Also our coach said at the start to get a fuller understanding of our personal strengths, she suggested getting a personal coaching session... my first thought was it's just more money... but after a 3 hour session, i'm quite keen to fins out more!
So I did a 3 hour workshop with 19 other people... there are 34 different strengths, and out of the 20 of us, we only had 1 which wasn't covered!
Then she told us the stats which go along side the strength finder... all very interesting and most I didn't write down, but some which stuck out to me were...
1:278,000
People have the same 'top 5' as me
1:33 million
People will have the same 'top 5' order
1:4 trillion
People will have the whole 34 in the same order
Pretty cool!
So as in my previous blog post, my top 5, in order are:
- Belief
- Responsibility
- Communication
- Arranger
- Developer
During the workshop we looked into our own 'top 5' and write out what part of the description I really relate to, and what it looks like in our lives... then we had a chance to go around for 5min intervals and talk with someone who had one of our strengths. This I found was super interesting an valuable. It was interesting to see that some us had the same ones, but took different bits from it... but I think it was even better when I was talking with someone and when they were describing some things they did in that strength, I could totally relate to, and sometimes didn't even realise it until they pointed it out in themselves!
The 'strengths finder' has been used an studied for over 50 years, and through it they have found that there is no gender inequality across the strengths, while there is a cultural one.
An analogy I liked was about handling others baggage.
With my set of strengths, I need to manage myself so that I don't take on too much and burn out, so I'm going to try and keep this analogy in mind.
When you're at the Airport traveling overseas, you need to check your baggage in.
Now the person who is on the other side of the booth takes your baggage, you might discuss your trip and other details, but when the time has come, you leave them, and they let your baggage go.
There is a time and a place for the person to hold my baggage, but there is also a time to let it go (what a mess the airport would be if they held onto our bags!)
So I'm going to try and keep this in my mind, I can listen to what's going on in others lives, but I need to remember that it's theirs and not mine, I need to let go.
One last point is about expectations.
We discussed that one of the biggest reasons people 'fail' is because of the lack of expectations or unknown ones.
We thought about what expectations we have on ourselves, what expectations we thought others had on us... but also things like, what expectations we had for meetings and training events...
Are the expectations I have good or not?
If expectation aren't clear from both sides it can lead to people being disappointed, hurt, upset and burning out. I need to be aware of expectations I give and the ones around me. I need to be aware of if they are appropriate and achievable or if they will impact negatively (i.e. giving people expectations which stretch them our of their skills/strengths into a place they struggle).
So that was just some quick thoughts and ramblings. There was so much I learned, and lots more to think on and look into. Would be definitely be keen to look more into it, as well as do it as a team sometime to see how we can best work in together and explain why some things are as they are.
Everyone has a part to play and individual strengths they can bring to any team!
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