Strengths Finder

[ This is part 2 of a 2-part entry on the Clifton StrengthsFinder and the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths. Part 1 is entitled, Discover Your Strengths. ]

Marcus Buckingham (co-author of First, Break All the Rules, and The One Thing You Need to Know) and Donald O. Clifton, Chair of the Gallup International Research & Education Center, have created StrengthsFinder, a "revolutionary program to help readers identify their talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy consistent, near-perfect performance."

The program is described in the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths. But there's more to the book than a simple explanation of the 34 themes in Gallup's "taxonomy of strengths".

Inside, you'll find chapters on the anatomy of a strength, discovering the source of your strengths, and putting strengths to work. You'll find complete descriptions of the 34 themes, including what each theme "sounds like" and how to relate to someone who expresses that theme.

You'll learn how to manage strengths in yourself as well as in other people (if you're a manager) and how to build a strengths-based organization. And, for those who say "Show Me the Data", the appendix provides a technical report on the research underlying StrengthsFinder.

 

Highlights

To really discover and understand your strengths, you should buy and read a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths, then work through the associated StrengthsFinder assessment online. In the meantime, here are some highlights that I flagged as I read the book.

• Knowledge can be factual (content) or experiential. Experiential knowledge is what you "pick up along the way" as you go through life. To develop your strengths, it is your responsibility to keep alert for opportunities to gain knowledge and to perform better as a result.

   

• Skills bring structure to experiential knowledge. At some point, a smart person sits back and formalizes his accumulated knowledge into a set of steps which, if followed, will lead to (acceptable, if not great) performance.

   

• Talent is "any recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied". This is the comprehensive definition that Gallup has derived after 25 years of studying great managers.

   

• Your talents are unique and enduring. These patterns are created by the connections in your brain and, past a certain age, you won't be able to develop a completely new design.

   

• Strength— The "acid test" of a strength is that you can do it "consistently and nearly perfectly". It is impossible to build a strength without an underlying talent. Your talents define your strengths. In order to lead a strong life, you must first identify your most powerful talents, then "hone them with skills and knowledge".

   

• Your greatest room for growth is in the areas of your greatest strengths.

   

• Identify your talents through Spontaneous reactions, Yearnings, Rapid learning, and Satisfactions. While your spontaneous reactions provide the clearest trace of your talents, three more clues can assist. Yearnings reveal the presence of a talent, especially when they are felt early in life. Rapid learning happens when your brain "seems to light up as if a whole bank of switches were suddenly flicked to 'on' [and] the steps of this skill fly down the newly opened connections at such speed that very soon the steps disappear." Satisfactions feel good. "If it feels good when you perform an activity, chances are that you are using a talent."

   

• A weakness is anything that gets in the way of excellent performance. It is not "an area where you lack proficiency". Clifton and Buckingham "urge you to steer clear of this [latter] definition for one very practical reason: Like all of us, you have countless areas where you lack proficiency, but most of them are simply not worth bothering about."

   

• Fear of Weaknesses — For many people, fear of weaknesses overshadows confidence in strengths. "Whatever the weakness, whatever the strength, the strength is just a strength—to be admired and then simply assumed—but the weakness, ah, the weakness is an 'area of opportunity'". Buckingham and Clifton have much to say (little of it favorable) on what they term this "deeply rooted" "fixation with weakness".

   

• Strategies to manage around weaknesses — If your weaknesses interfere with your strengths, that is, if something is getting in the way of near excellent performance, then you need to develop strategies to manage around those weaknesses. Note, however, that this doesn't necessarily imply you will fix them, but only to manage around them.

  Once you know you have a weakness to deal with, determine whether it is a knowledge weakness, a skills weakness, or a talent weakness. If you have a weakness in knowledge or skills, you will need to acquire the skills or knowledge you lack. Or, change what you're doing.

   

• If you've identified a talent weakness, the authors recommend five creative strategies, ranging from "Get a little better at it", to "Design a support system", to "Just stop doing it". Seriously.

   

• Building on your strengths is about responsibility, not about ego. The most responsible, challenging, and honorable thing to do, to be true to yourself, is to realize the potential strengths inherent in your talents.

   

• "Focus performance by legislating outcomes rather than by forcing each person into a stylistic mold. Emphasize measurement of appropriate outcomes and less on policies and "core competencies". Recognize that all people are not alike. Focus training on educating people about their skills rather than on identifying and "fixing" for their "skill gaps".

   

• Teach the language of talents. "Most employment advertisements loudly assert the need for certain skills, knowledge, and years of experience but remain mute on talent", say the authors. Instead, they recommend itemizing the qualities you can't change in the people you hire, rather than the ones you can. (Or, as a friend of mine says "you can train smarts but you can't smart trains".)

   

• Study the links between measured talent and subsequent performance. You'll need data to do this. Start to collect it. Figure out the right way to measure performance. Build a "performance scorecard" for every employee. Have a "strengths conversation" with every employee. And, finally, once you understand how to build on strengths, stop promoting people into roles that don't fit their strengths.

   

Excerpts

If you're still not convinced, read some excerpts from the book. Gallup has posted excerpts from Now, Discover Your Strengths in the "Book Center" section of the Gallup Management Journal website. You'll also find additional insights and articles throughout the site.

Where Do You Fit in the Puzzle?

I liked this description from the last chapter of Now, Discover Your Strengths. I feel as if the authors have been sitting in a corner at many companies where I've worked, taking notes.

Most organizations are a puzzle put together in a darkened room. Each piece is clumsily squeezed into place and then the edges are ground down so that they feel well positioned. But pull up the shade, let a little light into the room, and we can see the truth. Eight out of ten pieces are in the wrong place.

Eight out of ten employees feel they are miscast. Eight out of ten employees never have the chance to reveal the best of themselves. They suffer for it, their organization suffers, and their customers suffer. Their health, their friends, and their family suffer.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can raise the shades higher still. We can spotlight each person's strengths. We can provide him with a manager who is intrigued by these strengths. We can build an organization that asks him to play to these strengths and then honors him when he does. We can show him the best of himself and ask him to keep reaching for more. We can help him live a strong life.

Or we can go on fumbling in the dark with business as usual.