A friend of mine gave me the book "StrengthsFinder 2.0." Included in the book was an envelope that contained a set of 34 stickers and a code with which I could take StrengthsFinder 2.
Since I've taken SF about 30 times previously, and have a set of top 5 strengths that I "claim" I promptly took the stickers and stuck my themes on the front of the book: Discipline, Deliberative, Analytical, Individualization, Maximizer. I put Responsibility on there too, since I know I scored 100% on that theme as well.
I then took the SF "for real" for the first time in a several years. I hear they have made some scoring changes and some item additions/removals. I was curious to see how the changes would affect my top 5.
Let me back up for a minute... I first became involved in the StrengthsFinder in 1998 when I was asked by the CIO to step in and be the liaison between Don Clifton, other executives and the programmer of the assessment. I agreed and quickly became a key piece of the SF formula. For a considerable amount of time, I created ALL the reports, set up ALL the clients and created ALL the id codes for the assessment. I was also the worldwide contact for technical and production support. I would get numerous calls daily from the US, the UK, Israel, Germany, Japan even China. Along with my production responsibilities, I was privy to the weekly meetings where the future of SF would be decided. I humbly claim that "The StrengthsFinder Family Camp" was my brainchild. Frankly, I don't know if this seminar still exists, but it was fabulous for the time I was involved in it, and Don Clifton was impressed with the work I did with it (and really, that's the only thing that mattered).
I continued my work with StrengthsFinder until 2001 when I moved to a position that promised success but delivered frustration and would eventually lead to my demise at the Gallup Organization. I swore a long time ago to have no regrets but sometimes I do regret leaving StrengthsFinder.
So, I took SF 2.0 and got a surprising result... two new themes, and two had disappeared. Now my top 5 are Deliberative, Analytical, Maximizer, Learner, Relator. What happened to Discipline and Individualization? These are two of my favorite themes! I guess that means I get to add Learner and Relator to my list of strengths.
21 February 2007
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Interestingly the StrengthsFinder 2.0 site says that Don created it with Tom Rath. Must be a typo. I think Tom was still an undergrad in 1999. However, the PDF at http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com/resources/public/CSFTechnicalReport031005.pdf gets it right. It also mentions my two favorite items, 'Each item lists a pair of potential
ReplyDeleteself-descriptors, such as “I read instructions carefully” and “I like to jump right into
things.” '
The PDF is pretty cool. If only it mentioned who had been the "Queen of All Things StrenfthsFinder."
Mr. Woo
I think it would benefit all of our freed ne's if you could please act as the liason between Mr. Woo and the rest of us here in the blogosphere.
ReplyDeleteThere is no ones own strengths, you know.
Mr. Prophylactic