This is part five 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. He asserts that we develop strengths by investing study and practice into areas where we are already naturally talented. The book and online assessment 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

All right, now we’re getting to the one I keep hearing the most about. I’ve been described as analytical, and I’ve been accused of being analytical, and they’re not the same thing. Something that’s irked me in my professional life is how people will caution me not to make assumptions and then turn right around and urge me to accept their own assumptions. Here’s the first line from the Analytical full description and I like it: Your Analytical theme challenges other people: “Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true.” That’s a way of putting it that I hadn’t considered before, but it’s a good one. I don’t think it means not trusting people. In my own life, it’s more “trust, but verify” (to quote Ronald Reagan).

I like to ask questions, because I like to understand. I enjoy logic, I like arguments that build from point to point to point. The full description puts it this way: You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas, but you do insist that their theories be sound. Right! It’s not maliciousness, it’s just seeking first to understand.

What really got me as I read the full description the first time, and then especially after grappling with the next talent theme, Connectedness, were the references to searching for patterns and connections. It’s right there: Armed with these data, you search for patterns and connections. You want to understand how certain patterns affect one another. I think all my talent themes are unified by Connectedness, and Analytical plays into it beautifully. I really enjoy looking for patterns, searching for meaning in data, finding out how things affect each other long before they affect us. 

Finally, the full description actually uses language that was very relevant to where I was professionally at the time I first took the test and got my results. You peel the layers back until, gradually, the root cause or causes are revealed. I think I even laughed aloud when I first read that. The term “root cause” in the context of Analytical is a term central to Problem Management – the analysis of incidents to find out what caused them and how to prevent them from causing more incidents in the future. I couldn’t believe how dead-on parts of my results were, like this one. I am very interested in methods of root cause analysis, trend analysis, and I’m considering a new career direction into Problem Management. So this passage really reached out and grabbed my attention.

Switching to the personalized description of the Analytical theme proved even more illuminating and inspiring, as usual. I found it was good on this theme to take both the full description and the personalized description together because they’re both so true. The very first two lines of the shared theme description, in fact, really struck home again. 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. I mean, seriously, that’s what I do.

What I read in these paragraphs struck me as a kind of defense of my natural analytical streak. As I mentioned, I’ve been accused of being analytical, maybe too analytical. I’ve had to be mindful most of my professional career not to get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’. I’m not naturally action-biased, but never leaving the analysis of something is ultimately frustrating because nothing ever happens without action, and thinking about something never does anybody any good if no actions are ever taken after the thinking gets done.

The next specific statement that caused me to stop and think was this one: Because of your strengths, you may be aware of some of the elements impacting a group of people, a project, a process, a deal, or a proposal. It’s not just I’m “aware of some of the elements” but that I like to make myself aware of elements in the work before me, and of their meaning. That is analysis, and I’ve been warned by some coworkers not to “over-think” something (which is easy for them to say). I decided after reading all of this stuff that from now on, so long as I make sure to turn analysis into action, I’m not going to allow anyone to treat my analytical tendencies as a liability. So long as my boss and others believe in this whole StrengthsFinder business, then they have to take my results seriously. And that means if being analytical can be a strength, then get off my back when I analyze something.

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:
“the worlds greatest detective” by practicalowl
“chart” by paul worthington

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

• Intellection
• Adaptability
• Learner
• Analytical
• Connectedness

I didn’t have to read the Learner full description to get where this talent theme was going. Some of it was predictable. Here’s an excerpt.

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered—this is the process that entices you.

The process, the process, the process. I don’t necessarily buy that. I’ve heard this before, about other people, how they love the process of learning but they don’t care too much what they learn. I’m not really like that. I love to learn, but I love to learn something I love. You know? I may follow a process, but it’s the subject, not the process, that I love.

But if I take a second, closer look, then I admit that I do get energized by that progress curve, where learning the basics and gaining skills are swift. It’s a mystery that’s being revealed. That’s something I understood a long time ago. What I have come to recognize recently is that one should learn something beyond one’s current fields or domains. That is, rather than simply learn a new song on guitar, which I already play, I would benefit from learning a new instrument altogether.

