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Lead Through Strengths

Lead Through Strengths

Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper

Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper help you lead teams, build your work culture, and improve relationships with CliftonStrengths A.K.A StrengthsFinder. The "Lead Through Strengths" podcast was created for you if you're ready to stop taking the "path of most resistance" at work and in life. It sounds silly, yet it happens all the time when people get focused on fixing their weaknesses. It doesn't have to be so hard. Stop focusing on what's broken about you. Lisa Cummings, the host, is a Gallup Certified Strengths Performance Coach, so she brings you a wealth of corporate wisdom, combined with Gallup research. Many episodes are educational Q&A from our corporate clients. They're usually questions we get in our StrengthsFinder corporate workshops. Over 28 Million people have taken the CliftonStrengths assessment. If you're ready to get your mojo back, Lisa Cummings delivers it with straight talk and a fun-loving approach. Beyond CliftonStrengths training, she's also a coach, trained by the Life Coach School. With this show, you'll learn how to find your strengths and put them to work. If you manage a team, you'll hear ideas for leading your so your colleagues can come to work feeling more energized and engaged. We publish by season. Season 1: Career Q&A Season 2: Strengths Interviews Season 3: StrengthsFinder Q&A (also known as CliftonStrengths assessment) Season 4: Team Building 12 Week Strengths Challenge Season 5: One StrengthsFinder Talent Theme Per Week: Career Branding Adjectives for your personal brand, red flag situations for that talent theme, and action items to put that talent to use Season 6: Nine Core Concepts of Strengths Season 7: Facilitator Interviews (because, who needs Lisa only - we have lots of other great StrengthsFinder trainers for you) Season 8: CliftonStrengths Customer Q&A There's a lot of confusion about the name of the assessment because it is difficult to spell (or put the singular/plural in the right spot), and it has changed names. All of these are the same survey tool: StrengthsFinder 2.0, StrengthsFinders, StrengthFinders, StrengthFinder, StrengthsFinder, Clifton Strengths, CliftonStrengths, Clifton StrengthsFinder. Despite the difficulty with the word, the content all points to Strengths Based Development and leadership using StrengthsFinder with your team. In addition: here are some hot topic areas covered by audience questions so far: Getting promoted; discovering your strengths; differentiating yourself; coaching and feedback; marketing, branding, and promoting yourself; getting unstuck; developing your direct reports; noticing what works on your team; connecting and networking; personal leadership; politics and perceptions at the office; getting viewed as an A player; building trust and influence at work or in your industry; being a people-leader that you want to be, even when you're short on time; how to get your creative mojo back; understanding how your EQ (emotional intelligence) is more important than your IQ at work; stuff you didn't learn in business school that's hurting your career; getting unstuck and un-trapped; being a better leader; solving problems; getting past confusion; aligning your mind, body, and purpose in life; managing major life transitions; and taking a minute to reflect on what you really want in life
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Top 10 Lead Through Strengths Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Lead Through Strengths episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Lead Through Strengths for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Lead Through Strengths episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Lead Through Strengths - Annoying Coworkers? Send In A Strengths Bomb
play

11/01/20 • 10 min

On "Bad" Strengths: The Perception Behind Annoying Coworkers

If you just got into StrengthsFinder, chances are you are all fired up knowing about your top strengths and, maybe, how they compare to others'. Many of us scroll through all the 34 talent themes and then mentally assign some of them to people or teams that we know.

This tendency is generally okay because our experiences working with people or teams allow us to match up some positive perceptions of their dominant themes, albeit on a surface level. It comes naturally to us.

But when you skew this perception a little bit on the wayward side, what do you get?

Theme bias.

In this episode, host Lisa Cummings and Lead Through Strengths facilitator Sara Regan introduce the different forms and dangers of theme bias and how to reverse a perception of bad strengths or annoying coworkers.

Here’s the transcript of Lisa’s interview with Sara as they exchange views about theme bias and seemingly annoying coworkers.

Lisa: Hello, everyone, it's Lisa and Sara from Lead Through Strengths, and we're here today to give you some fresh ideas about how to apply your strengths at work.

Are Bad Strengths A Real Thing?

