StrengthsFinder 2.0: Do you know how strong you are?

How strong are you? Can you list your top 5 talents? If you know your top 5 talents, can you state 5 ways you act on each talent?

Tom Rath from Gallup has written a new book linked with Gallup's StrengthsFinder. StrengthsFinder 2.0 adds significant content to the strength and employee engagement material already developed by Gallup.

According to StrengthsFinder 2.0 my top 5 talents are: maximizer, strategic, positivity, ideation, and empathy.

This fits for me as I naturally want to bring out the best in others through this book (maximizer); figure out how to apply the talents in different settings (strategic); look at the positive parts of the book, website, and strength approach (positivity); create ways to use both this resource and Marcus Buckingham's "appetite" approach to strengths (ideation); and, reflect on how to best craft this review to be reader focused (empathy).

The book maintains the use of the original 34 talents developed in the StrengthsFinder assessment but adds powerful value by being tied in with a new website: http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com/.

This new website adds richness and depth to an already useful book. The website includes a personalized guide, action plan, and a variety of other tools - including a forum to discuss the book and your talents with other readers.

As an added bonus to purchasing the book and registering on-line Gallup offers a free 6 month subscription to the informative Gallup Management Journal.

According to Rath, when you look at the world from a strengths perspective you realize, "you cannot be anything you want to be -- but you can be a lot more of who you already are."

The central action of the book and website is to uncover your top 5 talents. Your talents are patterns of thought, feeling and behavior to be productively applied. Your talents become strengths when multiplied by your investment of time and energy in practicing, developing skills, and building knowledge connected to your talent profile.

In an interview about the book for the Gallup Management Journal Rath discussed the strong link between a leader's focus and employee engagement. Here are 3 powerful conclusions from Gallup's research:

1. If your manager primarily ignores you your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
2. If your manager focuses on your weaknesses your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
3. If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

I believe we are in the midst of the strengths revolution in the workplace. For example, Peter Drucker in 1999 wrote about the key role of strengths in managing oneself in the Harvard Business Review. Martin Seligman, the former president of the American Psychological Association, demonstrated what an important role strengths played in achieving authentic happiness. In addition, more organizations are making use of a strength based focus through the process of Appreciative Inquiry.

Strengths are vital to happiness, engagement, relationships, effectiveness, and results. With limited energy and resources meshed with increasing work and other demands it makes sense to put our energy into getting maximum value from strengths as opposed to dissipating away our strength by focusing our limited resources compensating for weaknesses.

...people who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general (iii)

Marcus Buckingham's, Go Put Your Strengths To Work will also be reviewed in Joyful Jubilant Learning. Between these two hot resources for 2007 the mechanisms are in place to find your talents and put your strengths to work.

Don't wait. Begin or renew your strength training today and be as strong as you can for 2007 and beyond. You owe it to yourself, your organization, your customers, and the people you lead.

I was anemic as a child. In 52 years I have transformed into a strong adult. Earlier this month Rosa wrote this comment: A sharing of Hawaiian for you David; the name given to male children meaning “one who is strong” or has strength, is Ikaika (pronounced ee k+eye ka), and it seems to me that would be a good Ho‘ohana Community name for you!

A special thanks to Rosa for bringing all these fine books and people together. it has been a joyful, jubilant, and learning month as we March into April.

Be caring, be focused, be strong!

Ikaika

David Zinger lives strength based leadership and employee engagement. Click here to read his strength based leadership blog or click here to read his blog on employee engagement. You can also visit him on the web at www.davidzinger.com.  David is currently leveraging his strength and engagement to encourage individuals and organizations to live up to their potential strengths and engagement. On a personal note, David draws upon his strengths, especially humor and playfulness, to positively parent 3 teenagers as they sail the turbulent seas of adolescence to their various ports of adulthood.

Comments

[Rosa Say]

Aloha e Ikaika,
I was thrilled when you chose this book for your review, for I too am an unofficial champion of the Gallup Organization and the strengths revolution – may both thrive and flourish in the good they bring to human dignity, where strengths are capitalized on, and weaknesses are continually made irrelevant! Strengths management and Managing with Aloha go together like bees and honey, for both celebrate the abundance within us, where we discover just how much we are capable of.

In the coaching I do, I have also found that teaching managers how to identify strengths in their staff opens their minds to more of the joy associated with management; they begin to see beyond the “hard work!” to the rewards they reap when they mentor emerging stars by way of building their strengths.

I did my StrengthsFinder Assessment awhile back (with the first release of Now, Discover Your Strengths) and I can’t wait to take the new assessment to see if my top 5 have changed or line up differently in light of my work on them since; they say your strengths remain your strengths always, but I do wonder how you can effect change. My top 5 were Deliberative, Focus, Maximizer, Responsibility, and Achiever … will let you know if the new assessment lines them up differently!

I know we have other Gallup fans in our JJL Community; anyone else want to share? Let us help you put YOUR strengths to work!

[Steve Sherlock]

I did the strengths finder back in March 2002. I had been unable to locate the PDF output file but finally got it this morning. Individualization, Responsibility, Arranger, Learner, and Mazimizer were my top five.

