To stay up on the latest quarterly training events as they're posted, I recommend joining our email list at https://leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge/

Other resources from the episode:

Make your More Of List - https://leadthroughstrengths.com/moreof/

Hear the Ben Fanning Episode to tie your soul-filling work with your strengths - https://leadthroughstrengths.com/should-i-quit-my-job/

Or, if you want to register directly, you can find them at https://leadthroughstrengths.com/events/

See your Top 10 talents, and how they might help or hinder your personal leadership

https://store.gallup.com/p/en-us/14216/cliftonstrengths-for-managers

Attend our Open-To-The Public StrengthsFinder Training

https://leadthroughstrengths.com/events

Book a Private Training Event

https://leadthroughstrengths.com/strengthsfinder-training/

If Someone Refuses To Participate In StrengthsFinder, Invite Them To The Session Anyway

Maybe it was a bad experience with another assessment tool, or the thought that another assessment is unnecessary. But if someone in your team refuses to participate in StrengthsFinder, it helps to gather insights behind the “why.”

Chances are you can form or offer solutions that could win you into Team StrengthsFinder so everyone can experience the awesomeness of discovering one's true strengths. 

In today’s episode, Lisa captures the top reasons some people pass on taking the Strengthsfinder survey.

Did they have a bad experience in the past? Can you convince them that you're using this to open up your understanding of each other - not to put them in a box? Is it possible to know your team member’s strengths without the assessment tool?  

Listen as Lisa answers these questions. Here’s the full transcript of the episode:

You’re listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, and I gotta tell you, it's tough to find something at work that is more energizing than using your strengths every day. 

Now, in today's Q&A episode, I got a question that kind of challenges that opening statement. It's from a person who asked, “As a manager, what to do when someone on the team refuses to participate in StrengthsFinder? They don't like assessments, and they don't want to be stereotyped.” 

So, I'm saying, “Hey what's more energizing than using your strengths every day?”

And this person is saying, “I don't know what to do. How am I supposed to use that person's strengths? They won't even participate."

Now, and digging a little bit deeper, this person specifically said they don't want to participate because they don’t want to be put into a box. 

We've delivered training to over 20,000 participants. I think I can remember three people feeling like this, like saying, “These assessments are stupid.” Or, “I don't want to be put into a box.” Or folding their arms at the back of the room just not participating, showing up at the event but not doing the process. 

So, that is good news, and most people feel like, “Hey, oh you want to talk about how I'm awesome? Let's go for it.”

But once in a while, you get people who don't want to participate. So first things first. I think that these kinds of tools and most training is best done in an opt-in kind of way if you're talking about personal and professional development. 

If somebody doesn't want to opt in to their own personal development, if somebody doesn't want to opt in to an event like this, trying to make them do it...“I just haven't seen that go well...” So, I always invite them in to the session, even if they haven't done the assessment. I always make it a point that they can decide later on, that they can take the assessment. 

I just tell them, “Hey, come on, try it and sit in the back. I won't bother you. See if you like the concepts. If you do, you can take the assessment later. There are some downsides to getting exposed to it before you take the assessment..."

But the reality is they weren't going to do it anyway. So, let them come in. If they feel like it's a safe enough thing or it's an interesting enough concept, then most of the time they'll opt in later.

Show The Appeal Of CliftonStrengths

One of the reasons that they do change their minds is: if you think about cliftonstrengths-works.aspx">CliftonStrengths, the chance that someone else will have your exact top 5 in the same order as you, it's one in 33 million. And I don't think it's lost on people that you do feel really unique when you're doing an assessment like CliftonStrengths. It definitely does not feel like putting someone in a box.

The language is really easy. It's easy to understand and have conversations with each other on the first day that you're learning about it, but at the same time, when you know that it's one in 33 million that would have the same as you, 1 through 5 in the same order, that actually makes you feel like, “no boxes are being made at all.”

So I do think it helps that “don't put me in a box” situation. And sometimes, just giving that proof point up front — because there are 34 talent themes that are potentially there, and then of those 34 we’ll usually focus in on their top 5 — that usually helps people not feel like you're going to put them in one of four categories and they're going to be in the corner of the room as the mean people or the weak people or the whatever people because usually that's where it's coming from. We're definitely not here to create stereotypes.

What about when they've had a bad experience at another company?

Maybe they've done Myers Briggs or DISC, or one where they're put into four colors, and maybe it was facilitated in a way where it just did seem like there were only four options and a couple of them were demonized. 

So I get it that people have some bad experiences and then they think it's dumb and they don't want to participate. Of course, the design behind those assessments is deeper than that, yet sometimes they get over-simplified in training events.

Another approach to consider: if you have a solid relationship with this person, ask some questions like, "Tell me more about your reluctance."

