StrengthsFinder 2.0 New Results

I recently purchased the book StrengthsFinder 2.0, which is an update to Now, Discover Your Strengths. There are a number of new features and the book provides a gateway into a new tool set for determining major personality themes and providing a guide and action plan for moving forward to developing strengths along the lines of these dominate talent areas.

In the first survey through Now, Discover Your Strengths, my results were:

• Ideation
• Strategic
• Futuristic
• Achiever
• Maximizer

This time, for the updated StrengthsFinder 2.0 the results were:

• Ideation
• Strategic
• Futuristic
• Input
• Adaptability

The book explains that there will often be a shift in the top five even though personality themes do not change that much over one's life. The answer for the shift is that it probably gives more insight into the top ten dominate themes as numbers 6 and 7 from the previous survey could have been the ones now moving up with the others moving slightly downward.

The survey does not provide a rank ordering of the themes from one to thirty-four and some people have lamented about that. People who are good with statistical analysis know that low correlating results that cluster around the lower end don't mean all that much as far as rank ordering. Those can typically be disregarded as not meaningful.

The focus should not be on what strengths are not exhibited. The whole point is to identify the major contributors to who I am and work to develop those talents into strengths, i.e. the behaviors that can lead to "the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance."

So what do I do now that I know and have verified that I walk through life with my head in the clouds and peering over the horizon? Well, one thing I do is be on on the lookout for minefields and to watch where I step. I have yet to digest the action plan and other useful tools that come with the book. I like very much that the results are tailored specifically to my talent or strength themes through the huge amount of data that is the basis for the strengths research.

In my opinion, you can only do so much with the knowledge of your Myers-Briggs scores and the results of the DiSC survey. Knowing how your brain is wired regarding the 34 themes to me seems to provide information I can use.

And yes, I do recognize myself in the descriptions of the seven strengths themes that resulted from my two surveys. More importantly, as I read through the remaining traits for the themes that did not show up in my survey, I see why those did not show up. I am Maximus! I am Captain Future. I am the Puppet-Master (Strategery). Light-bulbs do go off over my head (Ideation). I seek Input. I strive to Achieve. And being a good Darwinian I adapt (Adapt, Evolve, or Perish).

I will write more about this as I review the Discovery Guide and Action Plan provided from my survey. This fits together with the Strengths Movement, even though there has been a split when Marcus Buckingham left Gallup and formed his own company. As he indicates in his book, the personality themes provide a method for discovering and labeling what I am about, how I put it to work as a dominate force in my life is where the rubber meets the road.

All for now. I am off to become more of who I already am.