This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

That’s definitely true for me. I strive to learn things but don’t care if I ever master them. I’m almost a dilettante, except I’m not even that serious. For me, out of all my Top 5 talent themes, the last one – Connectedness – is the most intriguing to me, and I see it in not only the other four themes, but also in lots of other areas of my life. So when I learn things, it’s mostly because there’s a connection to something else important to me, or I am building a new connection. That’s what I focus on – the connections – more so than the knowledge or the learning process.

When podcasting was first starting to take off, I decided I wanted to learn what it would take to make a podcast – and to make a fairly good one, for that matter. I have a lot of technical know-how when it comes to the Internet, the web, computers, software, etc. And I have varied interests, and I have a need to create. So I decided I’d launch a podcast. I came up with the name, the topics, the logo, registered the domain, set up equipment, recorded and edited my show, followed all the technical specifications, got my feed established and listed in the iTunes podcast directory as well as a bunch of others, and it was off and running. I left no detail out.

No, it wasn’t the most efficient way to get going – doing all the planning and prep up front before even recording anything. In fact, most big-name, experienced podcasters recommend that you don’t start that way – that you should just record, get a free site, and publish. But because I was into it to learn about it, I did as much as I could so that when the first episode came out I had all aspects firing along with it. I even set up a listener forum on the web site. But ultimately, once the learning and launching was over, producing the show became a time-consuming chore. It never found an audience. I put out 15 episodes in over a year, but just recently called the whole thing off. I was completely at peace with my decision, too, because it never was meant to take over the world.

As usual, I found the personalized description of how the Learner theme applies to me to be more accurate and useful than the full description. I found this part illuminating, inspiring, and thought-provoking.

Driven by your talents, you may identify the specific traits or experiences that distinguish one person from the next. When you familiarize yourself with someone, you might be able to predict how the person will react in different situations.

Well now, that’s an odd thing to say. I wasn’t expecting this and I’m still not sure what to make of it. I can’t say I either agree or disagree, or that I’ve noticed any signs of this behavior. It definitely got me wondering.

Because of your strengths, you may see some value in continuous education. Perhaps this reflects your interest in particular topics. Sometimes you are fascinated with the process of acquiring knowledge or skills. Chances are good that you can be scholarly if you have a desirable goal to reach. Perhaps you are willing to examine certain topics for extended periods of time.

Aha! Now I get what they mean by “the process” – I can be scholarly when learning. That is, I go about it methodically, etc. Like a scholar. Okay, yes, I do enjoy that. And I’d almost rather not look at the “willing to examine certain topics for extended periods of time” statement. That seems to have serious crossover with the Analytical talent theme. It’s something that others can observe and decide that I get too hung up on analysis, that I ‘over-analyze’. There may have been times in the past where that has been true, but today I am taking a two-fold approach. First, I try not to let analysis or “examination”/learning go on too long without some sort of application – something that will help get or give some tangible, externally visible value. Second, I have embraced the fact that among my top talent themes are thinking, analyzing, and learning, so I am actually trying to do more of all of that. To people who might look negatively on my thinking/analyzing, I say, “deal with it”. For my part, I try to be prompt, efficient, and to produce something from all that learning, etc. I think it’s a good balance.

To some degree, thoughts come alive for you when questions are posed and answers are proposed. You might have a delightful time thinking out loud and listening to intelligent people express themselves.

Yes, that’s very true. I do think out loud in certain situations – I admit it and make it explicit that I’m thinking out loud. I don’t mind. And I’ve noticed that all of my best and most rewarding friendships have been with the most intelligent people.

You might document or store in your mind bits and pieces of information. Perhaps you want to refer to these insights or facts when an opportunity presents itself.

This is another of those “but doesn’t everybody do this?” moments. But stop for a moment and think of someone in your circles who “refers to stored insights or facts when an opportunity presents itself”. Yeah. That guy. Making small talk at a cocktail party with the Trivial Pursuit enthusiast doesn’t sound like much fun. Here’s the thing – I see myself in those two statements from the personal description, however I try to make good use of this trait in my professional career, where it might be much more advantageous than in chit-chat with friends.

In fact, I see this whole “storing and opportunistic referring” behavior tied into the contexts of my other Top 5 talent themes. For example, it’s a good thing when I’m being analytical. I see it especially tightly linked to my Connectedness theme. It really could fit seamlessly into that theme’s descriptions, it seems to me. I definitely like to store and retrieve bits and pieces of information when I’m exploring connections.