You will probably hear insights you didn't think about. For example, “Well, I don't like taking assessments like this. I don't speak English as a first language.” Well, great - you actually have a solution for them. You can do the assessment in many different languages. 

Maybe they’ll say, “Oh, the truth is I don't like doing assessments like this because I don't do well on tests.” Well, if you actually have learning disabilities or some other situations, you can actually call the us-general.aspx">customer service line at Gallup, and they can take it off of the timer. So I know that one can be touchy to talk about it. You likely don't want to get into medical issues with people, but if somebody does not like taking tests because of processing speed, it is something that you could offer up to them.

Okay, so we've got the person who refuses to participate in StrengthsFinder because, “I don't want to be put into a box.” We covered that part pretty well. And you know that I like to do assessments in an opt-in culture kind of way. So invite them in to start participating at anytime.

The second thing, we have different languages and different test scenarios that can be available for them. Although it's not a test. On the language part, I like to call it the StrengthsFinder tool or the CliftonStrengths assessment. "Survey" can seem a bit too informal, like it's not a valid instrument. Tool sounds useful and accurate (because it is). If you're talking to an HR team, the word "assessment" will ring true to them. It all depends on your audience. 

For me, "tool" is the most widely-appropriate descriptor. I know I'm nerding out on the nitty gritty words, but wow - the "test" thing can really wig people out.

And then the last idea is, just let this person participate in their own words. So when we design our virtual training, we always take people out to tools that will say, if you have your top 5 focus in on XYZ — and when I say XYZ I mean, we've made tools for each of the 34 talents where they can look up their specific information. But if somebody hasn't, we have this extensive list of an inventory of words, where they can pick words that reflect how they get worked on when they are at their best. 

So we actually make the virtual training available so that someone could participate without having an assessment in front of them. We started doing that because people ran into budget issues and they were like, “Hey we want to run 100 people through this, but we don't have the money for assessments right now.” And then we could have strength-focused conversations, regardless of whether they had an assessment. 

So it's also handy for someone who didn't get to take the assessment because something came up. Maybe someone in the family died the couple of nights before your StrengthsFinder training. And now they're at the event, and boom, they don't have anything to go on, and I don't want to alienate them. 

So that's one solution as well. And one way that you could do this, if you go to leadthroughstrengths.com/challenge, you will see a page where we do this 12-week process. It's kind of like a team challenge for you to run a 12-week process of asking people about their strengths. Eleven of the 12 of those questions don't even mention anything specific about their talent themes. They are literally just thinking of what puts people at their best. 

So you can get them participating in the process, just have everyone on the team sign up for that, and have the discussions as a team and learn what puts people at their best. You don't have to have a language.

CliftonStrengths is a total shortcut. It can be like a decoder ring. I would use it every time - it's almost like having a human instruction manual for each person on your team. You can get to this faster with a tool like StrengthsFinder, yet you can uncover similar things about each other with meaningful conversations over time.

I love CliftonStrengths because it makes everything so much easier. It gives you a common language and helps you really understand who shares some similar talents, and that helps them understand how to apply them more quickly. I mean it's my favorite assessment by a mile. At the same time, we don't have to have a tool in order to have strengths conversations. 

So that's one thing I would do as a team, is get enrolled in that challenge. It's free, and that way you can start to have those conversations without the tool as a requirement.

Guide People To Their Strengths By Recognizing Them At Their Best

The last thing is, especially if you are a people manager — but this would go for anyone leading an effort like this — if someone refuses to participate in StrengthsFinder (or any training you're delivering to get strengths-based conversations going), just start looking for their strengths anyway.

You know when they're at their best, and if you've recognized it, you are now showing them that you see them when they're at their best. You don't need an assessment to tell you where they really rock. And they don't have to have a tool to figure out where they really rock.

Sometimes it gives you a whole new filter for looking at things. It gives you a whole new set of language that maybe you haven't considered. So of course, the tool has benefits - yet it's not the only way to get there.

Usually, I find that people are really good at describing what they know, kind of like the skills and experiences stuff they're really comfortable with. But when you talk about how you work, how you relate to people, how you make decisions, how you do critical thinking, those are the areas of these natural talents where people aren't as good at knowing their own. That's one reason I love the assessment because it brings it out and they're like, “Oh yeah I already know this but I wouldn't have said it.” 

So if you are on a strength-spotting mission as a manager, or a teammate who's trying to spot it in someone but you don't have their list of talent themes around you, just watch for what they do well and think of things like that. 

• How do they building-domain.aspx">relate to other people well? 
• How do they domain.aspx">influence people? 
• How do they do their best thinking? 
• How do they do their best decision-making? 
• How do they get things done? 
• How do they interact with others? 

