CliftonStrengths

CliftonStrengths is a better brand name than StrengthsFinder. In my understanding, it’s 20% scientific and 80% marketing. The things to take away is:

1. refine my dictionary of 34 words — so-called “talent themes”.
2. the way they pose questions are actually more interesting/mind invoking. such as light-hearted/serious, planning/go with flow, keep absorbing info/simplifying complexities, equally/selectively to friends, winning/get things right is everything.
3. not surprising, my top 5 is learner, intellection, input, deliberative, connectedness

strenghsFinder 2.0 (Tom Rath, 2007): https://www.amazon.com/dp/159562015X/ref=nosim/?tag=thegalluporganiz

Donald O. Clifton (February 5, 1924, in Butte, Nebraska[1] – September 14, 2003)[2] was an American psychologist. He developed the eponymous Clifton StrengthsFinder, Gallup’s online psychological assessment. Clifton was professor of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1950 to 1969[2] when he founded Selection Research, Inc. (SRI) that grew to the point where in 1988.

*StrengthsFinder* (or *Now, Discover Your Strengths*) is a self-help book written by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, first published in 2001. At the heart of the book is the internet-based “Clifton Strengths Finder,” an online personal assessment test that outlines the user’s strengths. The authors advocate focusing on building strengths rather than focusing on weaknesses.

The Gallup Organization claims to have distilled the theory into practice by interviewing 1.7 million professionals from varying fields.[1] Having quantified the different traits of the people they interviewed, they came up with 34 distinct patterns—what they call “talent themes”.

Jim Clifton is the son of Donald Clifton, they are CEO and chairman of Gallup. Tom Rath’s 1st book, How full is your bucket, coauthored with his grandfather, Donald Clifton.

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements (2010), a New York Times bestseller, coauthored with Jim Harter, is based on Gallup’s research on wellbeing. The book lists five elements of well-being as: career wellbeing, social wellbeing, financial wellbeing, community wellbeing and physical wellbeing

Criticism vs response:

1. Nobody I’ve seen talk about strengths—not Gallup or Marcus Buckingham—promote a strengths-only approach. They do promote the benefits of a strengths-based approach that focuses mostly on strengths
2. Raw talents—often seen in young people (which is to be expected), or people with low self-awareness—aren’t augmented with much knowledge, skill, or life experience. That’s when you people with attention to detail traits in leadership positions micromanaging (any decent leader knows it’s not effective to micromanage people). Mature talents *are* augmented with knowledge, skill, and life experience. You see these in action when you see people who are really good at what they do who also have a positive reputation. They have learned, over time, how to express their talents constructively in the environments they find themselves in.
3. “ Weaknesses matter” - The book never says to ignore weaknesses, and instead suggests one should manage around their weaknesses, and gives ideas for how to do this

The findings show that everyone has some combination of a list of only 34 basic strengths. You can discover your top 5 strengths online using a 177 question assessment.

Knowing what the 34 themes are before you take your assessment can skew your own results. You cannot unlearn these talents and only have one shot at doing an unskewed assessment before learning more about the 34 themes.

Strength = talent + knowledge + experience

34 strengths are first formulated in (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now,_Discover_Your_Strengths) in 2001.

Myers–Briggs Type Indicator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator It is similar to Carl Jung’s 4 cognitive functions.

Big five: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

StrengthFinder 2.0 excerpt

At its fundamentally flawed core, the aim of almost any learning program ti to help us become who wer are not.

Overcoming deficits is an essential part of the fabric of our culture. Unfortunately, this is taking the path of most resistance.

“ You can be anything you want to be, if you just try hard enough” is a misguided maxim. You can’t be anything you want to be. YOu can be a lot of who you already are.

One big problem is that most people are either unaware of, or unable to describe, their own strength.

These 34 themes represent our best attempt at creating a common language or classification of talents. By no means did we capture everything.

Although people certainly do change over time and our personalities adapt, scientists have discovered that core personality traits are relatively stable throughout adulthood, as are our passions and interests.

Building your talent into real strengths also requires practice and hard work, much like it does to build physical strengths.

