Insights: Strengths Finder – The Power within You!
“What would happen if we studied what was RIGHT with people versus what’s wrong with people?”
This was the simple question Don Clifton, the creator of the “CliftonStrengths” assessment asked himself over a decade ago.
Emphasize strengths over weaknesses!
Don’s question is a personal one for a lot of people including myself. As an example, from a very young age I knew I was not a gifted sportsman. I was always the last to be picked for the School football team and generally stood chatting, cold and wet in defense, unable and unwilling to help play the game being neither competitive nor skilled enough to play well.
At the time I put this down to having a Rugby loving father who never taught me the rules of the game. However, my one season being taken to play Rugby proved to both me and my father that this was not the case, and I simply wasn’t an innately gifted sportsman.
Instead of obsessing over this painful truth, I read lot’s and widely, I learned musical instruments, and at points strutted my stuff on the stage. Though not always easy, I learned from an early age to emphasize my strengths over my weaknesses.
Strengths – “glass half full” positive psychology”
Don Clifton had a similar epiphany and focused on his mathematical and scientific strengths to spend his life doing good for humankind and studying human psychology and formed part of a movement in positive psychology. Don was quoted as saying:
“I realized that too often, people were being characterized by their problems and weaknesses rather than their talents and what a shame that is”
The 34 “CliftonStrengths” themes defined
From that moment (just after WWII) Don committed his life to studying successful performers and discovered that there were certain traits that successful people in a role all shared. Over the next 50 years Don gathered data on the most successful people across all cultures, industries, roles and walks of life and combined all this analysis into 34 distinct talent themes that highly successful people develop into strengths:
Achiever, Activator, Adaptability, Analytical, Arranger, Belief, Command, Communication, Competition, Connectedness, Consistency, Context, Deliberative, Developer, Discipline, Empathy, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer, Individualization, Input, Intellection, Learner, Maximiser, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic, Woo.
Your “CliftonStrengths” profile is uniquely you
You might call your “CliftonStrengths” profile your Talent DNA because it is unique to you, there is a 1 in 33million chance that someone else in the world has the same profile as you. Wow isn’t that amazing. Think about the power and potential you can unleash in yourself if you learn what your talents are, and you hone them every day so you can turn them into powerful strengths.
To illustrate this power, I can tell you that one of my top strengths is ‘learner’. I have ‘learned’ to utilize this talent daily, especially on tasks I do not enjoy. I make a game of the task by making it an objective to ‘learn’ how to do it and I focus on the learning process rather than the task itself. This has really reduced the amount of time I procrastinate over simple tasks such as cooking a new meal, fixing the toaster, or changing the oil in my car!
As Mary Poppin’s said “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap - The job’s a game!”. My ‘learner’ talent helps me to turn jobs into games and I’m a lot happier as a result.
Discover your own “CliftonStrengths” profile
You can learn more about the history of “CliftonStrengths” here.
To discover your own “CliftonStrengths” profile why not book a virtual coffee with me and discuss how I can help you succeed with your own unique strengths profile?