Lisa: So you talk about the demonizing of a strength or making a strength the bad guy, or even fearing that there's a bad one that maybe this isn't the good one to have in this organization.

How would you experience that in working with teams and what would you offer them as another way?

Sara: Sure. And I think anytime that I'm working with a team, I am going to bring up theme bias. And that's whether it's the first time I'm seeing them, or maybe the fifth time in a year, I'm going to return to this because I think it's just natural for us.

I can say to groups that if they look through that full list of 34 themes and kind of scan that, I will stop on one or two of them. And they will think, “Oh, I'm really glad I don't have that one.”

Or maybe, "That's good for the work that other people do in a different kind of organization, but for our team, we don't really need that here. That wouldn't fit.”

Or they point their finger to one and say, “Oh, I bet so and so had that theme and that's why I find it so hard to work with them.”

So I feel like all of those are examples of theme bias, and it's really important for people to be on the lookout for it because a little bit of StrengthsFinder language can sometimes be detrimental, where people start labeling each other and making assumptions. It takes a long time to develop the fluency of understanding all 34 themes.

So for me, what I want people to do is to have that awareness of their own dominant themes. I wouldn't fully understand every other theme that folks have in the room, but that they have an understanding that none are better than others. And all of those themes are neutral.

So I try to bring that conversation up regularly. If I'm working with a team over time, you know, how are we doing with that theme bias and check in with people. I just feel like it's very foundational to the whole principle. And that we are different people. We bring something different to the party, and we need to be honored and appreciated for that.

I see also some ties in with diversity and inclusion, about how we bring our whole selves to work. And it's really a very profound metaphor, I think, for thinking about diversity. We want to start with curiosity, not making assumptions. We want to ask questions, we want to assume that differences are an advantage, or to know that and to seek that out.

And so I feel like that's an important message or for teams to take away with this work.

Dissolving Bias By Starting Conversations Through StrengthsFinder

Lisa: Totally. And I see a lot of eyes open when we talk. They'll bring up diversity and they'll say, “Oh, this is a big thing in the organization.”

And then we can introduce the idea of cognitive diversity, and how you think differently because you lead through these different talent themes. For a second, forget all the other really obvious, surface things that people are talking about. Let's talk about how you think, how you act, and how these things drive you.

And I've noticed that over the years, when we bring up that "theme bias" stuff, you get them to the end of phase one where they're realizing, “Okay, I'm a little bit biased against this other one in other people. I think people who lead through xyz talent are my annoying coworkers."

Then they start to see, “Oh, I have this bias against this talent theme. I had something on my top 5 or top 10 and I like it, but I don't think that it's really going to be accepted well in this work culture, so I think I'm going to turn that one down to a volume-level-one or save that more for my home life.”

Have you experienced that kind of example personally or with ...

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Lead Through Strengths - Using Strengths For Sales Teams

Using Strengths For Sales Teams

Lead Through Strengths

play

03/21/21 • 13 min

Applying Strengths For Sales Teams Can Boost Performance

If you look over those moments where you closed a deal or knocked out a killer proposal, you were likely in the zone. That whole idea of "flow" or being in the zone - it's a clue to your greatest strengths. Work feels effortless because either you were at your genuine best or you were dealing with a seller who was.

In this episode, Lisa Cummings and co-host Joseph Dworak reveal how voracious learners study up on a bunch of popular selling methodologies. Yet, sometimes they fail because they're implemented as if each person leads through the same strengths. You'll find out more about using strengths for sales. It's an individualized approach, yet it's easy to do because you're amplifying each person's good spots.

Here’s their conversation:

Lisa: You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, joined today by Joseph Dworak, another host, Lead Through Strengths facilitator, and sales extraordinaire.

Joseph: Hello, thank you.

Lisa: Well, today I would love to talk to the audience about using strengths for sales teams - in the context of selling. So you have this unique position that I haven't seen in too many people, which is you've been a CliftonStrengths facilitator full-time, you've been a seller full-time, you've been a leader of sales people full-time, you've had a really wide array of these kinds of roles that allow you to know the philosophy behind strengths but also know how to put this into really practical application for a team.

