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Monthly Archives: May 2008

StrengthsFinder Part 3 of 6 Adaptability

This is part three in a six-part series on my StrengthsFinder 2.0 results. In part one, I introduced the whole strengths and talents idea from Tom Rath’s book. The basic premise is that one develops strengths by investing study and practice into areas where one already has a natural talent. The book and associated materials help you identify your talents and some actions you can take to build on top of those talents.

The StrengthsFinder online assessment reports my Top 5 Talent Themes as:

  • Intellection
  • Adaptability
  • Learner
  • Analytical
  • Connectedness

Throughout my career, I have been called out at performance review time for my adaptability, my ability to focus, lead, and stay productive during emergencies and times of unexpected change. For years in the early part of my career I was a Unix system administrator in a highly unstable environment, and I was repeatedly singled out for my calming influence when things went bad. Now, as a consultant who also travels a lot, I have to deal with the unexpected on a constant basis. It’s the same in my personal life – I have learned over the years to roll with whatever comes my way.
detour
Having said all that, I was very surprised to see a talent theme called ‘Adaptability’ show up in my Top 5, let alone all the way up in the #2 spot. It’s because I don’t see myself as either ultra-rigid or ultra-flexible, I don’t crave boring routines on one hand or crazy unpredictability on the other. So I have to keep reminding myself about what a talent is (a natural way of thinking, feeling, or behaving) and what a strength is (the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance, gained by investing in talents).

As with my #1 talent theme, Intellection, I had to read the Adaptability full description to start getting the right idea about what it meant to have an Adaptability talent theme. Only in this case, I had to re-read it a couple of times. It started to make sense, and I also learned that I really had to concentrate on what in the descriptions applied to me, personally.

The line in the full description that jumped out at me first was, “But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans.” I caught the “respond willingly” part and figured that was an important word selection. It implies that I have free will, I take personal responsibility for my actions, and I make choices instead of passively drifting along – all concepts that resonate with me. There was another part of the full description with which I didn’t agree, however, the part about almost looking forward to unforeseen detours, etc. Time to look into the personalized guide.

Just like when I was studying Intellection, I found the personalized description of how the Adaptability theme applies to me to be the most accurate and ultimately the most useful information. It noted some things I had half-expected to read, things such as, “Driven by your talents, you are quite comfortable letting the day’s events and people’s demands determine what really deserves your attention.”

But then the personalized guide threw in some points that I hadn’t expected to see in a description of Adaptability. Their unexpectedness made them no less true – in fact, they’re right on the money.

  • Because of your strengths, you surround yourself with lovely things. These have the power to soothe, calm, energize, and inspire you. – Wow, is that ever the truth. I’ve been working on defining and putting into action my values, mission, guidelines, and goals, independently of StrengthsFinder. That’s all the subject of many future blog posts. But one of my chief values is beauty, and that starts to take concrete form in my life through what the SF2.0 people call “lovely things”. So when I read this, it kind of blew my mind.
  • The arts or nature itself enhances your sense of well-being. - So true. Trying to be objective, I’d say probably nothing enhances my sense of well-being more than “the arts or nature”. I grew up not far from the Gulf of Mexico, only 30 minutes from the beach. I was introduced to the Rocky Mountains probably around age 12-13. I ultimately made the choice to move closer to the mountains than the beach. Being at the beach makes me feel very calm and relaxed. But being in the mountains makes me feel energized and inspired. The choice was easy. And the subject of “the arts” is something I’ll cover in depth later.
  • It’s very likely that you may enjoy reading. To some degree, it allows you to gather certain kinds of information to expand your storehouse of knowledge. - As I wrote earlier, I don’t know what this is doing in my Adaptability description, other than the paragraph goes on to tell me I don’t like being around restless people when I’m trying to read. Well, yes. But more striking is that the SF2.0 assessment accurately predicted multiple times that I like to read, that I need to read, that I read for knowledge, and so on. I was impressed when I read this description.

super happy lucky cat

Studying this talent theme of mine also got me thinking about the concept of luck and what it means to be lucky. Lots has been written about luck. Some people believe in it, some people believe there’s no such thing, some believe you can only hope and pray for it, some say “being lucky is believing you’re lucky” or “you make your own luck.” I think there’s a difference between the kind of luck that’s just random chance or coincidence or a pleasant surprise and the kind of luck that one makes for oneself through attitude, practice, applied experience, and every choice – conscious and unconscious – one makes every day. (Hmm, sounds suspiciously like strengths, doesn’t it?) I believe in both kinds of luck – random and willful. For years I’ve been aware of how lots of things, big and small, break my way when I need them. It feels like I’m lucky, but I know it’s my outlook and my behavior and my circle of friends and, yes, random chance – or “dumb luck”. I see this notion of an Adaptability talent theme being tied up one’s perception of being lucky. In terms of StrengthsFinder, I can see how the strength I’ve developed around Adaptability as a result of my own work multiplied by a talent could be easily mistaken for luck. This is the kind of new insight synthesis that makes me like StrengthsFinder so much.

