More good stuff from Buckingham and Clifton’s Now, Discover Your Strengths…
Three things about our strengths…
- For an activity to be a strength, you must be able to do it consistently. This implies that it is a predictable part of your performance.
- You do not have to have strengths in every aspect of your role in order to excel. Excellent performers are rarely well-rounded. They are sharp.
- You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. This is not the same as ignoring your weaknesses. Effective people manage around their weaknesses.
The book includes a password to access a Web-based inventory called the StrengthsFinder survey. (Yeah, you’ve gotta have the code, found in a strategic location in the book, and you can only use a code to register once.) The website takes you through a detailed survey/inventory, and then gives you your Top 5 areas of strength, along with a detailed description of each strength.
It was pretty interesting to note my Top 5…
- Adaptability: lives in the moment, doesn’t see the future as a fixed destination, flexible
- Communication: describes, hosts, speaks in public, writes
- Input: inquisitive, collects things/ideas/information
- Intellection: likes to think
- Includer: wants to include people and make them feel part of the team
Interesting things I learned – and had reinforced – about who I am and what I do. And interesting stuff I learned about how my most intense stress and biggest failures have come when I’ve tried to be or do something I’m not or that I don’t do very well.
Let’s just say this: You will be way ahead of the game when you are true to the “you” God intended and designed you to be, rather than pretending to be something/somebody you’re not.
Anybody else out there read or reading the book and doing the survey? What are you discovering?
