You really do have Unique Strengths

The Clifton StrengthsFinder self-assessment uses 177 questions to identify your unique talent profile. This is broken down into 34 talent themes spread across four different domains; executing (how you get things done), Influencing, relationship building, and thinking.

Gallup defines a talent as “elements of thinking, feeling and behaviour that are innate”. A strength is “the ability to consistently produce a positive outcome through near perfect performance of a specific task”.

The key to turning a talent into a strength is the time you spend and investment you make to practice and develop your talents.

To date, over 20 million people have taken the Clifton strengths self-assessment. It is easy to do (maximum 30 minutes), available in multiple languages, and provides you with instant results. It also provides an insightful report that enables you to delve into your results and to consider your unique strengths profile.

The chance of you having exactly the same top 5 strengths in the same order as anyone else is 1 in 33 million. The chance of you having the same top 5 strengths (even if in a different order) is 1 in 275,000. Therefore, for all practical purposes, you really do have unique strengths!

However you are even more unique than these statistics suggest!

For instance let’s take Maximiser (an Influencing theme). The generic definition of Maximiser is that Maximisers “focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal growth and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb.”

In a recent team strengths workshop that I was facilitating, three of the team had Maximiser in their Top 5 themes. It would have been easy to assume that these individuals were the same in their desire to move from “good to great”.

However, on closer examination the particular “flavour” of Maximiser that each team member had was different. In order to harness the power of the Maximiser theme in the team, it was important to understand these nuances.

The Clifton Strengths report provides a tailored customised description for each of your top 5 talent themes. The first line of the customised Maximiser description for each of the four team members was:

Person A: “You are likely to do your best work when someone truly recognises your strengths.”

Person B: “You might see yourself as a person who invents unusual and innovative ways for doing things. “

Person C: “Instinctively you forge ahead to build the life you envision”

You will notice that none of these customised definitions precisely matches the generic definition. Each person’s Maximiser description was influenced by their surrounding Strength themes.

For Person A, she had Significance (an Influencing theme) in her Top 5 and it was likely that this was feeding through into her Maximiser theme. For Person B, it might have been his Strategic theme that was feeding into his brand of Maximiser. For Person C it is likely that his strong Futuristic theme that was impacting his Maximiser.

Our strengths profile is a wonderful tool to stimulate conversations and reflections about how each of us can be at our best and how we can combine with others to achieve maximum effectiveness.

However our strengths themes do not define us and should not be used as generic labels to define who we are and are not.

As individuals, it is really important for each of us to be able to recognise, describe, appreciate and harness our own particular “flavour” of a talent theme.

Similarly in a team context, it is important for the team to take the time to recognise and appreciate the differences (and the similarities) that others in the team with the same strengths theme bring.

It is critical to avoid the assumption that someone who shares a Strengths theme with you is the same as you. We are each Unique even if we share the same Strengths theme.

A health warning: Although the Clifton StrengthsFinder self-assessment is a really valuable tool, it cannot predict how you behave, think and feel with total accuracy. The customised descriptions of your strengths are derived by algorithms operating behind the Clifton strengths tool. Despite being very powerful (and becoming increasingly so as more and more people take the self-assessment), they are computer-generated and formed as a result of the self-assessed answers

Ultimately your strengths profile and the supporting reports are meant to stimulate self-reflection and exploration with others regarding your strengths, how they turn up, and how you can harness for maximum impact across all aspects of your life.

Annemarie Durbin

Executive Coach/Mentor and Gallup certified Strengths professional

If you would like help to explore your individual or team’s strengths profile, contact Annemarie at ad@annemariedurbin.com