I took the survey for a company training. HR sent out an e-mail saying we’d get a free
book if we joined the training, and anything free is appealing to me so I
jumped on the opportunity. At first, I
read through the results of my testing.
I had some preconceived thoughts.
Then I went through the 30-some pages in the book, and had slightly
different thoughts.
StrengthsFinder 2.0
The main theme of the book is: Focus on
strength, not on “fixing” weaknesses.
My results are values I hold highly and strive
to be. I hope and aspire to these
strengths, but I guess it is hard to measure if I actually own them. I’m not sure if the survey actually measures
my “strengths,” or measures what “I want my strengths to be.”
Some very important points the book briefly mentions:
- Overcoming deficits is an essential part of the fabric of our culture. Underdog who beats one-in-a-million odds is always inspirational and motivational. However, it masks a lot of problems, and it blindly leads you down a path where you naively think you can be a better someone you’re not, rather than focusing on being that super good someone you could be.
- You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are.
Not like Myers Briggs where they actual have
something more specific to the top.
Instead of reading all my top 5 strengths separately, I’d like to read
about them combined. What specific
advantages does this combination of strengths build me up for? Of course, it would be super difficult. With 34 listed strengths and listing out all
combinations for groups of five would be a super huge undertaking.
Also, there is no “intensity” measure on the
strengths. What I mean by intensity is
how strong are these strengths? If for
example, if each strength attribute is rated from 1 to 100… Person A may have all their strengths scoring
in the range from 50 to 60. And his top
5 strengths would be scored 59 and 60.
However, Person B may have his strength attributes ranging from 0 to
100. I would’ve liked to see a more in
depth relative scoring system. Instead
of scoring the top five strengths among these attributes “relative to myself,”
I want to see how my strengths score relative to others. Is my analytical ability the top 5
percentile? Top 20 percentile? Or it is
actually below average compared with the general population, just that all my
other attributes are worse. But I guess
if we are just doubling down on our strengths and being the best me I can be,
that relevance doesn’t matter. Because
not like I would get far either if I tried capitalizing on other attributes…
34 strengths in total. I read through them for my own benefit – to
understand other strengths and how to work with people of different
strengths. I do think having 34 of these
strengths is too many and a lot of the strengths are variations of the same
theme. For example, I would group these
following:
- Discipline/deliberate/focus
- Individualization/arranger/empathy/harmony
- Ideation/futuristic
- Connectedness/include
- Input/intellection/learner
So taking a step back, I’ve read a lot of books
and articles on “How to…XYZ” such as how to run a business, how to be an
entrepreneur, how to study for an exam, how to lose weight…etc. There are so many different ways. Some seem so out of whack, and make me think,
“How the hell would anybody do that?” After
reading the different strengths, I visualize a lot of people with these
different strengths that I don’t have, and the aha-moment struck. “YES!!
That is sooooooooooooo her!!”
This gives me a little more insight on the person and how to interact
with them. I realize how some tips that will
NEVER work for me seems to be the only way it would work for someone else. I’ve learned not to dismiss so easily, but
take into context.
Finally, a lot of the improvement suggestions
for people of a specific strength also rings a bell to me, “Yes, that person
really needs to do more of that.” This
gives me more confidence in “working with people with X strength.” The familiarity also empowers me to be aware
of the potential downfalls associated with my strengths.
The interesting thing is, perhaps due to
self-awareness - the past 2 years I’ve made adjustments that cover 80% of
suggested actions for me. The value of
the book is that now I have more ideas for the other 20%. 
No comments:
Post a Comment