership professional network).
