Your Strengths Personas (sometimes referred to as Strength Blends) are what people will notice about you as your predominant talents. Let me explain how to identify them.
Discovering Your Strength Personas
Let’s review an example to illustrate how to discover your Strength Personas using the following strengths. WOO is very strong, so it’s the Driver. Ideation and Strategic are strong, so they are the Passengers. Communication and Responsibility are moderately strong, so they are the Fuel strengths.
Driver – WOO (Winning Others Over)
Passenger 1 – Ideation
Passenger 2 – Strategic
Fuel 1 – Communication
Fuel 2 – Responsibility
In this example, the person’s Driver, or strongest priority, is WOO—to influence people and win them over.
Imagine the Passengers, Ideation and Strategic, are sitting in the back seat of the car. We’ll combine each passenger, one at a time, with the Driver. When Ideation steps out of the backseat of the car and sits up front with WOO, we combine the tendency to win people over (WOO) with the tendency to generate inventive ideas (Ideation). In other words, WOO + Ideation is the strength of winning people over to your ideas.
This is just one behavioral possibility of WOO + Ideation. Another possibility could be generating ideas for innovative networking approaches, such as observing and mirroring other people’s body language.
Now, let’s send Ideation to the back seat and have Strategic sit in the front seat with WOO in our example. This strength combination of WOO and Strategic might be creating key partnerships to help a person achieve their goals, for example, strategic networking or figuring out the best way (Strategic) to attract new partnerships (WOO).
In our example, the Fuel, Communication and Responsibility, help the Driver (WOO) achieve its goals through effective verbal skills (Communication) and quality-oriented, ethical, and accountable behavior (Responsibility) when trying to influence others, as well as doing what they say they are going to do when they partner with other people.
Now, after seeing an example, combine your first Driver and Passenger strength pairing and consider how these strengths work together to form your strength personas, or strength blends. Imagine yourself at work, school, or in personal life situations as if you’re watching yourself in a movie. Observe how you tend to think, respond, or behave. Reference the descriptions in your “Strengths Insight Guide” to help you conjure up examples of your strengths in action.
Next, think about what it’s like when your other Driver and Passenger strength combination work together. How are you thinking, responding, and behaving with this other strength blend?
Let me provide another example of Strengths Blends. Stephanie is my client services manager and is also certified in student coaching. Here are her strengths:
Drivers: Empathy and Belief
Passengers: Includer and Positivity
Fuel: Developer
Stephanie has four strength personas when you combine her two passengers with her two drivers, as follows:
Empathy (Driver) + Includer (Passenger)
Empathy (Driver) + Positivity (Passenger)
Belief (Driver) + Includer (Passenger)
Belief (Driver) + Positivity (Passenger)
I asked Stephanie to consider how she behaves, to put herself in the scene, when each Passenger influences each of her Drivers. Let’s review the combination above in bold as an example.
When Empathy and Positivity work together, she puts herself in the other person’s shoes and feels what it’s like to be in their situation (Empathy) and then she attempts to encourage that person to lift their spirits (Positivity).
Stephanie’s Fuel strength is Developer: the natural teacher, mentor, trainer, and coach. She uses Developer as a supporting strength to mentor people as she attempts to lift their spirits.
Reflect: How do your Fuel strengths help each of your Driver/Passenger strength combinations?
My Strengths Insights
You live with your strengths every day. The answers are already inside of you, so trust yourself!
Capture your insights:
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I will go into greater detail in section two, “Blaze Your Path,” about the practical application of using your strengths information to identify best fitting roles. Section three, “Show the World!” will teach you how to tell your strengths story to others.
Discover Your Values
“And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, ‘This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!’ And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, ‘No. This is what’s important.’” – Iain Thomas, Author
The second pillar of career satisfaction is your work aligns with what you value most.
I met Ryan in 2017 and discovered his top value was honesty. He defined honesty as honoring what you say you’re going to do and owning your mistakes. Honesty was so important to Ryan that he chose to step away from a profitable career because he had been dealing with a dishonest customer. He couldn’t be in an environment where he had to interact with someone who was dishonest with him.
Therefore, he called it quits and stepped into unfamiliar territory: unemployment. (I’m happy to report he did not remain unemployed long!)
A job that uses your strengths and has all the skills you enjoy will still be a poor fit if the role, your manager, or the workplace culture violates your values. Take a moment, now, to complete the following values exercise to discover what’s most important to you. Your values are the most direct way to answer the question, “Who am I?”
Identify and Prioritize Your Values
As you complete this values exercise, think of examples from both your work and personal lives. This will provide a holistic approach to your answers. You can also download this exercise at MyYouMap.com.
Step 1: Identify times when you were happiest or fulfilled
• What were you doing?
• Were you with other people? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your happiness, pride, and fulfillment?
• What is it you value about what you listed? In other words, what does it provide you?
Tip: If what you’ve listed is a thing or an activity, drill deeper by asking yourself, “What does that thing or activity give me?” A person, place, or thing is not a value; it’s a means to an end to achieve the value. For example, family is a thing, not a value. What does your family provide that you value? Love? Connection? Belonging?
Step 2: Determine 5-10 values based on your experiences of happiness a
nd fulfillment
Use the following list of common personal values to get you started—aim for no more than ten values. You might find some values naturally combine, such as service and community, or honesty and trust. Group similar values together, if desired. Also, there’s no need to limit yourself to this list.
