by Tom Rath
achieve less on a daily basis
have fewer positive and creative moments
Beyond the world of work, there are even more serious implications for your health and relationships if you’re not in the strengths zone. And Gallup’s research has shown how a strengths-based approach improves your confidence, direction, hope, and kindness toward others.
So why isn’t everyone living life with a strengths approach? One big problem is that most people are either unaware of, or unable to describe, their own strengths…or the strengths of the people around them.
YOUR THEMES OF TALENT
“Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong…. And yet, a person can perform only from strength.”
—Business guru Peter Drucker (1909-2005)
In the mid 1960s, my late mentor and the Father of Strengths Psychology, Don Clifton, realized that we already had countless “languages” for describing what’s wrong with people. In addition to the informal labels used by the people around us, the field of psychology has the DSM-IV, a manual of disorders described by one leading psychologist as “a bloated catalogue of what’s wrong with people.” The world of business has myriad competency models, most of which are oriented toward describing what isn’t working (even though these labels are often veiled as “areas for improvement”).
To initiate more conversation about what’s right with people, in 1998, Clifton assembled a team of scientists and set forth the ambitious goal of developing a common language for talent. This team wanted individuals and organizations to have very specific terms for describing what people do well. So we mined our database, which at the time contained more than 100,000 talent-based interviews, and looked for patterns in the data. We examined specific questions that had been used in our studies of successful executives, salespeople, customer service representatives, teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, nurses, and several other professions and fields. Through this process, we were able to identify 34 themes of talent that were the most common in our database. We then developed the first version of the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to measure these distinct talents.
These 34 themes represent our best attempt at creating a common language or classification of talents. By no means did we capture everything. There are hundreds of even more specific themes we did not include in this classification. However, we wanted to keep this language manageable so it would be easy to use with work teams, families, and friends.
What StrengthsFinder actually measures is talent, not strength. As an aside, we named it “StrengthsFinder” instead of “TalentFinder” because the ultimate goal is to build a true strength, and talent is just one of the ingredients in this formula. The assessment doesn’t ask about your knowledge—there are no questions about your formal education, degrees, or résumé. Nor does it ask about your skills—whether you’re able to perform the fundamental steps of driving a car, using a particular software package, or selling a specific product. While these are important, we have discovered that knowledge and skills—along with regular practice—are most helpful when they serve as amplifiers for your natural talents.
When you take the assessment, you have just 20 seconds to respond to each item. It’s quick because we found that instinctual, top-of-mind responses are more revealing than those you’d give if you sat around and debated each question. Essentially, the instrument is attempting to identify your most intense natural responses, which are less likely to change over time.
A Recipe for Strength
Although people certainly do change over time and our personalities adapt, scientists have discovered that core personality traits are relatively stable throughout adulthood, as are our passions and interests. And more recent research suggests that the roots of our personality might be visible at an even younger age than was originally thought. A compelling 23-year longitudinal study of 1,000 children in New Zealand revealed that a child’s observed personality at age 3 shows remarkable similarity to his or her reported personality traits at age 26.* This is one of the reasons why StrengthsFinder measures the elements of your personality that are less likely to change—your talents.
Knowledge, skills, and practice are also important parts of the strengths equation. Without basic facts in your mind and skills at your disposal, talent can go untapped. Fortunately, it’s also easier to add knowledge and skills to your repertoire. You can always take a course on understanding basic financials, just as you can always learn how to use a new software application. Building your talents into real strengths also requires practice and hard work, much like it does to build physical strengths. For example, if you are born with the potential to build large biceps, but you do not exercise these muscles regularly, they will not develop. However, if you do work equally as hard as someone without as much natural potential, you are likely to see much greater return.
But adding raw talent is a very different story. While it may be possible, with a considerable amount of work, to add talent where little exists, our research suggests that this may not be the best use of your time. Instead, we’ve discovered that the most successful people start with dominant talent—and then add skills, knowledge, and practice to the mix. When they do this, the raw talent actually serves as a multiplier.
This brings us back to Rudy Ruettiger, a classic example of hard work offsetting a lack of natural talent to reach a basic level of competence. While Rudy might have scored a perfect 5 on a 1-5 scale for investment (the time he spent practicing and building his knowledge and skills), let’s assume he was a 2 on the talent scale. So his maximum potential for building strength in this area was only 10 (5 x 2), even when he scored as high as possible on the investment scale. And it is likely that Rudy had teammates for whom the inverse was true—they were a 5 on talent and just a 2 on time invested, which is clearly a waste of talent. And once in a while, you see a player like former Notre Dame great Joe Montana, who had abundant natural talent combined with hard work and the right developmental opportunities. This combination of a 5 in both areas—which yields a total score of 25, compared to Rudy’s score of 10—is what can elevate someone to an entirely different level.