Those are some really good categories if you go through. They'll help you spot their strengths, regardless of having any assessment. And the good news is, the likelihood is, once the momentum gets going in the organization, they're going to join you, because they see that it's being used for good and not for evil. 

So with that I will see you for the next question. Bye for now.

Additional Resources To Help You If Someone In Your Team Refuses To Participate In StrengthsFinder

Check out this episode to help you articulate the best advantages of StrengthsFinder for your team, as well as the practical applications for your strengths. Far from putting you inside a box, Lisa's guest Adam Seaman thinks that as you access the tool deeply, not only will it confirm how you already see and describe yourself, it will also guide you on what to do with those strengths.

But you may ask, is there proof that strengths-focused development works? See the data-driven proof points from Gallup research in this episode, which shows the difference in effects when you invest in your strengths versus when you invest in something that you’re just average in. 

That’s because strengths are easy buttons for better performance. When you focus on what feels easy for you (which may not come easy for other people), that allows you to be more productive and to contribute better to the team. The more these natural talents are consistently noticed, the more you are encouraged to cultivate them. Focusing on your strengths really works the magic.

Influencing Strengths Not Part Of Your Top 5? Chill, You're Not Alone   

It’s totally normal for you or your team to hope for a balanced distribution of themes across all four domains of strengths: strategic thinking, relationships, executing, and influencing. You may think that you are not as productive and effective if you lack the talent themes from one or more categories. For example, being low or bare on influencing strengths could make you feel you are disconnected, unconvincing, or misunderstood.

The thing is, CliftonStrengths assessment might surprise you. Ideal does not mean evenly spread. In fact, when you look at the database of all people who have taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, you'll see influencing strengths in 15% of the top 5. 

If you're doing the math with us, you've already picked up on the fact that each domain does not get a tidy 25% count. So no worries. If you have 5% influencing strengths or 20% on your team, the secret is to work with what you have.

Here's Lisa Cummings to show you how (full transcript of the episode):

You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings, and I gotta tell you, it's tough to find something at work that is more energizing than using your strengths at work every day. 

Today we are in a season of the show where we are moving into question and answers from you, the listeners. Today's question: 

“We're just starting assessment.aspx">CliftonStrengths with the team, and we noticed a lack of influencing strengths."

So she goes on to ask about how to address this as a team. They have already talked about how to address when you have a "deficiency." 

I'm putting that word in quotes, about when you're missing a talent as an individual person, but how do you address these ideas as a team?

Now first, if you're new to CliftonStrengths or the book StrengthsFinder 2.0, when she's mentioning influencing themes, that is one of the four main domains of talent. Some people call these the four leadership domains. Sometimes I call them the four demands on our personal leadership. Beyond Influencing strengths, the other categories are:

• Relationships
• Strategic thinking
• Executing

So the first thing to know is — hey, good news, this means you’re normal!

When you look at the whole database of people who have taken CliftonStrengths — more than 24 million people — that instances of influencing strengths (talent themes) in the top 5 is 15%. So it's not an evenly spread dynamic.

So that is the first thing. If you are on a team and you're trying to make all four domains have a nice tidy 25%, stop trying that. It's not how the human population looks — at least the population inside of this database, which is quite large. And spend a little bit more time learning to work with what you got. Work with what you got. You know what I mean?

Let Desired Outcomes Guide You On How To Apply Your Strengths

So, as I think through that, my answer is really to get a little bit more focused on the outcomes at work, rather than obsessing over the strengths.

So one of the things that I see teams do is they do an assessment like CliftonStrengths, and then of course all you want to do is talk about the strengths language and do things like, “Oh, I have the Focus talent, how can I go use Focus as talent? Or you lead through Relator — "How can I go use my Relator today?” 

That's totally natural and there's not really anything wrong with doing that. But in a workplace and in a team setting, where I think you'll get extra bang for the buck, is to think about the outcomes you're trying to achieve as a team.

And then think, “In order to reach that outcome, how can I use the talent themes that I have?”

So we're coming at it a little different way, and it's using the themes as your easy buttons to get the outcomes done.

So if I make this a little bit more practical, let's say you have a goal as a team to improve customer satisfaction by 10% in the next quarter. If you were coming at this from the outcome perspective, now you have something to apply your strengths to. Now you have something really practical.

"Okay, I'm going to improve my customer experience. So, if I'm going to improve my customer experience, and I see that I have Activator in my top 5, I think this means I should be able to take action quickly. I can make phone calls to them really responsively. If they have some feedback that we should jump on and make part of our process or operations, I can get on that really quickly." This influencing strength is going to come in handy when I want to create momentum.

Let's say you lead through Empathy (a relationship talent theme), and you actually have a customer going through a tough time, you could apply your talent by really helping them see that they've been heard and understood and that you are fully feeling them out. You're not trying to blow off their response or their complaint. You know when you lead through Empathy, there's something really deep there about the spidey-senses of you understanding what they're going through.