If you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment and want to share your results or discuss anything I’ve written here, leave a comment or contact me via email. If you’ve just got questions about any of this, feel free to contact me, too—I love to hear from readers and I love to share thoughts about this topic.

photo credits:
“detour” by Spiicy
“lucky cat” by Paul Worthington © All rights reserved.

Top 4 guidelines for smooth travel

After years of frequent travel, I have learned some valuable personal guidelines that I am happy to share with you now.

  • Don’t be in a hurry – Allow yourself plenty of time during every stage of your journey. You’ll feel a lot better and make smarter choices along the way if you don’t have to rush everywhere.
  • Plan and prepare – Do your research to know where you’re going, when you have to be somewhere, and all the logistical details that get you from point A to B: Flight number, time, airline, gate, arrival time, frequent flier number, rental car membership number, reservation confirmation number, driving directions, address of the hotel, hotel membership number, hotel confirmation code, driving directions to and from your client site and the hotel, driving directions to the airport from both hotel and client, return flight number and so on, transportation to and from home airport if necessary along with confirmation numbers and dispatch/customer service phone numbers. You don’t want to have to figure this out on the fly, and you don’t want to have to dig for anything while driving, etc.
  • Whatever happens, roll with it and don’t lose your cool – Things will go wrong, plans will change without your permission, there’s always something unexpected that will happen. Just roll with it. Be smart and use what options you have, but don’t lose your cool about things you can’t control. And definitely don’t yell at innocent service workers. Practice being patient and serene. You can do it.
  • Don’t count on good signs and instructions – Take it from me, an experienced traveler: nearly everything and every place has extremely poor signs and instructions. I’m talking about booking travel and accommodations, using airports, rental car desks and lots, highways, hotels, everything. Most places are run by people who have no idea how to communicate clearly and efficiently with signs and instructions or directions. So don’t count on them. And when you find yourself in a tough spot because someone failed with the signs and so on, roll with it and don’t lose your cool. This is where the other guidelines will really help you – don’t be in a hurry, do lots of research, planning, and map-printing, etc., and just remain calm when things go wrong.

Great day in the morning

This is one of my all-time favorite TV commercials. The first time I saw it, it had me rolling.

The Volkswagon Jetta “coelacanth” commercial:

My personal take on the Microsoft bid for Yahoo

I’ve been using Yahoo! since before they were a company, since they were a hostname at Stanford.edu. Yahoo! Mail has been a faithful old standby for me for years. Even when I was paying for Apple’s .Mac services, including email, for about five years, I still had the rock of Yahoo! as a fallback. Once I got into Google’s Gmail, I realized I couldn’t justify paying Apple a yearly fee when I could get more and better service for free from online sources. So while Gmail has become my most important personal email tool, I still depend on, and trust, Yahoo! Mail for most of my online contacts.

For search, I primarily use Google, like most people, and occasionally use Yahoo! search, either by accident or because I want a different perspective. I never use Microsoft for web search, because the results usually don’t get me where I want to go. It doesn’t matter.

When Microsoft announced its unsolicited bid for Yahoo!, my first reaction was dread. Such a merger of giants very rarely works, rarely delivers the promised shareholder value (disclosure: I do not own shares of any of them), and rarely benefits consumers. This isn’t just my observation – there’s a lot of factual support to be found via places like Tom Peters and Oligopoly Watch.

I have been contemplating for some time moving all my email to Google, and therefore changing contact and login information for some 300 sites where I currently use my Yahoo! info. A successful bid from Microsoft to buy Yahoo! would have hastened that decision and migration. Now that Microsoft has walked away from the bid, I am leaning more toward bailing out anyway, but at a more leisurely pace.

When the bid was first revealed, I read so much speculation on the web about the probability of the acquisition going through and about whether that was a good or bad thing for either company. By March, nearly everything I read from industry insiders all over the web was that the acquisition was inevitable, that Yahoo! would be forced to succumb, that Microsoft really badly needed Yahoo! and their search advertising business, etc. Now that the news is out that no deal will be made, the rampant majority opinion seems to be that Yahoo! is now doomed, walking away was the smartest thing Microsoft could do, etc. I hope that Yahoo! can fix their problems and that Microsoft can deliver on their promise to compete and innovate because I want to see all three – Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! – remain healthy and strong and competitive, each in their own way. Fight it out in the open market. I think that’s good for business and good for consumers.