Updated 5/10/08: This is part 1 of my 6-part series on my StrengthsFinder 2.0 results. I’ll update this post as I complete the other parts of the series.
- Introduction
- Intellection
- Adaptability
- Learner
- Analytical
- Connectedness
I listed my StrengthsFinder 2.0 results in an earlier post, with no commentary about the ideas in the book or the details behind each talent theme. Maybe you have heard of it. Here is a little background.
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| Photo by Wally Gobetz |
The Gallup organization has been studying human strengths for 40 years, and they developed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to help people discover and develop their talents. It’s a quick online tool that will report to you your top five dominant talent themes, along with a customized detailed guide and action planner.
Talents are your natural ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving. Strength is the ability to provide consistent near-perfect performance. Talents, knowledge, skills, and practice combine to create your strengths. To build your strength, you must invest in your innate talent with time spent practicing, developing skills, and building knowledge.
The StrengthsFinder assessment differs from the Myers-Briggs profile test, in that it focuses on finding and developing your dominant talents as opposed to providing a general description of your personality profile.
The Gallup people found lots of talents and were able to group them into 34 unique talent themes. Discovering your talents is only the beginning, because then it is up to you to take action, to invest in yourself, in order to develop your strengths. Why is it important to understand what your natural talents are? Because a talent is a multiplier of investment. You can study something a whole lot, practice long hard hours, and it will never become one of your strengths if you don’t have a talent to multiply all that studying and practice.
We are more engaged and happy when working in our strengths than when working at something for which we have no talent. The Gallup studies discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies. The book challenges the traditional “find your weaknesses and work on improving them” idea, calling such activity “the path of most resistance.” Their bottom line: “You cannot be anything you want to be - but you can be a lot more of who you are already are.”
I first heard about StrengthsFinder in its first incarnation, when I heard about the book Now, Discover Your Strengths. Then someone on my team at work had gotten into StrengthsFinder 2.0, then got our manager involved, and she financed everyone’s purchase of the book because she believed in it so much. I’m glad she did, because I’ve found it all very beneficial.
I will write a detailed post for each of my top five talent themes. I’ll write how I initially reacted to the report and the theme description , and I’ll relate what I learned and where I went from there. To recap, here are my Top 5, in descending order:
- Intellection - “People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions”
- Adaptability - “People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to ‘go with the flow.’ They tend to be ‘now’ people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.”
- Learner - “People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.”
- Analytical - “People who are especially talented in the Analytical theme search for reasons and causes. They have the ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation.”
- Connectedness - “People who are especially talented in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.”
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