So on those two examples, what comes first is the outcome, not the talent. If instead, you're out there saying, I lead through Discipline, what are all the ways I can whip that out? It makes it actually a little bit tougher. It sounds like it would open up the world to you but then it just seems overwhelming and you're not really sure what to do with it.

So instead, when you're getting started, think of the main outcomes as a team, and start to drive conversations around that. The outcomes you're trying to achieve, and then use the strengths like they're tools, or the talent themes like they are tools, like they're your easy buttons for getting it done.

The other benefit is that talent themes from any domain can be influential. So - remember that we were worried about not having enough influencing strengths? In the examples above, both Activator and Empathy were influencing the customer experience metrics. One is technically an influencing strength, and one is a relationship strength. Yet, as you can see, they're both influential when you look at them from the outcomes perspective.

Now when this question started, you were asking a little bit more of a team level, not just the personal level. One thing you heard in the answer that I just gave, is that it's more of the personal action that you would take. And I do believe personal actions roll up into team outcomes because you started the conversation with team outcome.

But the other thing is, if you want to look with the team and say, “Okay well what are the vulnerabilities that we have as a team? What are the opportunities that we have as a team since we appear low in influencing strengths?”

And though it is more of a rolled-up conversation, you can still apply the exact same process. You will get the talent themes that you have and apply them.

To Bridge A Gap In Influencing Strengths, Think Chain-Link Fence

If you find, for example, “Oh, well, we're still feeling the pain that we don't have that many influencing strengths. And we do feel like we need to be able to influence and really move...create momentum in our organization; maybe be more persuasive - be more out front of things. We're leading a lot of change. How are we going to get our ideas heard without influencing strengths? Do we need to go hire a bunch of people and look for influencing strengths?” 

Well, no. Instead, what you can actually do is look at the ones you have and see how could you create a way of a conversation where you're partnering up a couple of the talent themes to act like they're influencing, or take the angle of it, that is influential.

So for example, if you take the Analytical theme, it is technically categorized in the domain of strategic thinking. But if you're the one who slices and dices data and makes it really interesting, the way that you put charts in front of people, and it suddenly changes their behavior because it makes them buy in when you show your proof points, well, you're being influential through your thinking. It might not be an influencing strength on paper, yet it's an influencing strength in your actions and results.

If you lead through Developer, and you've really watched a person grow and you've made each of their steps really acknowledged in front of other people, and now they are out doing big things in the world because you've unleashed their potential through your Developer — now this relationship theme has created a ripple of influence. They seem like influencing strengths in those examples, right?!

So, don't think of domains like they have really hard lines delineating them. One coach that I know says, “Think of them like they have a chain-link fence between these categories, not like they have a brick wall between the domain categories."

When I say categories I mean: relationship talent themes, the thinking themes, the influencing themes, and the executing themes. And that opens it up as well, because then you can think, “Oh yeah, I really create momentum because I get stuff done when I lead through my Achiever.”

You can suddenly now open up and categorize them however you want based on how you see them actually getting results in the organization. In the example I just gave, the Achiever talent theme, which is technically an Executing theme - it's now operating just like the influencing strengths.

Okay, with that, if you want to explore the themes in a little bit more detail with your team — go over to leadthroughstrengths.com/resources. And right at the top of that page you'll see a free webinar where I recorded a mini training for you. You can sit down with your team and have a really rich conversation about how to apply these strengths in practical situations on the job. 

With that, I look forward to hearing how you've claimed your talents and shared them with the world.

A Few More Reassuring Resources If You're Still Worried About Being Low On Influencing Strengths

Revisit our episode where we answer the question: Is IT Bad If I Only Have 2 CliftonStrengths DNA Colors?  Find out why having just 2 out of 4 CliftonStrengths DNA Colors (or strengths categories) is actually also cool. And if you like solving puzzles, this situation should excite you!

Our Honored And Insulted episode is another great reminder that your experience at work should feel totally aligned with your values if you want to feel driven and motivated. While strengths are not an excuse to avoid weakness zone at work, you may not feel as energized if you equally give time and focus on your strengths and weaknesses, just to satisfy the 4 strengths domains. 

Again, focus and work more on your top strengths. You — and those around you — will thank you for it. See you on the next episode!

The 4/14/21 event link that seems to be working normally

https://leadthroughstrengths.com/event/strengthsfinder-virtual-training-02/

If that doesn't work, email deena@leadthroughstrengths.com 

---

Where all of the future sessions are listed:

https://leadthroughstrengths.com/events

(yet this is also where the "Grab Your Seats" button is telling you it's full).

