Decoding Our Strengths

“Hide not your talents. They for use were made.
What’s a sundial in the shade?”
– Benjamin Franklin

At Red Sky we’ve been utilizing Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0 system and the expertise (and intuitive readings!) of Consilio’s Rochelle DeLong to maximize our team’s potential by focusing on our individual strengths – quite an interesting process.

It really is fascinating to see on paper how similar or different individuals are.  It gives you an understanding of why you may work together well (or may struggle to accomplish a simple task together).   It’s also interesting to take a look at your own strengths and gain insight into how you can thrive in a business environment (or in your personal life).

My top five strengths (as identified through the Strengths Finder 2.0 test) are:

1.     Communication (an Influencing skill)

2.     Developer (a Relationship Building skill)

3.     Responsibility (an Executing skill)

4.     Belief (another Executing skill)

5.     Relator (another Relationship skill)

These don’t mean much without knowing what each means, so I’ll give you a summary of the actual definition and share my perspective.  Let me apologize now if this gets long!

Communication: According to Rath, those with this strength like “to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public and to write.”  Hmm.  Pretty right on.  If you know me, you know that I like to talk.  A lot.  It is a talent that I have passed on to my children (and believe me, I’ve had many a conversation with teachers about why their need to talk will serve them well in life).   In PR, I spend a great deal of time explaining, describing and writing.  At home, I am often the host of large gatherings.   Speaking in public isn’t something I’d say I like to do – although I’ve gotten better at it over time.

Developer: Rath describes developers this way:  “You see the potential in others.  Very often, in fact, potential is all you see.  In your view no individual is fully formed….each individual is a work in progress, alive with possibilities.  When you interact with others, your goal is to help them experience success.  You look for ways to challenge them.”  Again, I’d say this is pretty right on.  I find that people naturally seek me out (or do I seek them out?) when they are struggling with something.  I can usually clearly see where their strength lies.  Watching someone find that strength and be successful at work or in life gives me a lot of satisfaction.   I love teaching – in my past life I taught swimming lessons – and watching a 5-year-old go from being scared to put their face in the water, to being able to back float, to being able to jump in the deep end and swim back on their own, is by far, one of the best feelings ever.

Responsibility: “Your Responsibility theme forces you to take psychological ownership for anything you commit to, and whether large or small, you feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion.”  I would have thought that Responsibility would have been #1 on my list.  It comes in at #3.  To say that I take “psychological ownership” for anything I commit to is an understatement.  And, I understand from Rochelle, that this “strength” is the reason I don’t sleep at night.  I’ve spent my whole life being the responsible one – always on time, always good grades, never any drugs.  My poor son has also inherited this trait, and often doesn’t sleep at night.  While I would never encourage him to, nor am I capable of, shirking responsibility, I’m working very hard to balance this “psychological ownership” of things and not sweat the small stuff.

Belief: According to page 57 of the Strengths Finder 2.0 book, “If you posses a strong belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring.  These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethic – both in yourself and others.”  OK.  All true.  Although I’m not a very religious person, my dad, who has read the Bible on multiple occasions, has instilled in me a certain value system.  I spend nearly all non-work hours focused on my family.  My parents, sister, brother, aunts, uncles, in-laws all live close by, are in attendance at my kids sports activities, get my kids to and from school every day (thanks Mom and Dad!) and at every birthday party.  It’s important to me.  And, I’ll admit, I have high expectations of people.  If you’re going to be late, you better let me know.  If you tell me you’ll make the rolls to Christmas dinner, and then don’t show up with them, I will never ask you to do another thing.  I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect you to at least attempt to do what you say.

Relator: “Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships.  In simple terms, the Realtor theme pulls you toward people you already know.  You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people, but you derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends.”   Again, true (couldn’t they be wrong once?!).  I’m friendly with lots of people that I’ve gotten to know through school, work, or social activities.  I talk with them, share stories, laugh, go to lunch, and I do genuinely care for these people.  However, my close circle of friends does not grow too much.  I’ve known many of my closest friends since high school (or before).  Or, they are parents of my kids’ friends.

So, there you have it.  You know more about me than you ever wanted to know.

I encourage you to find out your top 5 and see if they are as right on as mine were.

- Jenn