Step 3: Prioritize your values
This step is probably the most difficult. It’s also the most important because when you’re faced with a decision you can’t always satisfy your entire list of values. Therefore, knowing which values are the most important is helpful.
First, make a list of your top values, in any order.
Next, look at the first two values in your list and reflect, “If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?” For example, if I could have all the Achievement I wanted, but no Freedom, or all the Freedom I wanted, but no Achievement, which would I choose? Do this with your list of values of course, not my examples!
Try to visualize an actual situation. For example, if you compare the values of Service and Stability, imagine you were trying to decide if you should sell your house and move to another country to do highly valued foreign aid work or keep your house and volunteer to do charity work close to home. If you value stability over service, you might choose the latter and not wish to create instability by selling your home. Alternatively, you might choose the former option and travel abroad if you value service over stability.
Keep working through the list, comparing each value against the next, until your list is in the priority order that makes sense for you.
To complete the values reflection, start with the first value in your prioritized list and reflect on these questions:
What does [value] mean to me?
It’s important to clearly define and record what this value represents to you.
Do I desire this value to be reciprocated in the workplace by my manager and/or team members?
Reciprocal values are important because for the value to be honored, you not only need to experience the value in the workplace personally, but it should be returned to you. For example, honesty is always a reciprocal value. You value being honest, and you expect others to be honest in return.
Other examples of values that tend to be reciprocal include hard work, teamwork, dependability, and loyalty. Example values that might not be reciprocal, but are important to the individual, could be patriotism, health and fitness, and making a difference. One person who values patriotism might not require others to feel the same, whereas another person, such as a member of the military, might expect this reciprocity.
Reciprocity is a personal determination—with no right or wrong answer. If a value is reciprocal, place an asterisk next to it.
Was/Is this value honored or violated in my role, by my manager, and in the workplace culture?
If you’re self-employed, you might want to apply this value to your client or customer.
I use the word honored to convey the value is respected. I use the word violated to convey the value is dishonored or disrespected.
Looking across these three levels—role, manager, and company—is crucial when evaluating values alignment for your workplace situation.
Why?
If your values don’t align with your role, a career transition might be needed. For example, if you’re responsible for customer payment collections and you value empathy, that’s going to be tough turf for you.
If your values don’t align with your manager’s values, that situation will likely require a team or manager change, perhaps within the same company, or even outside the company. For example, if honesty is in your top values and your manager isn’t transparent or open, that is not going to be something you can easily overlook.
If your values don’t mesh well with the workplace culture, even a good manager won’t be able to shield you from the fallout indefinitely. An organizational-level values misalignment most often requires departing the organization.
Asking these three questions pinpoints which values are misaligned, not reciprocated (if reciprocal), and at what level (role/manager/organization) the disconnect occurs. This exercise provides crucial information to reveal a key source of dissatisfaction.
Once you identify the values being violated, and at what level, the most obvious consideration is if you need to depart your role, your manager, or your organization. I highly recommend addressing the situation if it’s at the manager level by giving feedback. You shouldn’t assume your manager won’t be responsive until you try. A conversation is much less work than a job search! The HardTalk™ Handbook, by Dawn Metcalfe, is a must-read guide to having difficult conversations more effectively.
If values are not aligned at the role level, you might discuss with your manager if changes could be made to your role. This option won’t be viable for everyone, but my mother always taught me if you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Once you have a clear idea of your probable next step (new role, new manager, new organization) you’ll want to ensure you aren’t jumping from the proverbial pan to the fire. If you decide a move is needed, be prepared to avoid the same, or worse, circumstances in the future.
The best way to make an informed decision is by researching the role, the hiring manager, and the company; and asking targeted questions in the job interview. I will provide additional guidance and examples of this under “How to Wow Interviewers.”
Asking targeted questions will help you gain a clear sense of the role, your potential manager, and the workplace culture as they relate to your values. For example, if one of your top values is autonomy and you reported to a micromanager in the past, you could ask the hiring manager some of these sample questions in the interview to better understand her management style:
• How would your team describe your directing and delegation style?
• Would you describe the culture of the team and ways you’ve intentionally shaped the culture?
• Would you describe your approach and frequency for providing performance feedback?
• What is a setback or difficulty your team experienced and how did you lead your team through it?
• How do you communicate your expectations to your employees to ensure they are met?
If you’re self-employed, consider the kinds of questions you might ask on a client questionnaire to determine if a prospect is a high value potential client, which you will need to define.
Use Google or the search engine of your preference to obtain ideas for interview questions that help uncover each non-negotiable value for you in the workplace. For example, search “Job interview questions to determine company culture.”
When considering your values in decision making, you’ll gain clarity on what is right for you and approach your decisions with increased confidence. You’ll also increase the chances that your decision is best for your current and future happiness and satisfaction.
Do not skip assessing the fit of your values when searching for a new role. You can find a position that fits your strengths, skills, and interests, but if it violates your values the new job will be unsustainable, and Stein’s law says anything that cannot continue must stop. Values violations never end well.
My Values Insights
What new understanding did you discover, or affirm, after completing your values exercise and reflecting on the questions provided?
Capture your insights:
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I will go into greater detail in section two, “Blaze Your Path” about the practical application of using your values information to identify best fit roles. If you haven’t already, you can download the values exercise at MyYouMap.com.
Discover Your Motivated Skills
“A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.”
– Larry Bird, Former NBA Basketball Player
The third pillar of career satisfaction is enjoying and being good at the skills you use daily in your work.
YouMap Page 5