StrengthsFinder 2.0

by Tom Rath

  Janet P., schoolteacher: “I never played basketball because they didn’t have it for women when I was a kid, but I believe I can tell at a basketball game when the momentum is changing, and I want to go to the coach and say, ‘Get them revved up. You are losing them.’ Empathy also works in large groups; you can feel the crowd.”

  Ideas for Action

  Help your friends and colleagues be more aware when one of your peers is having a difficult time. Remember, most people do not have your ability to pick up on sensitive situations.

  Act quickly and firmly when others behave in a way that is unhealthy for themselves or others. Understanding someone’s emotional state does not mean that you must excuse this behavior. Be aware that when your empathy turns to sympathy, others might see you as a “bleeding heart.”

  Partner with someone with strong Command or Activator talents. This person will help you take needed action, even though people’s feelings might suffer as a result.

  Consider serving others as a confidante or mentor. Because trust is paramount to you, people are likely to feel comfortable approaching you with any need. Your discretion and desire to be genuinely helpful will be greatly valued.

  At times, your empathy for others may overwhelm you. Create some rituals that you can use at the end of your day to signal that work is over. This will help buffer your emotions and prevent burnout.

  Identify a friend who has strong Empathy talents, and check your observations with him or her.

  Sensitive to the feelings of others, you readily gauge the emotional tone of a room. Use your talents to forge a bridge of understanding and mutual support. Your empathy will be especially important during trying times because it will demonstrate your concern, thereby building loyalty.

  Witnessing the happiness of others brings you pleasure. Consequently, you are likely to be attuned to opportunities to underscore others’ successes and positively reinforce their achievements. At each opportunity, deliver a kind word of appreciation or recognition. In doing so, you are likely to make a profound and engaging impression.

  Because you are observant of how others are feeling, you are likely to intuit what is about to happen before it becomes common knowledge. Although your intuitions may at times seem nothing more than “hunches,” take conscious note of them. They may turn out to be valuable assets.

  Sometimes empathy does not require words at all. A kind gesture may be all someone needs to be reassured. Use your Empathy talents to nonverbally comfort others with a glance, a smile, or a pat on the arm.

  Working With Others Who Have Empathy

  Ask this person to help you understand how certain people in your organization are feeling. He is sensitive to the emotions of others.

  Before securing this person’s commitment to a particular course of action, ask him how he feels and how other people feel about the issues involved. For him, emotions are as real as other more practical factors and must be weighed when making decisions.

  When employees or customers have difficulty understanding why an action is necessary, ask this person for help. He may be able to sense what they are missing.

  FOCUS

  “Where am I headed?” you ask yourself. You ask this question every day. Guided by this theme of Focus, you need a clear destination. Lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating. And so each year, each month, and even each week you set goals. These goals then serve as your compass, helping you determine priorities and make the necessary corrections to get back on course. Your Focus is powerful because it forces you to filter; you instinctively evaluate whether or not a particular action will help you move toward your goal. Those that don’t are ignored. In the end, then, your Focus forces you to be efficient. Naturally, the flip side of this is that it causes you to become impatient with delays, obstacles, and even tangents, no matter how intriguing they appear to be. This makes you an extremely valuable team member. When others start to wander down other avenues, you bring them back to the main road. Your Focus reminds everyone that if something is not helping you move toward your destination, then it is not important. And if it is not important, then it is not worth your time. You keep everyone on point.

  Focus Sounds Like This:

  Nick H., computer executive: “It is very important to me to be efficient. I’m the sort of guy who plays a round of golf in two and a half hours. When I was at Electronic Data Systems, I worked out a set list of questions so that I could conduct a review of each division in 15 minutes. The founder, Ross Perot, called me ‘The Dentist’ because I would schedule a whole day of these in-and-out, fifteen-minute meetings.”

  Brad F., sales executive: “I am always sorting priorities, trying to figure out the most efficient route toward the goal so that there is very little dead time, very little wasted motion. For example, I will get multiple calls from customers who need me to call the service department for them, and rather than taking each one of these calls as they come and interrupting the priorities of the day, I group them together into one call at the end of the day and get it done.”

  Mike L., administrator: “People are amazed how I put things into perspective and stay on track. When people around the district are stuck on issues and caught on contrived barriers, I am able to pole-vault over them, reestablish the focus, and keep things moving.”

  Doriane L., homemaker: “I am just the kind of person who likes to get to the point—in conversations, at work, and even when I am shopping with my husband. He likes to try on lots of things and has a good time doing it, whereas I try one thing on, and if I like it and it is not horribly priced, I buy it. I’m a surgical shopper.”

  Ideas for Action

  When you set goals, discipline yourself to include timelines and measurements. These will provide regular proof that you are indeed making progress.

  Seek roles in which you can function independently. With your dominant Focus talents, you will be able to stay on track with little supervision.

  Your greatest worth as a team member might be helping others set goals. At the end of meetings, take responsibility for summarizing what was decided, for defining when these decisions will be acted on, and for setting a date when the group will reconvene.

  Others will think, act, and talk less efficiently than you do. Pay attention. Sometimes their “detours” will lead to discoveries and delights.

  Stretch your goal setting beyond work. If you find yourself becoming too focused on work goals, set goals for your personal life. They will give weight to your personal priorities and thereby help create balance in your life.

  Hours can disappear when you are intent on a task; you lose track of time. Make sure that all of your objectives are met and all of your priorities are followed by scheduling your efforts and sticking to that schedule.

  You function best when you can concentrate on a few well-defined initiatives and demands. Give yourself permission to reject projects or tasks that do not align with your overall mission. This will help you concentrate your efforts on your most important priorities—and will help others appreciate your need for focus.

  Take the time to write down your aspirations, and refer to them often. You will feel more in control of your life.