Now, of course, not every listener that we have is a salesperson or on a sales team. So as much as we can today, we're going to apply this and make it functional and useful for somebody who might be able to pitch an idea in a business meeting, make a business case, do some influencing, because everyone is selling ideas. But when you think about using strengths for sales, let me just kick it off and say, "Say more about that." How do you see this benefiting a sales team?

Joseph: I mean, so many ways. I think, people buy from people who they like and trust. And that's debated in the sales world but I would stick with that. And I think, at a really baseline, if you know who you are, you know how you're wired and you enter into a relationship with people in a way that's authentically you, that will differentiate you as a salesperson.

So if you're not authentic, I don't trust you, I'm not buying from you. Even if you have the greatest thing in the world, I'll find someone else to buy from.

And one of the things in my current setting, which, I just absolutely love my company — they're fantastic, great culture — we from the top have been modeled to say, “We may or may not be a fit for you. If we're not, there's no drama with that."

"If we are a good fit, great, let's keep talking. We know you have options. You could build something yourself. You could outsource, you could look at a solution like ours.” And we try to do that up front to say, “We're not here to push anything on you that doesn't work.”

Our products take sometimes a year, sometimes four months, sometimes a year, and they’re with multi-billion dollar companies, and so it's very un-transactional that way. And if we're in a competitive situation, which we often are, if other people are selling in competition with us and they are not those things, we will stand out.

And so I think the baseline “I know my strengths. I'm authentic in that. And I'm really upfront,” that can help. And I think, obviously, like you mentioned, that can apply to people who are not in sales roles — just being authentic and being you. So I hope I answered your question, Lisa, but that's what I think about.

Lisa: You did, and you were taking me back to memory. So being in sales roles early in my career, where you had to memorize a script, and you were supposed to walk in and do a cold call, by opening a front door to a business and then launching into some scripted thing that doesn't sound like you at all - I remember, it felt so awkward until I decided to just discard that and do my thing. I was figuring out how to use strengths for sales before I knew it was a thing. Before I figured that out, it was awful.

I worked next to a mall, like old-fashioned indoor malls that you could walk into all the stores. There was a Franklin Covey store in there and they had all these inspirational planners and quotes and. It was my tool to revive my energy. After cold calling all day and just feeling so horrible because I was acting like someone else, I would start in the car, reloading on Zig Ziglar audio. And then I would go to th...

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Lead Through Strengths - Is StrengthsFinder Legit And Valid?
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09/20/20 • 8 min

StrengthsFinder Legit? Valid? Accurate?

If you're wondering, you're actually just like Sara Regan, the Lead Through Strengths facilitator in this interview. Before being exposed to the tool, she was a bit skeptical about it.

Usually, before doing some strengths finding with the team, one or two among us are wondering if psychometric tools are accurate. Is StrengthsFinder legit? Is it valid? The CliftonStrengths Assessment has not escaped such skepticism from some of our participants.

You're not alone. Many of us come to these tools with a cautious eye. We want to know that it's more than parlor games. We hope for a tool that allows for more than a 4-hour kumbaya team building event at work.

Most of the time, skeptical people wonder, "Hmmmm, is StrengthsFinder legit, or is my boss making me go to a gimmicky feel-good-training today?" Other times, it's an industrial organizational psychologist from the HR department who wants to know about the peer-reviewed literature on the tool. Either way, people like having the confidence of knowing that the tool is tested and valid.

Here’s the transcript of this episode where Lisa interviews Sara about her journey from being a skeptic to someone who fully embraces StrengthsFinder.

Lisa: Hello everyone, you're listening to Lead Through Strengths, and today it's both me, Lisa and Sara Regan. You've heard a lot from me over the years and it's about time to get some new angles from some other facilitators here at Lead Through Strengths.

So let's get right into some fresh angles on strengths, from Sara.

From Skeptical Customer To StrengthsFinder Facilitator: What Prompted The Change?

So Sara, sometimes we walk into a StrengthsFinder event. We're doing CliftonStrengths kickoff, it's a big thing. And you know, there are a couple of people in the room who are really skeptics. They wonder, "is StrengthsFinder legit, and is this an accurate tool?"

