The Genius & Brilliance of Strengths - Part 6

Continuing our series...

IDEATION

The genius of your Ideation talent begins with your love of ideas and the way you so quickly learn new ideas, concepts and principles. But you are not passive. It is as if you take ideas and then begin spinning them around in your mind. With each new idea you learn, you tend to think about it over and over - - - spinning it around with the many other ideas you already have. The result of this thinking, turning, and spinning around of new ideas with what you already know does two things. First, you generate new connections and insights about ideas and their implications. Second, the spinning of your ideas often results in new ideas. Therefore, the genius of the Ideation talent is the creativity of generating new ideas and insights as a result of contemplating and reviewing the ideas you have learned.

INCLUDER

The genius of your Includer talent involves your ability to see outsiders and those who have been marginalized. You can see people who are physically on the outside, but most remarkably, you can discern who feels left out even though they may be physically in the middle of a group. But your genius talent of Includer does not stop with just seeing those who are physically outside and emotionally marginalized. You take action to bring people into the group. In fact this talent seems to give you an enormous amount of courage to reach out and actively bring the outsider in. The beauty of your Includer talent is that you can build relationships with literally anyone. But your specialty in relationship building is with the “invisible people” and people who others ignore. You instinctively know what to say and how to include those who others ignore and leave out.


INDIVIDUALIZATION

The genius of your Individualization talent is that you see each and every person and a one of a kind, distinct individual. But more than that, you see the particular factors, qualities, characteristics, thoughts, and perception that make each person distinct. You see each person as a mosaic of highly individual factors each of which contribute to a person’s distinctiveness. This includes both personal qualities and past events that have formed the person. You are curious about their individual characteristics and you find yourself thinking and asking questions about what makes each person so distinct. This results in people feeling special and prized by your attention. But all of this simply lays a foundation for the genius of your Individualization. Your genius is that armed with all of this thinking and question-asking, you attempt to interact with each person based on their individual qualities. This leads to meaningful and very helpful relationships.

INPUT

The genius of your Input talent is based on your curiosity. It is as if your curiosity knows no limits. You want to know about everything. Question after question propels you to learn more and more. You want facts, information, concepts, and principles. You become excited by your own questions and even more excited when you find answers to your questions. Sometimes you turn your curiosity to people and want to learn as much as possible about them, but for the most part you are driven to learn in general and in specialized areas of knowledge. As you learn, you try to keep your acquired facts organized, but this is a challenge since you continue to collect more and more information, and there is simply much to learn. Finally, the genius of your Input talent wants to share what you have learned. You can be a great communicator of what you have learned, and you get really excited about telling others about the latest thing you have learned.

(To be Continued)

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The Genius & Brilliance of Strengths - Part 5

(...continued)

EMPATHY

The genius of your empathy talent involves your ability to form high quality, deep, personal understanding and relationships with others. You have an unusual and beautiful ability to feel into what it feels like to be another person You can often feel what someone else feels without them saying a word. As a result, you can form very close, intimate relationships with people. The genius of Empathy has profound effects on others because they feel so deeply understood. Many people feel like they come healthier and more at peace being in your presence because your understanding of people goes beyond the words they can find to express themselves. While it may be hard on you to hear the pain of others, they will feel deeply indebted to you because you can understand them at such profound levels. The genius of empathy makes you a great lover of other people and they are fortunate to have you as a friend.

FOCUS

The genius of your Focus talent begins with what you can do with your mind. You can focus your attention to an unusual level of concentration. That concentration enables you to amass facts and information, read with clarity of understanding, and solve problems with great precision. You can concentrate to the extent that people may come into a room you are in, and you may not hear or see them. While others pride themselves with their ability to multi-task, you know that for you, you are most productive when you concentrate on one thing at a time. Your focusing talent results in prolonged concentration to address and solve complex problems and planning processes. You learn in great depth, and because of your focusing, when you learn, plan and solve problems, your recall is remarkable.

FUTURISTIC

The genius of your Futuristic talent begins with your incredible ability to see the future. Your ability to envision the future provides an unusual and creative way of planning and problem solving. When confronted by a problem, you will envision where you are heading and then structure your problem solving so that each solution provides a stepping stone into the future. Likewise, all planning is done in light of the visions you have about the future. Of course your futuristic talent genius gives you a powerful basis for leadership. As Robert Greenleaf noted long ago, the great leader has a ready answer to the profound question: “What are you trying to do?” You know what you are trying to do because your futuristic talent gives you clear pictures of the future you want to build. Never forget that your visions of the future will excite the imagination of others and they will be inspired because of what your genius of Futuristic can help them see. Make your visions known to everyone because they give others hope and optimism.

