Why CliftonStrengths Is Effective for Individuals & Teams

WHY CLIFTONSTRENGTHS IS EFFECTIVE FOR INDIVIDUALS & TEAMS [Nancy Stefanick, Senior Manager, Regional Learning & Development]
So I’ve been a Strengths devotee for a long time, for about 15 years, and one of my favorite quotes, so a personal mantra of mine is a quote from Howard Thurman. He said, “Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.” And, for me, the power of StrengthsFinder within an organization is to tap into those talents and those Strengths that when they are applied productively and when they’re recognized and when they’re called out, they truly make people come alive. And we would call that engagement. I call it being fully alive in your work. Not sleepwalking, not just going through your day on autopilot, but feeling engaged and alive because your talents are on display and they’re being used to their maximum potential. [Daniella Nicholson, Director of Human Resources]
Well, what appealed to me about using CliftonStrengths is sometimes when you’re rolling out assessments, individuals can be skeptical and, you know, not buy into it. But with Strengths, you know, one of the things that I, that really drew me in was that they’re all positive. So there’s no bad combination and it’s not someone trying to trick the survey or trick the assessment, because whatever you get, that’s just what you naturally do well. So there is no right or wrong, better or worse, this is who you are and we want to know who you are. [Craig Trombly, Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach]
Just the revolutionizing concept that you would look at your talents and Strengths and develop those and how much more capability there was to do things great by doing your talent, by focusing on your talents and Strengths. It immediately resonated with me and became quickly kind of my focus in my development of myself, my staff, everyone I worked with heard about Strengths and continues to hear about it. I would say that CliftonStrengths provides an affirming language for your talents and Strengths. We have lots of language, even for talents and Strengths, that is negative, where it calls out the dark side or what sometimes is referred to as the basement of a talent. I love that StrengthsFinder and descriptions of the Themes gives you a language that describes you at your greatest. And so I would encourage anybody, if you are the person here asking about why should I do this? Wouldn’t you want to have descriptions of your greatest talents? And great affirming words that can, you can use to explain to others so that you can then have those explanations and those understandings from that point of view that you can then go on and use for great performance in your life. [Mary Stier, Women’s Ministry Director]
It gives us common language to understand and give life to who we are and who we see others as and how we can work together to make that better. [Megan Gerhardt, Professor of Management]
Personally, the understanding and awareness of my Strength has really helped me figure out what to say yes to. So I love to stay busy, but I figured out I need to stay busy doing things that give me energy and not drain me. So it really is my decision making compass now. So if it’s something that allows me to leverage my talents, I say yes. And if it’s something I feel like my talents won’t be able to be utilized, then I tend to step away from that. So it’s been really powerful personally for my career. [Cindy Liss, Leadership Development Coach]
I would say assessibility. So for us to be able to take Strengths to a food and nutrition department as well as a marketing department and see the same kind of ah-ha moments. I think it’s just, it is, it is so simplistic in its complexity, you know. It’s, you know, they do the assessment, but, yet, it’s so accessible and instantly easy to apply. I think the, you know, we can give all the worksheets and assessments and everything we want, but if it’s too complicated or they get back to their teams or their areas or their hospitals and say it’s great that I know this but nobody else on my team knows it, or no one else in the hospital knows it, so I’m not going to apply it and eventually it dies away. But I feel Strengths is something that’s a very common conversation, the way that StrengthsFinder breaks down the definitions of the 34 types, I think, is just easily accessible and easy to have conversations that we see take off almost immediately among teams. It, it, we don’t have to follow-up a whole lot, because they’re already creating those common dialogues before we’re even leaving the room. [Tim Bornemeier, Senior Vice President, Customer Care Operations]
It doesn’t give me everything to work on. It doesn’t try and make me be all things to all people. It, it’s just a very simplistic approach, but has such success because you’re not focusing on so many different things and trying to be so many different things to so many people. It’s not buried in metrics. It’s not buried in graphs and charts and… It is just a very basic understanding of who I am and how I can be most successful in my job every day in influencing, you know, the people that I have accountability for. Learn more at cliftonstrengths.gallup.com

Written by Raul Dinwiddie