Tell me, how did you come to CliftonStrengths, and have you ever experienced that either in your own skepticism or other people in the room and how has that gone for you?

Sara: Absolutely. I think at this point, I almost expect that there will be a skeptic or two in the room. And I, myself, also had that skepticism, when I was first introduced to StrengthsFinder. I think for me it was the opportunity of “let's bring the team together.”

I was leading a group of around maybe 25 people or so at that time, and I thought I know team building is a good thing. We do this from time to time. We'll have coffee, we'll have bagels. Maybe people will get to know each other a little bit more. But I didn't really expect there to be much of a profound takeaway.

But for me, I was really struck by reading my own report and feeling like it really did help to highlight some things that I was aware of. So my skepticism really certainly changed after I got to look at my own results. And then in seeing the results of the team members too, I mean it just really dramatically changed the way I thought about my work, my career, the types of things I said “yes” to to the type of things I said “no” to, and how to position other people for success as well.

So even though I was a skeptic, I think I was a quick convert, and really felt like even in my homegrown fashion, I was doing strengths at any chance that I could with new team members or other people that I worked with.

So now as a facilitator, I expect that there will be the skeptics who wonder if StrengthsFinder is legit. I think one of the things that really helps is that people have some of the research underpinnings, and to be able to see that ahead of time there will be people who will want to understand how was this validated, what's the reliability, why did they choose these questions...

So to make that available for people, whether it's before or after a session, that can help as well.

Lisa: Yes, that's great. We always do that in the pre-work where it's like, “Are you one of the people who wants to validate whether StrengthsFinder is legit? Here's a deep meta analysis if you want to look into it. It's a 40 page technical report with all of the design elements and reliability data from Gallup's behavioral scientists. (and for those of you who will gloss over it, just come to the session - you don't have to read it).”

So, speaking of legit...you have a master's degree in psychology, don't you?

Sara: I do.

Lisa: So I can imagine with that kind of point of view, you might have needed to dig in when you first got exposed to the book StrengthsFinder 2.0.

So when you saw your own results, let's say you're fast forwarded. You're good with the tool. Now you've looked at the validity and the reliab...

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What Is StrengthsFinder Training Like? Get A Glimpse Of The Lead Through Strengths Style.

So, what is StrengthsFinder training really all about? What will we talk about? What makes the training any different from other strengths courses around? Can we do this for a team building event? Is this like DiSC or MBTi? Does it even work in a virtual environment?

These may be some of the questions that you are contemplating before joining a strengths training. Well, this podcast episode is the preview you need if you're exploring your options, or if you're looking for the learning event that can truly help you (or your team) to harness your natural strengths.

Here’s Lisa’s interview with Sara Regan as they reveal how fun and career-changing it can be - even if it's only a one-time StrengthsFinder kickoff event.

Lisa: Hello, hello, everyone! I'm Lisa Cummings from Lead Through Strengths. I'm so excited today to be joined by Sara Regan, one of our facilitators from Lead Through Strengths, and I'm psyched to bring you some new fresh thinking and tips on applying your strengths at work.

As you go into an event you might have this big picture, hope of: “What can we do as a team?” “What is possible for us to become?” And the world feels opened up to all these new possibilities.

And at the same time people say, “Okay, if you're going to do a half-day event (or 2-hour virtual training) to kickoff strengths, what can we really expect as takeaways? Because we're not going to change everything about every conversation we have in the future. It can't change the whole of how we act from a couple of hours together at an event.”

So, Sara, give us the idea of:

  • What's the big picture that people can aim for if they do this over the long-term?
  • What's the practical takeaway they could expect after they've done a kickoff half-day event? What could they expect for takeaways?
What Can I Expect From StrengthsFinder Training?

Sara: First thing that comes to my mind is that it's fun. There is a powerful learning that comes out of this, but it's like getting kids to eat their vegetables but putting them in brownies. It's just, there's a way that it's baked in to the experientials and the interactions that people are laughing.

There isn't a time that I'm working with a group where they aren’t just having a good time. At an in-person event, people are up and they're moving. Whether it's virtual or in-person, I really try to make sure that there's a little bit of something for every different kind of learning style. Some people want to it to be engaging, and some people want that one-on-one, deeper conversation.