HARMONY

The genius of your Harmony talent stems from what you can see and how you respond to what you see. First, you can see where people can come together when they are in conflict. Often those in conflict are absolutely blind to how to resolve their conflicts because their differences seem so insurmountable. But you can often see where people in conflict could come together and resolve their differences. The second aspect of the genius of your Harmony talent is found in the way you work with people who are in conflict. Usually, one on one and one at a time, you will meet with those in conflict and help each person to clarify their own position and come to see the point of view of the person with whom they are in conflict. In so doing, you help conflicting people move to reconciliations. The genius of your Harmony talent is greatly needed in families, small
groups, and large organization. It is as if you are the “glue” that hold relationships together. Unfortunately you sometimes do not receive the credit you deserve, as much of you best work is done behind the scenes. But know that even if no one knows but you, you make a significant and a very positive difference in all of the groups and relationships that you are in.

(to be continued...)

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The Genius and Brilliance of Strengths - Part 4

Here is the fourth part in our series by Chip Andersen:

CONTEXT

The genius of your Context talent is found in the way you think about the past and use that form of thinking to learn, plan and solve problems. The present is important to you, but in your mind, the present is best understood by seeking to understand what has led up to the present. Thus, your mind often goes backwards and looks for what has caused what we are experiencing today. This look to the past gives great wisdom for understanding the present and forms a basis for making informed decisions and plans in the present and for the future. The genius of your Context way of thinking provides you with a basis for making high quality decisions and plans and for problem-solving. In addition, as you apply the genius of your Context way of thinking when you learn, you will learn with great understanding which results in high achievement.

DELIBERATIVE

The genius of your Deliberative talent is found in the quality of your decisions, choices, values, and the directions you decide to pursue. Your deliberative genius involves thinking and the fact that you will take multiple things into consideration every time you make a decision or a plan. The genius of your Deliberative talent allows you to look at an issue from multiple sides. You will “play the devil’s advocate” as you think through alternatives, values, and propositions, and you will look at multiple sides as you are learning. You will slow down the process whenever you are learning, planning or deciding. But this does not mean you are “slow minded”. Quite the opposite. This is part of your genius and results in very high quality decisions and a depth of understanding.

DEVELOPER

The genius of your Developer talent begins with what you can see in other people. You can see talents, strengths, and potential in others that they often cannot see in themselves. But this is just the beginning. You can also see what people can do to develop their talents, strengths and potential. It is as if you see “stepping stones” for moving people from where they are to higher levels of development. But it doesn’t stop there. You become energized and determined to stimulate people to move, grow and develop to higher and higher levels of personal effectiveness. Next, you are particularly perceptive in noticing even the smallest amount of progress people make as they grow and develop. This leads to your mirroring back to people their progress. Accordingly, you are a great source of encouragement and a stimulator of personal progress as you can see ahead of time what people can become and as you note their progress. The great

thing about all of this is how alive you become as you stimulate others with your Developer talent.

DISCIPLINE

The genius of your Discipline talent involves your level of personal productivity and the accuracy with which you produce things. Your level of productivity and your level of accuracy stem from the way you can structure tasks and your environment. This ability to structure is key to you being productive and to your accuracy. You can take complex tasks with multiple stages and identify the steps needed to complete the tasks. Next, you structure the environment and organize the actions needed to complete the tasks. Finally, you begin organizing, re-organizing and structuring each action step that must be complete in order to produce things accurately. Finally, the genius of your discipline talent identifies the fastest and mot efficient methods while maintaining the highest quality.

To be continued....

The Genius and Brilliance of Strengths - Part 3

We continue our series by Chip Anderson:

COMMUNICATION

The genius of your Communication talent is found in the profound fact that you can find words for your thoughts and your feelings. Whereas many people have lots of good ideas, they often stumble in finding the words that capture and convey their good thoughts. Even more people suffer from not being able to find the words that best describe and transmit their feelings. Yet, you can do this with ease. But the genius of your Communication talent doesn’t end with your ability to find words for your thoughts and feelings. You can find words for the thoughts and feelings of others. This means that in interactions, you can help other people express their thoughts and feelings as is seen in the way that you can often complete people’s sentences or find the word that they cannot find in expressing their feelings. As a result of these aspects of the genius of your Communication talent, you can form deep, meaningful and bonded relationships and help others do the same.

COMPETITION

The genius of your Competition talent begins with the tremendous energy, drive and determination within you. You want to succeed. You demand success for yourself and you measure that success in terms of where you stand in comparison to others. For you, second place is sometimes seen as another word for “loser”. But the drive to win, succeed and achieve isn’t focused on you alone. This can be a basis for leadership and impacting the lives of others. First, your “win attitude” is a model for others. Second, your competition is often turned into being a source of inspiration for others. And finally, you can use your competition talent to stimulate others to strive for higher levels of performance and productivity. You are someone who grabs the attention of others and they begin to believe that they too can achieve.