  At work, be sure to tell your manager your mid-term and short-term goals. This might well give your manager the confidence to give you the room you need.

  Make sure that the focus points you set for yourself take into consideration both quantity and quality. The integrity of your objectives will ensure that the application of your Focus talents leads to solid and long-lasting success.

  Working With Others Who Have Focus

  When there are projects with critical deadlines, try to involve this person. He instinctively honors timelines and commitments. As soon as he owns a project with a deadline, he’ll concentrate all his energies on it until it’s completed.

  Be aware that unstructured meetings will bother this person. So when he is present at a meeting, try to follow the agenda.r />
  Don’t expect this person to always be sensitive to the feelings of others because getting his work done often takes priority over people’s sensitivities.

  FUTURISTIC

  “Wouldn’t it be great if…” You are the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon. The future fascinates you. As if it were projected on the wall, you see in detail what the future might hold, and this detailed picture keeps pulling you forward, into tomorrow. While the exact content of the picture will depend on your other strengths and interests—a better product, a better team, a better life, or a better world—it will always be inspirational to you. You are a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions. When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you. They can energize others, too. In fact, very often people look to you to describe your visions of the future. They want a picture that can raise their sights and thereby their spirits. You can paint it for them. Practice. Choose your words carefully. Make the picture as vivid as possible. People will want to latch on to the hope you bring.

  Futuristic Sounds Like This:

  Dan F., school administrator: “In any situation, I am the guy who says, ‘Did you ever think about…? I wonder if we could…I don’t believe it can’t be done. It’s just that nobody has done it yet. Let’s figure out how we can.’ I am always looking for options, for ways not to be mired by the status quo. In fact, there is no such thing as the status quo. You are either moving forward, or you are moving backward. That’s the reality of life, at least from my perspective. And right now, I believe that my profession is moving backward. State schools are being out-serviced by private schools, charter schools, home schools, Internet schools. We need to free ourselves from our traditions and create a new future.”

  Jan K., internist: “Here at the Mayo Clinic, we are launching a group called the Hospitalists. Rather than having patients handed off from one doctor to another during their stay in the hospital, I envision a family of providers. I envision fifteen to twenty MDs, of various genders and races, with twenty to twenty-five nurse practitioners. There will be four to five new hospital services, most of which will work with surgeons and will provide para-operative care as well as care for the hospitalized elderly. We are redefining the model of care here. We don’t just take care of the patients when they are in the hospital. If a patient comes in for a knee replacement, a member of the Hospitalist team would see him before the surgery, follow him from the day of surgery through the days of hospitalization, and then see him when he comes in six weeks later for his postoperative check. We will provide patients with a complete episode of care so that they don’t get lost in the handoffs. And to get the funding, I just saw the detailed picture in my head and kept describing this picture to the department chair. I guess I made it seem so real that they had no choice but to grant me the funds.”

  Ideas for Action

  Choose roles in which you can contribute your ideas about the future. For example, you might excel in entrepreneurial or start-up situations.

  Take time to think about the future. The more time you spend considering your ideas about the future, the more vivid your ideas will become. The more vivid your ideas, the more persuasive you will be.

  Seek audiences who appreciate your ideas for the future. They will expect you to make these ideas a reality, and these expectations will motivate you.

  Find a friend or colleague who also has powerful Futuristic talents. Set aside an hour each month for “future” discussions. You can push each other to greater heights of creativity and vividness.

  Partner with someone with strong Activator talents. This person can remind you that you do not discover the future, you create it with the actions you take today.

  You inspire others with your images of the future, yet your thinking may be too expansive for them to comprehend. When you articulate your vision, be sure to describe the future in detail with vivid words and metaphors. Make your ideas and strategies more concrete via sketches, step-by-step action plans, or mock-up models so that others can readily grasp your intent.

  Surround yourself with people who are eager to put your vision into motion. They will feel exhilarated by your Futuristic talents, and you can harness their energy to propel the vision toward reality.

  Be prepared to provide logical support for your futuristic thinking. Your exciting visions of future success will be best received when rooted in real possibility.

  Your Futuristic talents could equip you to be a guide or coach for others. Unlike you, they might not be able to easily see over the horizon. If you catch a vision of what someone could be or do, don’t assume that he or she is aware of that potential. Share what you see as vividly as you can. In doing so, you may inspire someone to move forward.

  Musing about the future comes naturally to you. Read articles about technology, science, and research to gain knowledge that will fuel your imagination.

  Working With Others Who Have Futuristic

  Keep in mind that this person lives for the future. Ask her to share her vision with you—her vision about her career, about your organization, and about the marketplace or field in general.

  Stimulate this person by talking with her often about what could be. Ask lots of questions. Push her to make the future she sees as vivid as possible.

  Send this person any data or articles you spot that would be of interest to her. She needs grist for her futuristic mill.

  HARMONY

  You look for areas of agreement. In your view there is little to be gained from conflict and friction, so you seek to hold them to a minimum. When you know that the people around you hold differing views, you try to find the common ground. You try to steer them away from confrontation and toward harmony. In fact, harmony is one of your guiding values. You can’t quite believe how much time is wasted by people trying to impose their views on others. Wouldn’t we all be more productive if we kept our opinions in check and instead looked for consensus and support? You believe we would, and you live by that belief. When others are sounding off about their goals, their claims, and their fervently held opinions, you hold your peace. When others strike out in a direction, you will willingly, in the service of harmony, modify your own objectives to merge with theirs (as long as their basic values do not clash with yours). When others start to argue about their pet theory or concept, you steer clear of the debate, preferring to talk about practical, down-to-earth matters on which you can all agree. In your view we are all in the same boat, and we need this boat to get where we are going. It is a good boat. There is no need to rock it just to show that you can.