Even though we recognize that everyone is different, all too often, we give only surface attention to this crucial insight. It is relatively easy to describe our acquired expertise, but most of us struggle when asked to describe our natural talents. If you find it difficult to name all of your talents, take a step back, and you’ll see that talents often have something in common—a theme—that connects them. Some talents—like natural tendencies to share thoughts, to create engaging stories, and to find the perfect word—are directly connected to communication. That’s what they have in common—their theme. So to begin thinking and talking about them, we can call them Communication talents. Other talents—such as natural dependability, sense of commitment, and avoidance of excuses—have a responsibility theme, so we identify them as Responsibility talents. This theme language gives us a starting place for discovering our talents and learning even more about our potential for strength.
Managing Weaknesses
In any occupation or role, it’s helpful to know your areas of lesser talent. That’s especially true if the demands of your job pull you in that direction, as your lesser talents can lead to weakness. As you study the descriptions of the 34 themes, see if you can identify a few areas in which you are clearly lacking in talent and have little potential to create a strength. In many cases, simply being aware of your areas of lesser talent can help you avoid major roadblocks.
Once you’re able to acknowledge, for example, that you are not great at managing details, it opens several doors for working around that lesser talent. The first question to ask yourself is whether it’s necessary for you to operate in your area of lesser talent at all. If it’s possible for you to simply avoid doing detail-oriented work, by all means, move away from this area. Of course, most of us don’t have the luxury to simply stop doing necessary tasks just
because we aren’t naturally good at them. When you must attend to details, you might need to establish systems to manage your lesser talent and keep things on track. If maintaining your daily schedule is a detail you dread, there are several options, ranging from a day planner to an electronic calendar.
Another strategy is to partner with someone who has more talent in the areas in which you are lacking. For example, the Includer theme is an area of lesser talent for me. People who have this talent are great at making sure that everyone feels involved and part of any team effort. On the contrary, I will rush to assemble a group without considering everyone involved, and in many cases, this results in people feeling left out. So I have learned to partner with my colleague, Amanda, who leads with her Includer. She helps me think about including people I would not have otherwise considered. In several cases, this has helped us uncover people’s hidden talents and build a stronger team.
Blind Spots
It is also essential to try to become more conscious of any “blind spots” that are caused by your talents. For example, those of us with strong Command may not realize the damage left in our wake as we are pushing to get things done each day. Or people with dominant Consistency talents might focus so much on keeping the steps uniform that they ignore the overall outcome or goal.
So while our talents primarily serve to keep us on track, they can at times derail our pursuits. In Part II, you will find 10 Ideas for Action for each of the 34 themes. Many of these action items will help you when you are on the lookout for blind spots that can result from your dominant talents. The key is for you to be aware of your potential and your limitations.
The New Assessment, Website, and Development Guide
Analyzing millions of StrengthsFinder interviews has allowed us to refine the assessment into an even faster and more precise second version. We’ve also been working to glean more advanced insights from the hundreds of items we collect as you take the assessment.
Even though the 34 themes help us describe a great deal of the variation in human talent, they do not capture many nuances of unique personalities. While you and a few friends may each have Learner among your top five themes, the fine points of those talents and how they are expressed vary a great deal from person to person: One of you may learn from reading several books each month, while someone else learns primarily from doing, and yet another learns from an insatiable curiosity and Googles everything.
To help you think about your own talents at a more specific and individualized level, we have added more than 5,000 Strengths Insights in StrengthsFinder 2.0. Based on unique combinations of your individual item responses during the assessment, these insights will give you an in-depth analysis of how each of your top five themes plays out in your life. Unlike the shared theme descriptions from StrengthsFinder 1.0, which are the same for everyone, the descriptions in your StrengthsFinder 2.0 report will be customized to describe your personality.
To create these highly tailored theme descriptions, we compare all of your responses on these 5,000-plus Strengths Insights to our massive database and then build your theme descriptions based on what makes you stand out the most. Unlike your top five themes of talent, which are likely to overlap with people you know and serve an important purpose in providing a common language, the Strengths Insights are all about what makes you unique.
Once you have completed the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment, you will receive a comprehensive Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide that includes:
Your top five theme report, built around the new Strengths Insight descriptions
50 Ideas for Action (10 for each of your top five themes) based on thousands of best-practice suggestions we reviewed
A Strengths Discovery Interview that helps you think about how your experience, skills, and knowledge can help you build strengths
A Strength-Based Action Plan for setting specific goals for building and applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year
You also will find these resources on the new website:
An online option for customizing your strengths-based action plan
A strengths discussion forum
A tool for creating customized display cards of your top five themes
A strengths screensaver with rotating descriptions and quotes for all 34 themes that you can download
A quick reference guide to strengths basics
An overview and detailed summary of Gallup’s research on strengths-based development and the technical underpinnings of the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment
An overview of each of the 34 themes, including brief and full descriptions
A team strengths grid for mapping the talents of those around you
A guide for strengths-based discussions in organizations
A guide for strengths-based discussions at home
PARTING THOUGHTS
Our natural talents and passions—the things we truly love to do—last for a lifetime. But all too often, our talents go untapped. Mark Twain once described a man who died and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. Knowing that Saint Peter was very wise, the man asked a question that he had wondered about throughout his life.
