Like Words Together Reflections from the deep end of Practice.

Strengths

Several years ago, at the last company I worked for, there was a team building initiative that saw my team and the client team we worked with. We all received a copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths, asked to take the "StrengthsFinder", and share our results.

While I don't think companies can manage people on the results of these kinds of tests, I do find them rather interesting. I think they can provide a little insight about people you are working with. Outside of work I've occasionally run into people who've also taken this and I've enjoyed talking with them about what they've learned about themselves from the results they got.

Here are my Top 5 Strengths from a few years ago:

1. Input
2. Learner
3. Restorative
4. Connectedness
5. Intellection

Fast forward to my new company. One of the directors in the IT organization has a few initiatives to reach out to other women at the company. Next week she's having a facilitator join a group of us to talk about the results we had from taking the "StrengthsFinder" test. We all recieved a copy of StrengthsFinder 2.0 and were asked to take the test and send results so the facilitator has them ahead of our meeting.

Given how interesting I found this process the first time, I signed up. I also was very curious to find how, or if, my top 5 strengths had changed much. A few years ago 3 of my 5 showed that learning was vitally important to me. That combined with the other strengths really showed, accurately, my love not only of learning, but of sharing what I'd learned with others.

Here are my results based on yesterday's test:

I'm not at all surprised to see that my ability to learn still tops the list. I feel like that "Restorative" strength has deepened and grown into "Empathy". Given how strongly I feel about the interconnectedness of all things, I'm also unsurprised to see that Connectedness remains one of my top strengths.

However it is the addition of Strategic and Responsibility that really make me think. In the past few years I've become more involved in community building, helping to put on events that see hundreds of participants and sometimes spanning multiple days. I think this kind of volunteering has really grown my ability to think strategically. I think I've always been mindful of being responsible for my own work and actions, even if during some times in my life I've tried to pretend otherwise. Now it has evolved into a real strength.

I really look forward to what comes out of the session with the facilitator next week!