Any surprises there?

Looking through the details again, I find it amazing how well it fits. Even when I did my value add statement, a separate effort to condense to 7 words or less, it lines up with this. I need to keep listening to the real voice inside.

Thanks for sharing this review David.

Thanks for sharing your five Rosa. It is no wonder that we find each other well aligned, we share responsibility!

[David Zinger]

Rose and Steve:

I like the shape of these responses. It is a good step to list our strengths and now... to live them.

I will think about how to use my first strength Maximizer to make a greater contribution to the community.

David

[David Zinger]

Rosa,

Can I buy a vowel?

I will take the "e" away and buy an "a" for your name in the last comment. A rose for Rosa.

When I meet you I will make sure to bring you a rose --- for the spelling mistake but also as a thank you for setting this site up.

David

[tim]

I just bought this book but have yet to re-take the strengths test. I first took the test a few years back. Here are my results (in order):

Strategic
Learner
Ideation
Intellection
Maximizer

I'm curious to take the test again. Love this kind of stuff. By the way, David, the stats you shared are amazing. If a person in a managerial position focuses on the strengths of those she/he works with - it results in a very positive relationship and work environment. Great stuff to think on.

[David Zinger]

Hi Tim,

When I took the talent inventory the second time the only talent that changed was number 5, it became empathy.

Some people have lots of changes and perhaps the difference in their scores are very minimal.

Strategic makes sense to me for the little I know of you given your helpful and strategic 103 ways to add value to others. What a terrifice resoucre Tim. And much of the writing on your blog gives us great strategies to enhance our leadership.

David

[Rosa Say]

Wow, look at that; so far we all have Maximizer in common - imagine what that says about the effect we can have on this community!

From Gallup:
People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.

Ikaika, we all join you in that commitment!

[Blaine Collins]

David, Thanks for the review. It is such a natural fit with Buckingham's Go Put Your Strengths to Work. It sounds like both books are about applying new tools to assist in strengths building.

As for 1.0 themes, mine are:
Learner (surprise!)
Input
Intellectual
Ideation
Maximizer (to keep the string alive).

Interestingly, Tim and I overlap on 4 of the 5 top themes.

Finally, I thought you all might want to know that I got to see and hear Marcus in-person in Dallas earlier today. Good presentation! One impression I came away with is that, although he stronger advocates the strengths movement that David's post discusses, he also suggested that it is moving very slowly or even going in the wrong direction. Some of the stats for this concern are presented in GO.

[David Zinger]

Blaine,

I think there are so many pathways to strengths. I do like that Marcus focuses on appetites and strengths being what strengthens you. I hope that he can work with an abundance of pathways in the strengths movement and not get into "my way is the best way" that seems to characterize so many other viewpoints in leadership and management.

For example, I very much like the VIA Signature Strength Inventory that is free and down-to-earth at www.authentichappiness.org

Love to see the learner as the first strength Blaine and as Rosa pointed out perhaps we blog because we Maximize.

David

[Beth Robinson]

Coincidentally, I just got an email notice of a workshop called "Learning to Lead from your Strenths". To David's point the workshop is not necessarily based on the StrengthsFinders strengths set but uses Appreciative Inquiry, which is an organizational and personal growth tradition based on appreciating strengths rather than solving problems. www.positivechange.org is the link for information
Beth

[David Zinger]

Thanks Beth,
There are so many pathways and I think Appreciative Inquiry is a strong pathway that often involves the organization.
David

[Chris Owen]

I hate to appear ignorant in front of a group I so admire but I've never heard of the Strengths Finder but as someone who regularly needs to remind herself of her strengths (mainly to shut up the Inner Critic's voice) this sounds VERY intriguing!!!

[Karen Wallace]

Hi David and everyone! OK, I just HAD to go and dig out my strengths v1 (just to see whether I had the maximiser also:) - and guess what? In order:

Maximiser
Empathy
Learner
Relator
Responsibility

Here's to the strengths of this amazing community! Although so far we are all Maximisers, we also have a really good spread of other strengths to draw on. Great review David, thanks.

[David Zinger]

Chris,
I love that you would appear ignorant. To me ignorance is our greatest gift as it is the start of all new learning. Doesn't mean we stay there but we do start there. I do believe we can get so much further starting with ignorance than with knowledge. I'd love to hear what your strengths are.
David

[David Zinger]

Karen,
Take it to the Max! I think we should all change our names to Max, seriously I think the Maximizer thread is something woven into the fabric of this community that makes it very strong.
David

[Mary]

I am a huge fan of the online test. Many of my friends have also taken the test and have found it really helpful in our relationships. We also joke about how all the "Woo" people can be so easily spotted at parties jumping from one conversation to another, and generally getting the conversations going.

One note - I've found it helpful to pass my many copies of the book on to others and purchase the ID codes from Strengthstest.com instead of running down to the store and paying retail.

[Rosa Say]

Thank you for your suggestion Mary!

Like you, I have found that StrengthsFinder truly lends itself well to creating new "conversations in common" within a group of people or specific work team.