Growing your Strengths

One of the books I have on my shelf that is an amazingly easy read, yet very informative personally is called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. I have set up Amazon.com links to the right for those of you interested in ordering these books so you don’t need to go far to get a copy of this one. One word of caution is buy new on this one as there is an online assessment that you have to take and if the ‘used’ copy code is already used, you will have spent money that will get you nothing.

So what is this book, Strengths Finder 2.0, about? One of my values is achievement, mainly helping others achieve all they can be. In order to do this you have to start by understanding what you are good at and what you are not so good at. This book gives you one set of criteria in which to begin your personal exploration.
Why start with strengths? There use to be a lot of emphasis placed on ‘fixing your improvement areas’ even if those areas were the hardest and nastiest ones imaginable to you. These areas are probably the ones you hated in high school, still hated in college, and now dread them as a grown up. Some typical areas are finance, budgeting, management, people supervising, office work, and project management.
How hard has it been to ‘fix’ these in you? It is like hating to play basketball in high school but thinking now that if you were only better at shooting a basketball you would enjoy it more! It has nothing to do with shooting a basketball but more to do with playing that game. If you don’t have a passion for it or consider it part of your values, why put energy into it!

So if you don’t have to ‘fix’ what is nasty to you, where do you or should you put your energies? The answer is in your strengths. They are things you are good at, know you can do, have a passion for, and most of the time will fall in line with your values. Let me share with you my strengths and how this all works.
First my values are giving, achieving, and believing. My passions are to improve my quality of life, assist others at achieving more, assisting others at growing their strengths, finding innovative and new ways of solving problems and leading people and projects.

Here is my summary of what the assessment said about me: Chances are good that you distinguish the fine points of each person’s contribution to a conversation. You guide exchange of information and draw out perspectives of everyone involved. You help individuals bring forth their viewpoints. You honor the uniqueness of each human being, and can have a dialogue with nearly anyone you meet. Driven by your talents, you sense people appreciate the advise you give. You believe that you can help people deal with problems by helping them identify their personal strengths, limitations, ideas, goals and experiences. You are someone people can trust and are a desired friend. You make a good partner at home, work, school and community because you thrive to make the world around you better. You tend to do more than is expected of you because you worry about wasting time. You consistently ask and volunteer for projects and duties as you are a high achiever.

For those who know me, I hope you agree that this description fits me pretty well. How did this summary come together? Through my strengths!

When I completed my Strength Finder 2.0 the strengths/themes that were recorded from my personal assessment were: Individualization, restorative, positivity, arranger, and ideation.

1.Individualization – Your ability to see people as unique individuals is a special talent. Your talents would serve well in counseling, supervising, teaching, writing human interest articles, or selling.
2.Restorative – You have a good ability at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it. You would enjoy customer service areas, medicine, consulting or management.
3.Positivity – You will excel in any role in which you are paid to highlight the positive. You tend to be more enthusiastic and energetic than most people and you prefer to focus on the good things, while never naïve about the negative.
4.Arranger – You are good at helping others learn about their goals and strengths and then setting them up for success. You intuitively sense how very different people can work together. You track deadlines of multiple tasks and have a way of getting many projects and tasks completed in short timelines.
5.Ideation – You are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena and are fascinated by ideas. You excel at creating innovative ideas and experiences from raw materials and events. You have a mindset of visionaries and dreamers and enjoy spending time putting together things, projects, tasks, or events.

So, these are my strengths. I will ask you the question “how am I doing”? What do you see in the strengths above that I do or have done? Here are some thoughts from my view. Planning a cruise, financial budget plans, reorganizing work and employees.

I use my strengths and increase my overall personal and professional value by improving my strengths. Now that is something to celebrate.

Take the assessment and see what it says about you. The book takes 30 minutes to read, the assessment 30 minutes to take, but what you learn can fill a lifetime!