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 activities. As you kick off these strengths based conversations, you start to see people's answers. And because that's the name label, you can see how that strength showed up and colored their answer. 

For breakout room purposes, what I've been thinking about doing is: if you want someone in that mixer idea to be able to go in the same breakout room, then you pick a strength where you'd like to be matched up with somebody. You'd have to have a pretty large room. I would imagine it to be a 200-person kind of event for this to work.

But let's say you want to find all the other people who lead through Learner. So you rename yourself Lisa - Learner, or I think you'd have to put Learner first so that'd be alphabetized: Learner - Lisa. 

And then the person who's facilitating could use those to make the breakout rooms because then you could quickly grab anyone who is listed by Learner first, and it would be in order. 

So I think it could be done. And if you had the team's reports in advance, and you wanted to pre-place people in breakout rooms, you can do that in technology. Pre-set-up your breakout rooms.

Bite-Sized Activities: Keep The Strengths Based Conversations Short But Engaging

Joseph: Yeah, and just a take-off on what you talked about where you have the common strengths: there's also the activity that I've done over the years where you have a certain amount of time and you have to find people who have strengths that you don't have. You ask them:

What is that strength?

How do you use it?

What good is it for you?

Maybe it's a strength that you're like, “Well, how is that even a strength?”

But you can do the same in breakouts. You can even just be with 5 or 6 people and say, “Okay, I have these strengths. You have these strengths. I don't have Connectedness. Let's talk about that one. And how's that strength strong for you?” 

So that was an old Gallup activity from way back, probably when I first started, and I think you could do that in a virtual setting as well. 

Lisa: Yeah!

There's one that I used to use in in-person events. Let's see. I would use this. It's like the spin-the-wheel sort of thing, where I would have the team brainstorm some challenges or questions that they're going through. And then you list the challenges as all the options, and then you can spin the wheel. And then you have to get into groups and really quickly say, “Alright, which strength could you lean on to solve for that issue? And how would it help you get through the challenge?” 

And so to translate it in a virtual environment, there are actually spin-the-wheel apps, so you can share your iPad on screen, or whatever device and have the spin-the-wheel going and replicated in a virtual.

Let's use this to kind of take the arc towards something that you said to me in the past, which was, that you've been really thinking a lot about how to introduce this stuff to your team in bite-sized pieces. You want to have strengths based conversations, but you don't have time for an hour long meeting every week.

As we were just talking, I was thinking, “Yeah, we're stuck in an old-world thinking of what training activities are. We matched them to a time when we had 4 hours to spend together in person in a room.” 

And if that's not our reality, and we need to get down with the new plan, which is, “Hey, bite-sized! What can we do when we have 5 minutes to do strengths together and it's remote?” 

So what are some of the strengths based conversations you're having in that bite-size?

Joseph: Yeah. That takes me way back to when I was working with some different collegiate teams. I remember I had a great partner-client, University of Maryland. I had the pleasure of working with a couple groups there. And they would always ask that question, because they were bringing me in more than once a year, which was great. But then they wanted to know: how could they keep the strengths based conversations going? 

I would often give them 50 strengths based questions. They would typically choose one to use at team meetings. Ask just one question, and have everyone give a 30-second answer. So it might be 10 minutes, but they didn't need to be the expert StrengthsFinder facilitator just to ask those strengths based questions.  

And one of those questions a lot of times would be, “Where have you seen a teammate’s strength that works in the last week or 2? Give an example of that.” 

“Oh, I saw your Empathy here, and you did this there.” 

And so those can be really short and sweet and keep people engaged. But I just think about that for how clients could keep the conversation alive, post the engagement of strengths.

Lisa: Yeah, that's a big one - remembering to keep the strengths based conversations going after your CliftonStrengths kickoff meeting. It's reminded me of something that just popped in my head, facilitating last week on Microsoft Teams, where I said, “Post a GIF that demonstrates how your strengths are serving you this week.”

That is a fun one. It gets the team energized, and it takes about 2 minutes. And if somebody posts some random thing, like a guy sliding on a banana, and you say, “Hey, Sally, tell us more about that one.”

And then when she explains it, that becomes the piece that you expand. So you get a bunch of funny ones, but then you also got that one little deep strengths snippet that opened it up for that person.

Joseph: Yeah, and, and that stuff is happening in instant messages between people anyway, so, bringing that out into the meeting is fantastic. And I think the image piece on that is so powerful, too. Because, for those who are visual learners, it can click in a different way than listening to you or I talk about the strength, or even the teammates talking about it to think, “Oh, I see that. I get that.” 

And that's something we tried to do over the years, is get into the image. We'd ask, "what image would you think of with your strengths?" And then you combine that with narrative and you combine that with experience. That's where you start getting more powerful and it gets deeper and it sinks. It's where the fun really starts.