Other times, people just wish everybody would stop talking for a minute so they could put their thoughts together and do a little writing. So there's some variety in there, but I would say, people are going to find it to be engaging and fun.

What Is StrengthsFinder Training Capable Of?

Sara: For the learning takeaways, I think, for the half-day, what I try to promise and deliver on is, you will walk out and that you will know and love your own themes. There occasionally be a time when somebody's still struggling and that's when I say, just be in touch with me, or listen to this podcast or talk to this person.

But I want them to know their top 5 for sure, and to love them, and to also have a sense of knowing that there is value in the difference, and to be set up to have conversations that are even more so aligned with their work. Some of that within the context of the facilitated workshop, but that there's a plan for what comes next.

And so, that helps people grow in their understanding. I think oftentimes at the end of the workshop, they’ll say, “That was great!” “I love this stuff!” But what are we actually supposed to do? What is StrengthsFinder training to us...after the event?

So I love our activation program that follows so that people have the tools to carry it forward, and that it makes me feel confident that we can deliver more than we can just get in that kickoff training. But the first session has to be about getting people excited, getting people brought in understanding their themes, and having an awareness of how to apply it at work.

So one of the things that we'll also do is make sure that there's an application piece so it's not just an interesting get-to-know-you exercise. Even though it is, it was always meant to drive performance. So some of the activities and experiences that we'll do will be having people think very consciously about what's a challenge, what's an obstacle, what drives me crazy at work, and applying strengths to that so t...

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This Episode’s Focus on Strengths

Today's episode features Marcus Sheridan, also known as The Sales Lion. Marcus is a marketing and sales guru. He's best known for his concept "They Ask, You Answer." He has definitely given us a kick in the pants when it comes to making helpful video content and making an "answers" page for our customers. As a professional speaker, he's also delving into area like: individual strengths, personal success, and true fulfillment.

He's such a likable guy, and you'll love him on his show The Balance if you dig the ideas they explore on fulfillment. If you're curious about how he's become so good at interacting with clients and prospects, listen in. This episode is especially perfect for marketing and sales people. Lisa and Marcus also get a kick out of their mutual love of the word "dang." Yes, it's a southern thang. Lisa is from Austin, Texas and Marcus is from Heathsville, Virginia, so they had a laugh about their vernacular. And don't worry, neither one will drop a "bless your heart" phrase on you when they're actually trying to tell you that your marketing or strengths based leadership efforts are terrible.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How to tap into your personal strengths. Marcus tells us that he has done this from a young age. He's accomplished this by being self-aware at all times, and by tuning into his audience's reactions (whether it be one person or a whole audience). Signs to look for: Is the person leaning forward because he is interested, or back because he's bored? Is he looking up because he's having a reflective moment (which should be your goal), or is he looking down because he's only listening and not thinking? If he is smiling at you, this is good, but if he's looking at you blankly, he may just be trying to stay awake!

The art of the question. Our job as communicators is to help our audience discover an insight, before we even say it. This can only occur if we ask the right questions. Listen for Marcus' mention of the mirror of life, and see how people are really reacting to you. If you present things in the correct way, your audience will feel like "it" (whatever that is), is their idea. They won't conclude that you forced them into compliance with your idea. Besides Marcus being a great listener in a human-to-human way, he's also excellent at tuning into customers. You'll see his living proof of "they ask you answer" in the way he adds value on his website and how he shows up in helpful video content.

Prioritization. It's important to prioritize everything in your life, based on what brings you the most energy. Using your strengths will often bring you energy. To find out what your strengths are, grab the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 and use your code in the back of the book. Peak states in life when you're (in the flow) are times when you are gaining energy, not spending it. Learn to love what you are, and know what you aren't. For example, Marcus put his family first and his business second. the helps him to know exactly what he should say NO to. You may have to walk away from opportunities, even when they are attractive, if they don't fit in with your priorities. There was a time when Marcus failed to say no to a great opportunity in San Francisco, California. It turned out to be four days of speaking all day, seeing no Silicon Valley sights, and missing his family. And, people were eating while he was speaking, instead of listening. This was an "ah ha" moment, when he decided to never let money or ambition supercede his priorities - family and self-care.

