A while back I wrote about the book Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham. My top 5 are Ideation, Empathy, Developer, Maximiser and Learner.

The definitions of each of these in the Strengthsfinder context is a bit deeper than the dictionary definition.

My coach took me through the SF definitions and we worked through how they might interact with each other - to make up who I am.

He pointed out though that my top 5 are “being” strengths - indicating how I am. There is not an obvious “doing” strength though he is sure that there will be one in my top 10 and we will explore that further.

There were 2 parts to the process that I really enjoyed.

Firstly, I have to say that I am often disappointed to hear people citing results of “psychometric” type tests as reasons for what they do and when I ask them to explain further they are stuck. I can’t really see the value in using tests if the owner of the results does not know how to use that learning usefully and beneficially. So now I am clearer about what I have learned and how it might apply to me. It is of course still open to discussion and challenge and my coach has suggested I now go through the details and mark what I agree with - what has made me think - and what I think is actually wrong.

And that’s another thing. I have often had conversations - usually with others in the personal development arena - where the other person has explained to me why something I have said is wrong. But that is of course from their perspective - there are 2 sides to every story. Ahh there’s the empathy coming out. I can’t help it. It’s me..and its not a bad thing either.

The other part of the experience was being coached. Coaches need coaches too. I love being listened to. The process of the coach listening and asking questions is such a powerful thing.It allows me to explore things and pull stuff together from my thoughts. I think thats the learner in me - with a bit of the ideation thrown in. If you don’t know Strengthsfinder this will not be making much sense. Next time you are in a book store take a few minutes to browse through the book. You might just see what I mean.