Virtual Meetings: The Creative Ways You Can Strike Up Strengths Based Conversations

Lisa: Oh, I think you just brought up something else just by virtue of talking about what we used to do.

So if you think about the old activity where we'd bring in an image, (select the picture that best represents your strengths) as you're getting started, if you actually said, “Everybody on the team is going to be on a camera, and go around your house for just a minute and find something that represents your themes to you.” 

And then people come back with props where you have the real-life object where I'm holding a pig that's flying, and I'm talking about how that seems like my Maximizer because somebody else may have thought, “When pigs fly, we’ll do that.” But I can see the quality steps from here to there, and the description of it makes it all come to light.

Joseph: Well, what's interesting, you just reminded me, I have a friend who leads a faith community in north of San Francisco and he was talking about how they've been doing all virtual church for Covid times, and there's been a lot of debates saying, “We want to get back in person..." and all of this....that's a whole different conversation... But he was saying that they've actually connected more with their congregants more than ever because people are actually doing that, whether they're walking around their house and they're in their house where they were used to be in church together. 

And now they do time of sharing and they can see what's going on in the person's house. So it's interesting. It's not even a fully-formed thought. But what you were just saying is really important. And then people are opening their houses up to connection. And that's a whole different level. So I'm still thinking about that one. But that's really powerful to have people walk around and kind of show that imagery piece.

Lisa: Well, the lesson I'm taking away from what you just said is, many of us who facilitated in-person for years, our first thought is, “Okay, I had all of these great exercises that I did in person, can I retrofit that into a virtual environment?”

And it may or may not work to translate old activities into a new environment. Instead, why not take the thing that seems like a disadvantage and turn it into something you only get when you're remote and you only get when people are in their own comfortable environment? 

Or the things that maybe in the past we joked around about seeing moving boxes in the back, because it's your real life. You just moved. So now we have a conversation piece.

Oh, where did you move? Are you still in Denver? Did you get closer to the mountains?

I have 100 questions I could ask you prompted by the U-haul box that I never would have seen if we were in the office. So I think going native for the platform and letting it create a new set of activities, conversations, the way that we're thinking - even the cadence getting down to the small bits instead of, “Don't torture people with the full-day on virtual trying to do one CliftonStrengths workshop for six or eight hours virtual. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.”

Joseph: And yeah, so interesting. And the thing that you made me think of was, I remember a number of years ago, and I think this game still exists, the game, the online game World of Warcraft. So you're a character, and to get things done, you typically have to work with other people as a character in this game. At some point, I read an article in, Harvard Business Review and that said, “If you can do well in a World of Warcraft, you can lead the teams of the future, because you're able to get people.” 

And it was people who you have no rank on. It might be a 12-year old and a 40-year old playing at the same time, and you don't know who people are. And you have to get these people on, online, to work together. Wow, I hadn't thought about that till right now, but how prescient, based on where we are now, because now we're fully into that. We're fully virtual, and that in some ways those massively online games were 10 years ahead of what we would hit with Covid. 

And it's even more true now in terms of how you lead with people. And how do you work with people? And how do you get up, especially in a flat organizational structure where you need to be collaborative. And certainly, the generations coming behind you and I, collaborations are just a given. It's different. It's not as hierarchical. I don’t like to be too “generation this is that” and others. But in general, they do prefer to be collaborative.

So lots of good stuff here. Lots of stuff that tie in with strengths. Strengths help, so we use strengths.

Lisa: Yeah, and I think even using the game example and relating it to workplaces that are complex, they're matrixed, they're global... You're on all different time zones, working with all different people in the organization at different levels in different departments and business units with different priorities... And if you can figure that out — and oh by the way CliftonStrengths, it gives you a lot of tools to figure out how to navigate that world — then, yeah, then you're on the right path to figuring out how to navigate work in the years ahead.

Joseph: Who knew that online games would give us a glimpse of the future?

Lisa: Yes, so if you're listening to this and you need a CliftonStrengths facilitator or a World of Warcraft... I just got it all wrong. What is it?

Joseph: It's World of Warcraft. 

Lisa: World of Warcraft. Okay, that's what I was about to say. But as the tongue twister was coming out, I was thinking I'm getting this wrong. Then, yeah, Joseph is your consultant. He's ready for you. Whether you need strengths based conversations or a World of Warcraft leader

So be sure to go over to the leadthroughstrengths.com/contactus form and make the formal request that he'd be your facilitator. And he can bring some of these cool strengths conversations and activities to your team in bite-sized chunks, of course.

With that, we'll leave you for now, and this has been Lead Through Strengths. Good luck to you as you claim your talents and share them with the world. Bye for now.