How To Chase Fulfillment

  • In order to feel true fulfillment, you must move toward something rather than running away from it.
  • Explore your career. It's very much like a hiking trail. You can't tell where it's going to go; you need to keep walking to see. If an idea seems seeded in you, explore it. See what it grows into, and play with it. Get in the sandbox. For example, even Marcus has given himself a 3-5 year on-ramp to play in a career transition. Keep an eye on Marcus. He's living proof of how this works as he authentically shares his exploration into the topic of life, family, and fulfillment - and how they intersect.

Resources of the EpisodeYou can reach Marcus through his website or Twitter. To listen to his amazing podcasts, click here. Lisa particularly loves The Mad Marketing show. He als...

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Lead Through Strengths - Why Use StrengthsFinder With Your Team - With Adam Seaman
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02/21/17 • 30 min

This Episode’s Focus on Strengths

This week Lisa speaks with Adam Seaman. They chat about the difference between strengths and talents, as well as practical applications for your top strengths. This interview is a great introduction to what you can do with Clifton StrengthsFinder.

Adam’s Top 10 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes: Strategic, Individualization, Ideation, Intellection, Input, Adaptability, Command, Activator, Empathy, Futuristic

Lisa’s Top 10 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes: Strategic, Maximizer, Positivity, Individualization, Woo, Futuristic, Focus, Learner, Communication, Significance

Resource of the Episode

You can reach Adam through the Talent2Strength website. He also posts helpful thought leadership on Twitter. You'll definitely see his Intellection in action.

Strengths Tools

You'll also find lots of StrengthsFinder, leadership, and team tools on our Strengths Resources page.

Subscribe To Lead Through Strengths

To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from this website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.

< Here's a Full Transcript of the 30 Minute Interview

Lisa Cummings: This episode is about stepping back and understanding: what the tool of StrengthsFinder is, and what is it like for a team. Let's start with your opinion on why it is so awesome.

Adam Seaman: Great. My goal is to get other people as excited about it as I am. I don't always reach that goal of course, but it's the striving for it, and sometimes I succeed, and I call it "green lit" when I get somebody as excited about it as I am. StrengthsFinder stands out to me; one of the reasons is that it really gives that language that people can describe themselves with. I hear this all the time. It's like, "oh I always knew I had that quality, but I didn't know there was a name for it." Then they'll say, "and I didn't know other people had it or didn't have it, I just assumed everybody was like me." Those are some of the reasons why I really like this tool. The other is that it really dials into the individual, so instead of it being "I'm one of four colors", or "I'm one of 16 letter combinations", you have one in 278,000 chance of somebody having the same top five themes as you have. Those are just some of the reasons I really, really like this tool.

Lisa Cummings: That's so crazy. Any time I cite that number or the chances that someone else will have the same top five talent themes in the same order as you is 1 in 33 million. That just blows people's minds, and they think, "Okay, so this isn't going to be a training where you come into my team and talk to people about the four boxes you can put them in." It makes people so receptive to StrengthsFinder compared to other tools.

Adam Seaman: Yeah, I think it really makes them go, "Alright, this is serious, serious, stuff here. It really does dial into the individual." But then, it does create a little bit of a barrier because there are 34 themes that it measures you on, and learning all 34 is more daunting than learning four colors or something like that. That's definitely one of the challenges for people - to really access this tool deeply. But once you do...and this gets into another thing I really love about this...is most assessments you read it and you're like, "Alright, I guess that's accurate, I guess that describes me, and then what do I do with it?" You file it away because you don't want to throw it away, but what do you do with it? So you just file it away, and that's the real shame that I try to correct with StrengthsFinder.

Lisa Cummings: [laughing] You give them strength shamings.

Adam Seaman: [playing along] I do. I just shame them. If I'm in a grocery store and somebody is like, "Hey, I just took the StrengthsFinder" you know, as people do when they're in the grocery store.

Lisa Cummings: [jokingly] Definitely. When you're picking out butter. That's when I do it.

Adam Seaman: Yes, it's in the butter aisle.

