The Power of Clifton Strengths
How Gallup’s Clifton Strengths assessment transformed my cynical opinion of management coaching.
If you’ve ever undergone the thankless process of ‘management profiling’, you'll know what a soul-destroying experience it can be.
Until recently, the profiling methods that I've had to endure throughout my career have left me highly cynical. They don't do what they promise to do, and most bosses put their managers through them purely as a tick-boxing exercise. Not only is it a total waste of time for everybody involved, it can also potentially do more harm than good.
And that's a shame because management profiling can be exceptionally valuable when it's conducted correctly.
That’s what I learned when my business coach, Oliver Hill, introduced me to Clifton Strengths. (Yes, I have a business coach, and I'm not embarrassed to talk about it. I think everybody in business should have one as a way to keep challenging yourself to get better and be accountable for what you do.)
Anyway, the experience of working with Clifton Strengths has made such a massive impression on me that I’ve just become a certified Clifton Strengths coach. But before I go into that, here’s a quick bit of background to put everything in context.
My experience of management profiling
I was first introduced to profiling about twelve years ago when I worked for a very large software company that had just taken on a new Managing Director. The first thing the incoming MD wanted to know was what his new senior team was all about, and that’s an approach I wholeheartedly agree with. After all, you can’t fault any new boss for hitting the ground running and wanting to thoroughly understand how his business ticks and what his people are thinking.
Except it didn’t turn out that way at all.
I don’t recall what profiling methodology was used, but here’s what happened:
A 3rd party took me through an interview-style chat, during which I was 'rated' in four different areas.
One of those areas was ‘people’.
Even though nobody had ever told me I was a good boss, I had a fantastic relationship with my team, and the success we'd had together – both as a team and as individuals – spoke for itself.
So when the ‘rating’ came back telling me I basically had no relationship skills, it broadsided me.
In fact, it more than broadsided me. Even though my ratings in the other three areas were solid, and I walked out of the session feeling a wee bit positive about a lot of the things that were said, that 'people' rating really brought me down. It left me feeling very negative about 'people' stuff, and that was a feeling it took me quite a while to come to terms with.
But do you know what was worse than that? After effectively telling me I was useless with people and temporarily shooting my confidence in the head, nothing was ever said or done about it again. There was no discussion, there was no follow-up, I was left thinking, "What do I do with that?"
Unsurprisingly, that experience gave me a very negative view of profiling. For years afterwards, whenever anybody brought up the subject of management profiling with me, I'd roll my eyes and do my best to change the conversation quickly.
Why Clifton Strengths is different
I’ll be honest; when Oliver first mentioned CliftonStrengths to me, the name wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d heard about it ‘in passing’ from other people but, because of my cynicism and general disinterest in the whole subject, I’d never tried to find out what Clifton Strengths was about or why those people who’d mentioned it to me had talked so highly about it.
And then Oliver took me through the Clifton Strengths process, and it completely opened my eyes.
How the BLEEP did I get to 50 and not know about this?
That's why I've taken this detour from the software subject I usually talk about to share that eureka! moment with you, because if you've never heard of Clifton Strengths (or if you're as disparaging about profiling as I was), I want to encourage you to check it out.
What is Clifton Strengths?
Here are the very basic basics:
Clifton Strengths is an assessment tool that's designed to uncover what you and your team members naturally do best so that you can focus on developing those talents and using them to achieve the most excellent results possible.
The philosophy behind Clifton Strengths is simple: when you/they know what your/their skills and talents are, it will open the doorway to possibilities and opportunities that you've never considered before. Also, as a leader, when you know what your people's innate skills and talents are, it gives you the insight to combine your people into one outstanding team that complement each other's strengths.
How does Clifton Strengths work?
Clifton Strengths asks 177 paired questions and is virtually impossible to cheat because it only allows twenty seconds to give each answer. That guarantees the answers are honest responses that come from the authentic self, unlike some other methods that give you enough time to cherry-pick the answer you think the test is looking for.
Based on your answers to those questions, Clifton Strengths measures your natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving so that you can harness your/your team member's skills and use them more effectively to accomplish your goals. It does this by using the four domains of Strategic Thinking, Influencing, Executing, and Relationship Building to drill down into how you/they work with information, make things happen, influence others, and develop relationships. Each domain is then broken down into a series of themes that give you/your team members even more insight and understanding into what you can do.
It's an outstanding profiling tool. Research has shown that individuals who use Clifton Strengths are more engaged and productive at work and 3x more likely to enjoy an excellent quality of life, whereas employers and managers who use Clifton Strengths to identify the talents and motivations of their staff build happier, more empowered and higher-performing teams.
And that's as much as I'm going to tell you, but I hope it's enough to encourage you to find out more for yourself.
As I mentioned earlier, after using Clifton Strengths with Oliver, I got into it so much that I decided to become a certified coach. I truly believe the power of the Clifton Strengths assessment is that powerful, and the understanding I now have and the support mechanisms I've been able to put in place have been life-changing.
Don't get me wrong; I have no intention of becoming a business coach and this isn't a hard sell for Oliver either. For me, this is about me being able to build stronger, more effective teams in the businesses that I have an interest in. You don't necessarily need a coach to do Clifton Strengths, although if you want to make the most out of what Clifton Strengths tells you, I highly recommend working with a coach to do it. To begin with, though, you could simply go to the Gallup website and take the test yourself.
Just please don’t take as long to find out about it as I did.