Additional Resources To Help You Engage In Strengths Based Conversations 

If you missed our previous episode with Joseph, First Step: Talking About Strengths To Get In The Zone, check it out as it articulates how talking about strengths beyond mere definitions results in quality interactions and higher productivity in their strengths.  

The same idea is echoed by Adam Seaman in another episode when he said that relationships with a team are optimized better when you understand not only your strengths but their strengths as well. He offered the German word “umwelt” and the Freaky Friday concept, where you get to inhabit someone’s head and understand what they care about, how they make decisions, or deal with the world. In the world of strengths, this can obviously be activated when you get people talking about their strengths.

Strengths based conversations also lessen the risk of missing people’s assumptions and expectations, which could be a source of conflict in the team. Here's a conversation guide that will help you prevent conflict. This one calls for an open conversation with each person on your team in a one-on-one meeting.

https://leadthroughstrengths.com/events/

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 the Franklin Covey store to try to re-energize myself with quotes and inspiration because it was such a draining effort. 

But of course, it's all misplaced, like looking back on it from the future, I can see, oh of course it was really draining because I was using someone else's words, someone else's approach. Nothing about it felt right for me, and when someone receives you being disingenuous, I wasn't being that in a skeezy way but just like not me, they felt it. They felt my awkwardness. It makes them not trust me. Everything goes wrong about it. It wasn't strengths for sales. It was a template for sales - and it only worked for 2 or 3 people out of thousands.

Use Your Strengths To Formulate Your Own Effective Selling Style

Lisa: How do you help someone feel genuine when there are targets and quotas they have to cover? And, different companies have different types of requirements, but how does that come in where they can still honor who they are but they can also honor some of the requirements that the company might have with them? Can you use strengths for sales teams to align both sides?

Joseph: That's a really good question. I think I would answer it two ways. One, I think if you hire the right people, that's not super hard. So I think Marcus Buckingham talks about...if you ever have to warn someone, you've made a casting error. So I always think about that, like, the best people that I've hired and the people who have done well, it's just directing them in the right way and helping them be who they are in the thing. But typically, like you've thought about that role, and you've made a good hire. And hiring is hard, but I love doing it. It's one of my favorite parts of the job. 

The second piece is, I think, and I have to go back as you were talking before... I think I remembered a story, when I ran an admissions office at the university as you know, I've been kind of a career tourist and I'm always like, where we'll end up next, but it's been a fun ride — but when I was working in the admissions office in the university, I remember one time, my associate director was trying to get a lot of calls made to invite people to an open house. And she was enlisting people who normally didn't help us with more client-facing things.

She was asking one of our office interns who was really introverted and really not wired for influencing people. She was more of the really organized, really productive kind of person. But she was like, “Hey so and so, you're going to make these calls."

I remember I came back and this person was doing their darndest to make the call that they're reading a script. They did it, but it sounded terrible. And I remember talking to my Sales Director, and I’m like, “What are you doing? So and so shouldn't be making calls.” 

“Why not, I gave her a script.” 

And I'm like, “If you've given a script, you're probably a little bit off.” And I'm not dissing scripts. And I'm lucky too, I have enterprise sales folks who work for me, so they're pros of pros, and they're selling billion-dollar accounts like, they are at a certain level of functional expertise, where they do not have a script, typically.

They may think about things that they want to say and hit, but I think the short answer to your question is, I think a lot has to do with hiring, and then I think you need to get people... I'm very results-oriented as a manager, so I give people different paths that they can choose to get to those results, where it doesn't have to be a formula that they follow. 

And I think not everyone does that. But that's my, kind of where my background helps. It allows for their strengths in those different paths to get to the results.

Lisa: Yeah, interestingly, that is a perfect way to sum up the strengths philosophy. It's not going to be that every single rep must make this many first calls on Monday, and take this many steps on Tuesday. Instead, using strengths for sales teams is giving them the performance outcomes and then working from that point of view, not working from the point of view of a one-size-fits-all. 

And I have heard people go down that path with something like, “Oh, well, our organization uses the Challenger approach.” And then they're like, “Well, anyone who acts like a lone wolf is bad, and anyone who acts like a challenger is good, and anyone who has a relationship sales is bad,  because here, we are challengers.” 

And they kind of bastardize the philosophies, and then make it sound like the only way for you to be successful in this organization is to use this one stereotypical way to talk to someone else. And it's just the opposite of strengths for sales teams. 

Joseph: Well, yeah, and I'm really fortunate again. At my organization, my boss built a culture before I got there of, we look at… I mean, we're trained at Sandler, people have read Challenger, like, we're going through all of Jeb Blount’s cascade of books that he has in trainings, we worked with a gentleman called Joe Thomas out of Utah. And my boss is very much like, “We're going to provide you a lot of different methodologies, and we're going to combine them to be the unique best one for your talents. 