He said, “Saint Peter, I have been interested in military history for many years. Who was the greatest general of all time?”
Saint Peter quickly responded, “Oh that’s a simple question. It’s that man right over there.”
“You must be mistaken,” responded the man, now very perplexed. “I knew that man on earth, and he was just a common laborer.”
“That’s right my friend,” assured Saint Peter. “He would have been the greatest general of all time, if he had been a general.”
This story illustrates a truth that is, unfortunately, all too common. Far too many people spend a lifetime headed in the wrong direction. They go not only from the cradle to the cubicle, but then to the casket, without uncovering their greatest talents and potential.
This is why it’s essential not only to discover and develop your strengths as early as possible, but also to help the people around you build on their natural talents. Whether you’re helping a good friend realize that she is a natural at coming up with new ideas, supporting a colleague as he looks for a better fit for his talents at work, or helping a young person understand that her natural competitiveness could be a lifelong asset instead of a hindrance—these actions will start to change the world around you. Every human being has talents that are just waiting to be uncovered.
TAKING STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0
To help you build on your talents and the talents of the people around you, take the StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment now. Log on to www.strengthsfinder.com. You will need the unique access code in the packet in the back of this book to take the assessment. It will take about 30 minutes.
After you have completed the assessment, read Part II: Applying Your Strengths. For each of the 34 themes, this section presents the standard theme description, examples of what the theme sounds like, Ideas for Action, and tips on how to work with others who have strong talents in that theme.
Remember that the purpose of StrengthsFinder 2.0 is not to anoint you with strengths—it simply helps you find the areas where you have the greatest potential to develop strengths.
PART II:
APPLYING YOUR STRENGTHS
The 34 Themes and Ideas for Action
ACHIEVER
Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day—workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied. You have an internal fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it
rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you. As an Achiever you must learn to live with this whisper of discontent. It does have its benefits. It brings you the energy you need to work long hours without burning out. It is the jolt you can always count on to get you started on new tasks, new challenges. It is the power supply that causes you to set the pace and define the levels of productivity for your work group. It is the theme that keeps you moving.
Achiever Sounds Like This:
Melanie K., ER nurse: “I have to rack up points every day to feel successful. Today I’ve been here only half an hour, but I’ve probably racked up thirty points already. I ordered equipment for the ER, I had equipment repaired, I had a meeting with my charge nurse, and I brainstormed with my secretary about improving our computerized logbook. So on my list of ninety things, I have thirty done already. I’m feeling pretty good about myself right now.”
Ted S., salesperson: “Last year I was salesperson of the year out of my company’s three hundred salespeople. It felt good for a day, but sure enough, later that week, it was as if it never happened. I was back at zero again. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t an achiever because it can lead me away from a balanced life and toward obsession. I used to think I could change myself, but now I know I am just wired this way. This theme is truly a double-edged sword. It helps me achieve my goals, but on the other hand, I wish I could just turn it off and on at will. But, hey, I can’t. I can manage it and avoid work obsession by focusing on achieving in all parts of my life, not just work.”
Sara L., writer: “This theme is a weird one. First, it’s good because you live in pursuit of the perpetual challenge. But in the second place, you never feel as though you’ve reached your goal. It can keep you running uphill at seventy miles an hour for your whole life. You never rest because there’s always more to do. But, on balance, I think I would rather have it than not. I call it my ‘divine restlessness,’ and if it makes me feel as if I owe the present everything I have, then so be it. I can live with that.”
Ideas for Action
Select jobs that allow you to have the leeway to work as hard as you want and in which you are encouraged to measure your own productivity. You will feel challenged and alive in these environments.
As an achiever, you relish the feeling of being busy, yet you also need to know when you are “done.” Attach timelines and measurement to goals so that effort leads to defined progress and tangible outcomes.
Remember to build celebration and recognition into your life. Achievers tend to move on to the next challenge without acknowledging their successes. Counter this impulse by creating regular opportunities to enjoy your progress and accomplishments.
Your drive for action might cause you to find meetings a bit boring. If that’s the case, appeal to your Achiever talents by learning the objectives of each meeting ahead of time and by taking notes about progress toward those objectives during the meeting. You can help ensure that meetings are productive and efficient.
Continue your education by attaining certifications in your area or specialty in addition to attending conferences and other programs. This will give you even more goals to achieve and will push your existing boundaries of accomplishment.
You do not require much motivation from others. Take advantage of your self-motivation by setting challenging goals. Set a more demanding goal every time you finish a project.
Partner with other hard workers. Share your goals with them so they can help you to get more done.
Count personal achievements in your scoring “system.” This will help you direct your Achiever talents toward family and friends as well as toward work.
More work excites you. The prospect of what lies ahead is infinitely more