I recently watched a video by Dr. Laurie Santos, who is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale University, in which she explores the roots of virtue on Big Think (image credit)

She turns to age-old philosophers like Aristotle, who championed the concept of 'eudaimonia,' or flourishing through virtue.

With some curiosity in mind, I looked at the classification she mentioned in her video from the VIA Institute on Character which identified six primary domains, encompassing 24 character strengths.

For some background on the Character Strengths:

The work started in the early 2000s, when 55 scientists collaboratively studied character, leading to the VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). This framework of positive human traits has since been explored in numerous peer-reviewed articles worldwide. (Though for clarity I have never used it)

The VIA Survey helps identify our 24 unique strengths, grouped under six virtues:

-Wisdom & Knowledge
-Courage
-Humanity
-Justice
-Temperance
-Transcendence

As I am interested in how we can apply things to improve employee experience, Dr. Laurie also made a reference to the concept of 'job crafting' by Wrzesniewski et al 2008, which advocates for redefining job roles to align with these strengths, ensuring a more fulfilled and efficient workforce. (I'll share later this paper and the graphic showing how job crafting could work) - as this is an area that I think could be interesting to test and build a prototype on.

Remember, embracing and fostering these strengths isn't just a modern revelation; societies worldwide have long recognized their intrinsic value in nurturing well-being and driving performance.

Robert

P.S Here is the link to the survey:
https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register

Link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=MeHsqm4F-W4