But it's definitely the strengths that's in with that, because it was already like, we're not just Challenger, and there are people who use Challenger, but there's also people who are really Sandler-based, or there are people who are Impact Advantage based. 

And we like to joke that my boss is like a ninja of all of those things, so he can pull out like the right one at the right time. It's truly amazing to watch someone who's done it for 20 years, and he studied, like, this master's level of sales because different situations call for different methodologies. So it also allows you to be flexible when you're in that moment.

Strengths For Sales Is All About Being Authentic And Focusing On Fit

Lisa: Yeah, that sounds very much like using someone's natural talents to honor their style. I remember being sold to as a business leader by someone who I knew personally. And when he was leaving the room, he did the old-fashioned Columbo technique on me, like - go back to the door, and you put your hand on the doorknob, and as you're leaving you, you have a thought, “Oh, one more thing.” 

I mean, it was totally obvious that I was getting techniqued. There was a tactic being played like so clearly in front of me. And it lost so much credibility, because I'm like, “Hey, man” (I won't say his name here), I know you,” like, I got that moment, what that moment was. 

It kind of undid everything that he had done before because it felt like a lie. And if I circle that back around to the way that you opened this up, it's about honoring who you are, what your talents are and how those show up to set you up to be at your best.

The person who leads through Empathy and Connectedness and Developer and Harmony, they're going to approach sales differently from the person who leads through Analytical and Deliberative and Focus. It's going to look different. And it should, because it's going to feel right to them. Using strengths for sales teams is simply letting each seller do what puts them at their best.

Joseph: Yeah. And, and one thing that I've appreciated getting back into in the software world is, sales is one of the hardest jobs. It's one of the most complicated jobs because you're being a consultant, you're being a project manager, you're being a coach. Sometimes you're being a sounding board, like, especially with the enterprise-level sale, where you're dealing sometimes with 50 people in the course of the sale. You have to be a politician, you have to be a diplomat.

There's all these different things. It's interesting, the older I get, the more I realized, yeah, someone sees your technique, and then, “oh, no, that's a killer." You just have to be you. 

I can think of someone who I ran into who was like that. They were really good at taking all the pieces, and they could put it into play. And they would say it and it just felt really inauthentic and rigid. And it was interesting, because after I didn't work with that person anymore, there was feedback from prospective clients who articulated that to me, kind of like what you just did, with the Columbo technique. And it's like, “Oh, no, we don't want that. We want it to be seamless. We want it to be helpful.” 

And ultimately, it's about people, going back to, “Do they like and trust you?” And so you have to start there. And so if you... they start being like, “Are you using like some Jedi mind tricks on me?” That's not gonna go well. But I'm still learning a ton. And it's been great to be in an environment where they support learning that way.

Lisa: Yes. Well, I think this is a great way to end the episode and broaden it. Because, number one, you started the episode talking about focusing on fit, and that is a brilliant way to apply the concepts that the best sellers use. Even if you're just trying to influence somebody in a meeting, and you're in an operations role, and you have nothing to do with sales, if you're talking to an audience and you're trying to offer an idea that you hope they will consider, If you focus on fit, it puts you in the other person's shoes, and it makes your message more palatable for them. 

So I think that you offered a lesson that anyone could use in any role, even with your kids or your significant other. It's making an idea of something that fits both people.

Joseph: Yeah, that's harder with family. I think my significant other will say like, “You need to parent that way too.” So I'm like, “Oh, sales is easy compared to parenting. That's a whole another conversation.”

Lisa: We'll save that for another episode. Well, with that you've been listening to Lead Through Strengths, getting some great ideas about how to use strengths for sales, and how to not get stuck in that world of just being a user of tactics but instead coming forward with the genuine you using your differences to be your differentiators on the job. 

If you would like Joseph to come in and do some team building with your team related to CliftonStrengths for sales teams, then be sure to request him over on our Contact Us form. 

Alright, with that we will see you next time as you claim your strengths and share them with the world. Bye for now.

Sell More Of What You Offer Through These Additional Strengths Resources

The idea of ‘easy buttons’ supports this episode’s topic, as it encourages teams to tap on their natural talents, or whatever comes easily and enjoyable for them, instead of what drains them (such as following a script in selling or focusing on their weakness zone). If you want to sell better or have better influence, use strengths as easy buttons for better performance.

Or listen to Andy Sokolovich as he shares tips on influencing audiences through strengths. These include identifying your talents and spending 80 percent of your time doing what you naturally love. So in the context of selling, that could be storytelling or just meeting people and talking to them. Again, it’s about being authentically you.

Finally, in the episode Use Strengths To Create Customer Moments, Mike Ganino underlines the importance of creating an environment that helps each person bring their best performance to work. It’s about using individual strengths to get the experience you want for your customers and employees.