Paul Worthington

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.

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.

This is part two 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 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

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.

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.

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.”

My top 5 talent themes, according to StrengthsFinder 2.0:

• Intellection
• Adaptability
• Learner
• Analytical
• Connectedness