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:
“books in a stack (a stack of books)” by austinevan
“writing exams” by ccarlstead

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.

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.

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.

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

• Intellection
• Adaptability
• Learner
• Analytical
• Connectedness

When I read the book, I made it a point not to read any of the talent theme descriptions. I read their one-word titles, but none of the accompanying detail. Similar quizzes and tests have reported similar things—thinking, analysis, learning. I expected to see things like that in my SF2 results. From the names of the talent themes, I kind of expected to have on my list things like “Context” and maybe “Input”. But I got a slightly different Top 5 than I thought I would.

The first time I read the talent theme descriptions behind my Top 5, I felt a mixture of recognition of familiar concepts and a fairly strong reaction that something was wrong. At first look, I thought the assessment results were way off when it came to Adaptability and Connectedness. I will write about each talent theme in depth, each in its own post, but I can tell you now that I quickly discovered all five talent themes on my list are correct. It was a matter of reading all of the description material with an open mind, re-reading it, and realizing what parts applied to me the most. I think this is the right way anyone taking the SF2 test should approach the results.

The description of Intellection, from the StrengthsFinder Full Theme Descriptions, says that I like to think, I like mental activity and introspection, and that “this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.”

Photo by Corey / Ten0fnine

This is the part that jumped out at me: “You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection.” Boy, is that true. It’s no surprise to me that Intellection was my #1 talent theme. Interesting that it’s called a “talent” theme. It seems to me that this one, more than the others in my Top 5, is mostly about what I like or need versus what I may be good at or what may come naturally easy to me. But I can extrapolate from “you like to think” to “a need for mental activity”.

I’ve read others’ reactions to their own StrengthsFinder results where Intellection was one of their top 5. Almost to a person, their first reaction is, “doesn’t everyone like to think?”. Those people must be missing the point. It’s more than “everyone thinks”, for sure. But it’s not true to say “everyone likes to think”.

In my particular combination of talents in my Top 5—the talent themes, their order, and how I scored in each theme—the StrengthsFinder site gave me a personalized guide. This goes beyond the standard full theme description and tells me a “what makes you stand out” description that’s tailored especially for me. In My Personalized Guide, the StrengthsFinder description of Intellection as it applies to me specifically gets a lot more precise and applicable to me, personally. In particular, it says I appreciate intellectual discussions, I like to expand my knowledge by reading a lot, I examine ideas, theories, etc., from a variety of angles, and I desire to seek the truth. All true.

Photo by Gisela Giardino

This is where the Intellection description got most interesting for me. Different than the more general stock description, this personalized description zeroes in a lot closer to me. First, it indicates I like to periodically expand my knowledge by reading. That’s very true, and I’d go further—I love to read and I am reading all the time, all kinds of materials, in all kinds of media. I don’t do it only to be entertained or simply to pass the time, I do it to know more.

Second, they used language that gives me better insight about how Intellection applies to me. The full description has language such as “you like to…”. This personalized description has language such as “driven by your talents, you periodically…” That’s a significant choice of wording, because now I can see what “you like to think” means in the context of a talent as opposed to a mere preference.

Thinking is not merely daydreaming or fantasizing, although it is a superset of those two along with many other intellectual activities. The full description says this mental activity may be about solving a problem, or developing an idea. I’ve always done a lot of “what if” thinking. Like the fun old question that keeps getting asked of every new generation: If you had a super power what would it be and why? Except I think it through and try not to miss any constraints or implications.

How does one say “I like to think” or “one of my top talents is thinking” without sounding superior and pretentious? Go back and read your personalized guide again, that’s how. As the full theme description says, “The exact focus [of my mental activity] will depend on your other strengths.” I found that to be true as I read and thought about the descriptions of the other talent themes in my Top 5. I will go into the details of these interactions in the upcoming posts remaining in this series.

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.

1. Introduction
2. Intellection
3. Adaptability
4. Learner
5. Analytical
6. 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.

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:

1. Intellection – “People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions”
2. 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.”
3. 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.”
4. 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.”
5. 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.”

• Intellection
• Adaptability
• Learner
• Analytical
• Connectedness