Lisa Cummings: So to get back to serious stuff for a second, you said something about a personality assessment kind of notion, and so for people less familiar with StrengthsFinder, they often assume this is a personality assessment. I know that you view it in a different way, that you look at StrengthsFi...

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Lead Through Strengths - Announcement: Start Your Week With Strengths
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07/06/18 • 6 min

leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge

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Lead Through Strengths - Standing Out By Using Your Strengths At Work - With Dorie Clark
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05/18/15 • 25 min

This Episode's Focus On Strengths Dorie Clark joined me to chat about using your uniqueness to Stand Out at work. If you want to improve your personal brand or reinvent yourself at work, this is a must-listen episode of Lead Through Strengths. We talked about applying your greatest strengths at work to help you stand out and boost your leadership cache.

What You'll LearnHow to use a personal 360 to understand the starting point of your personal brand. She gives a rich version for those who really want to invest in their development. We also recount my experiment with her "Three Words Exercise" (great experience, by the way). That's the super-fast version of the experience. And if you want an in-between commitment level when you apply it, here's a resource she published in Forbes. It's about asking for input via email.

  • Why I got called "Lady With Chainsaw" in my personal brand exercise.
  • How to stop sanding down your uniqueness and instead make it part of your brand.
  • Given that we're moving more and more to a world where what’s different about you is what matters, she shows you how to own your unique gifts and articulate them as part of your professional reputation.
  • The story of a poet turned management consultant. You heard that right. It's not a corporate exile who left to follow her art. It's an artist who used that to her advantage in the boardroom.
  • Ideas for developing yourself as a thought leader, even when you’re internal to a company and feel like it might be an awkward place to build a platform.
  • Tips for breaking through the noise if you're in a job transition and want to be the candidate that stands out.
Resource of the Episode It's a three-fer. Check out her books Stand Out and Reinventing You. She also offered up a free workbook where you can download 139 questions to reflect on your personal brand and career reinvention. Dorie really packed this show with great ideas and resources today. You're gonna love it. Remember, using your strengths at work makes you a stronger performer. If you’re focused on fixing your weaknesses, you’re choosing the path of most resistance. So claim your talents. And share them with the world. Listen Links Give the full episode a listen on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud, or Stream The Audio Right Here.
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Team Questions and Active Listening Impact Strengths Based Conversations

At Lead Through Strengths, our StrengthsFinder events are designed to help you dial deep into your strengths so you can understand yourself better and strengthen team performance. What better way to launch this goal into action than through meaningful activities and strengths based conversations that are grounded in your natural talents!

But how do you keep the value of these conversations when your reality hits? Maybe these conversations feel weird to you over Zoom or MS teams. Maybe you don't know where to start, and you feel a little too woo-woo kicking off strengths based conversations when you're usually the person who gets right to business. Or maybe you prefer to leave the CliftonStrengths kickoff to the experts, so you're waiting for that to happen.

In yet another idea-rich episode, Lisa Cummings and co-host Joseph Dworak will take you through fun and engaging ways you can create strengths based conversations, whether in full-length or “bite-sized” sessions, in-person or virtual. Even the popular online game World of Warcraft was an important part of their conversation, so join in.

Lisa: You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, also joined by your other host this week, Joseph Dworak (claps and cheers).

Joseph: Hello, hello.

Lisa: We're going to talk to you about Strengthsfinder activities and strengths based conversations that help you go deeper as a team over time. Now, of course, in your ideal world, you hire Joseph to come in. He's your facilitator that you request. It's easy, because he has a bag of great tricks, because he's been doing CliftonStrengths for 20 years.

But sometimes people come to us and say, “Oh, gosh, you know, I don't have the budget right now, but I can buy everyone a StrengthsFinder 2.0 book.” So Joseph, if we were going to share some of our favorite kinds of things that might give someone a path to have solid strengths based conversations, what are some of your favorites?

Joseph: Yeah, I have to give credit to Chip Anderson, who was one of the founders of the StrengthsFinder movement with Don Clifton back in the day. I saw him do this in 2001... I just started going through my own strengths and I was at a retreat with a bunch of USC and UCLA students that we were with, and I was kind of getting into their groove and Chip Anderson had everyone take our glasses. And he did this whole thing about strengths being the lenses that you see the world through, and we all have unique glasses.