Adding raw talent is a very different story. While it may be possible, with a considerable amount, to add talent where little exists, our research suggests that this may not be the best use of your time.

Blind spot. Be more conscious of any “blind spot” caused by your talents. For example, Strong Command may not realize the damage left in our wake as we are pushing to get things done each day. Consistency talent focus so much on keeping steps uniform that they ignore the overall outcome and goals.

34 themes describe a great deal of the variation in human talent, they don’t capture many nuances of unique personalities. e.g. Learner may learn from reading books, learns primarily from doing or from an insatiable curiosity.

The purpose of CliftonStrengths is not to anoint you with strengths, but helps you find the area where you have the greatest potential to develop strengths.

StrengthFinder test

• Natural behavior is your talent and greatest potential.
• You don’t stop initiators. You ask well-designed question to let him rethink the approach.

170 paired descriptor, 20 seconds for each pair, 45 minutes. Cost for Top 5 - $19

examples:

• humanity/ambitious
• Contest/work
• make people success/happy
• carefree/mature
• leader/team player
• history/future
• work as life/earn money
• organize/analyze
• listen to people/ highlight their important points
• philosophical/ hardworking,achieving
• make other feel worthwhile/successful
• solve problems/ use information
• tell stories/ give advice
• great stamina to work longer/ not driven to work harder
• athletics vs thought
• tidy/stubborn
• I grow when I share/learn
• in the future what I can achieve/ how I will respond
• relate to others better when I find their weakness/goals
• include everybody/ select friends carefully
• very important to be recognized as credible, professional/ego not so large
• I progress by capitalizing talents/ overcoming weakness
• plan/ go with the flow
• do things in different ways/routine ways
• I hate it when I cry/ tears are a part of my life.
• enjoy relaxing/cleaning
• happiness is money/ not about money
• treat people equally with clear rules to follow/ discover what is unique about each person and motivating them individually
• rely on experts to find right answer/ answers and issues emerge naturally
• generous in giving praises/ selective
• stay in comfort zone/ thrill seeker
• sense the feeling of others/ discuss big ideas
• for important decision, I trust my heart/my head
• I respond to things as they occur/ I prioritize things, then act
• I like to take care of the present/ live for the future
• I force myself to study/ I can concentrate on the things in which I am interested.
• I like anything dealing with little children/ I prefer to deal with adults
• I study what makes others tick/ I am introspective
• I like to be heard/ I like to listen
• I am satisfied with my progress in life/ worry about my future
• I like to talk/think
• I want to get things perfect/done
• I am a down-to-earth thinker/ creative,strategic thinker
• I choose friend honest about my weakness/ appreciate my strength.
• I am never at a loss for words/ hard for me to talk about myself.
• I love to study/ live to go out.
• I am often forgetful/ My nature is to check everything in order
• my way for achieving: overcoming weakness/building on my talent
• I am outgoing/ I can be outgoing when I need to be
• I want as many friends as possible/ I want a few deep friendships
• I like to challenge people/encourage people
• I am a very private person/ My life is an open book
• I sometimes flatter others/ I am conscientious
• I am generous with my praises/ It really means something when I praise
• I am open to learning new things/ My values are stable
• I enjoy philosophical discussion/ I enjoy goal setting conferences
• I visualize the future/ I understand what cause present circumstances
• last minute pressure focuses my think/my thinking it clearer when I get things done ahead of time
• I do the best I can/ I am driven to make a difference
• I seek responsibility/I strive for promotion
• I am agreeable with people/ I take risks
• I inspire friends to make things happen/bring harmony
• I am light-hearted/serious
• It is easy for me to start new tasks/ my problem is getting projects finished
• I can get along with anybody/I select my friends carefully
• I cry easily/ I am tough-minded.
• I have had a teacher who really cared about me as a person/ whether or not a teacher liked me is irrelevant
• Numbers are in my mind a lot/I often reflect on the beauty I have seen
• I prefer intellectual discussion/ talk about sports
• I never stop absorbing information/have a gift for simplifying complexity
• winning is everything/ doing it right is everything
• I spend 5 hours or more each week thinking alone/ like to be with people
• I know my strength better than my weakness/ weakness better than strength

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