And so then he had people divide up into the four quadrants, so people who have strategizing themes over here, and people who have Influencing things over here, and people who have Relating themes and so on. And then he would have a little bit like what you and I talked about before with a strengths mixer, where he would say, “What's the strength that you really like of your Top 5 and talk about it.”

The other person has to actively listen for a minute and the other person can't interrupt. They actually have to actively listen, which is his own skill in this day and age. And they would talk back and forth. And he would do that for two hours. And he would just, "All right, switch partners. Okay, what's the strength that gets in your way sometimes, and why?

“What's the strength that fits you best, and why?

“What strengths combinations do you see working together?”

And he would just keep rotating and rotating and rotating. And I took that one. And when I became a strengths facilitator about a year later, I'd be some version of that for, as you mentioned, 20 years now. And that's a great way where it's one-on-one, because some people do well in the group setting, some people do well one-on-one... Some people will do well just reading the StrengthsFinder book on their own and doing it.

But that strengths mixer, that's what came to mind when you asked that question about a good strengths based conversation to get a team started.

Lisa: I love that. One idea that I used recently for Zoom meetings, courtesy of Charlotte Blair — thank you, Charlotte — she had this idea of renaming yourself in Zoom with your talent themes.

So say, for example, I renamed myself Lisa - Strategic, Maximizer, Positivity, Individualization, Woo, (do as much as you can fit). You might have to truncate a little bit, so it helps to leave your surname off.

That works great, because as you're in chat, you can have conversations about your acti...

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This Episode's QuestionHi. This is Ivy Portwood. My question is: how do I keep learning on the job? And where do I find the most relevant sources of information to contribute to both my current work and my longer-term career aspirations? Thanks.

What You'll Learn In The Audio - The two types of skills you should be thinking about. Hint: it's not 100% about technical and functional skills.

4 ideas for getting learning opportunities on the job...all without having to change roles or companies. And without having to attend hundreds of training courses.

How to narrow down your career development steps into a zone you can succeed with.

There's a theory in the Learning & Development world called 70-20-10. It says that you learn 70% of what you know from on the job experiences. You get about 20% by learning from others. And you get about 10% from formal learning like training courses. So this question is exactly on track with real world learning.

What's missing from nearly every career development plan I've seen.

People don't remember what you said. They don't remember what you did. They remember how you made them feel...taking wisdom from Maya Angelou and applying it to the skills you build.

Why you should always be becoming something you're proud of.

There’s so much more to you than the skills you can write on paper. 90% of the career impression you convey has nothing to do with what you actually say with words (Source: John Maxwell). Get beyond your technical skills and impact how the world sees you.

Tweetable of the EpisodeLooking to develop yourself? It's not just WHAT you know, it's HOW you show up.

Resource of the EpisodeBook: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

Book: The EQ Interview: Finding Employees with High Emotional Intelligence

Subscribe to the Career Q&A Podcast To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher radio. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode - let the app notify you each week when the latest question gets published.

Related Episodes to Go Deeper on The Topic- When you've developed yourself into "top talent" or "high potential talent" you'll want to feel ready to have a conversation about getting a promotion.

Many people think they need an MBA to have the business skills to skyrocket their careers. This episode debunks the MBA requirement.

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FAQ

How many episodes does Lead Through Strengths have?

Lead Through Strengths currently has 162 episodes available.

What topics does Lead Through Strengths cover?

The podcast is about Persuasion, Leadership, Interview, Work, Trust, Podcast, Earning, Podcasts, Self-Improvement, Education, Job, Business, Networking, Careers and Mba.

What is the most popular episode on Lead Through Strengths?

The episode title 'Using Your Strengths For A Productivity Gut Check' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Lead Through Strengths?

The average episode length on Lead Through Strengths is 15 minutes.

How often are episodes of Lead Through Strengths released?

Episodes of Lead Through Strengths are typically released every 14 days.

When was the first episode of Lead Through Strengths?

The first episode of Lead Through Strengths was released on Mar 3, 2014.

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