CONNECTEDNESS

The genius of your Connectedness talent provides you with a very unique way of seeing events, people, and the world. To you there are no accidents. Your way of seeing events is to recognize that everything that happens is caused by something or someone. Likewise, what is happening right now will have a “ripple” effect into the future. Similarly, you see people in terms of the accumulative events and interaction that formed them and moved them to this moment. Accordingly, this moment and the attitudes that people take to their circumstances will form their future. Extending this way of seeing to the world in general, you see the past, present and future as connected and you see that there is a “master plan” or “Master’s plan” at work at all times. Your genius talent of Connectedness provides a way of “making sense of the nonsense” around us and generating meaning and purpose for yourself. When you share what you can see with the genius of your Connectedness talent, you help others gain hope as you help them see the past and “connect the dots” of their past in a more meaningful way. In like manner, you

help people see possibilities for the future by making choices now that build a positive future.

CONSISTENCY

Your genius strength of Consistency involves both the way you think and process information and the way you see what is fair and equitable. Whereas others often take a long time to determine what is fair and equitable, to you it is obvious. You can quickly determine what should be done so that problems are solved in ways that treat everyone in a just and equal manner. This process of determining what is equitable often involves processing a great deal of information. But the genius of your Consistency talent sorts through information and comes to equitable decisions so quickly that you may not see anything special about what you do because you do it with such ease. In your relationships, you strive to treat everyone equally and consistently. This helps you win the confidence of others. You are a great, fair and just thinker because of your Consistency talent.

To be Continued.....

The Genius and Brilliance of Strengths - Part 2

Part 2 in our Series by Chip Anderson on the Genius and Brilliance of Strengths:

ANALYTICAL

The genius of your Analytical talent begins with the way your mind works as it automatically formulates penetrating questions. Your questions have a common theme in that they are always “truth seeking”. Your genius analytical questions seem to drill down with question after question until the truth is uncovered. Questions of “How you know . . .?”, “Why?”, “What evidence do you have . . .?” and “Can you prove it . . .?” are constantly in your mind. But these questions only lead to the deeper aspects of your genius Analytical talent the ultimate genius of the Analytical talent involves the quality of your decisions, problem solving and planning capabilities. Armed with the

information generated through your penetrating questions, you get to the rock-bottom issues that form a basis for the highest quality of real decision making, problem solving, and strategic planning. Moreover, your questions give you the facts and information needed for excellence in decision making and planning.

ARRANGER

The genius of your Arranger talent begins with what you can see and perceive. You can see patterns and perceive how things go together or could go together. Whereas most people only see things as isolated items, you see groupings and connections. The genius of your arranger perception comes to light in that you can take many different items, bits of information, factors, people, and/or events and then see patterns among and between them. This enables and empowers you to arrange items, facts and information, people, and the many things that must come together for successful events and activities. You are a genius at coordinating people and events because of your Arranger talent. Accordingly you can “multi-task” like few others. You can deal with chaotic situations by seeing how to combine and coordinate as you will see connections and linkages. But the ultimate genius of your Arranger talent is seen in what you do after you have completed a project. You go back and arrange and rearrange in your mind what you did. This results in increased effectiveness and efficiency each time you use your arranger

talent.

BELIEF

The genius of your Belief talent starts with the fact that you have some very deeply-held beliefs about what is true, what is unchanging, and what can be, and always will be, dependable. These beliefs go very deep. They provide personal power to stand strong no matter what. This is central to your character. But the genius of your Belief strength is what results from those beliefs. From your beliefs, you generate meaning, purpose and direction for your life and all you do. This meaning, purpose and direction translate into a tremendous amount of power, drive and motivation within you. So long as you revolve your life around your deepest values and beliefs, you will experience motivation, drive, and determination to make monumental impacts in the lives of individuals as well as groups and organizations.

COMMAND

The genius of your Command talent begins with the fact that you can and will impact others, and you will do so with great power. Your genius strength of Command gives you great courage to boldly enter into a crisis and dangerous situations. It is as if you have even more clarity of thought about what needs to be done when there is an emergency. You have the courage to step in and take charge when people are threatened and when there are threatening circumstance. In emergencies, you have clarity, a willingness to voice your ideas and people appreciate your willingness to step up and confront dangers. In these situations you will impact all around you. Similarly, you are willing to see the way through conflicts and misunderstandings by bringing to light what is often hidden. While some get nervous because you can be so powerful, everyone is

grateful when your strength of command addresses emergencies, crises, conflicts, and

danger.

To be Continued....

The Genius and Brilliance of Strengths

This week we start a series by Edward “Chip” Anderson, Ph.D., Professor, Doctoral Studies in Educational Leadership at the Azusa Pacific University. Enjoy!

From my experience, each of the themes of talent identified by the Clifton StrengthsFinder Inventory has a stroke of genius within it. The genius of our talents reflects what those talents enable and empower us to do to potential levels of excellence. The concept of genius refers to an extraordinary ability to do certain things, and as such ther

e is great beauty in seeing what is done by the genius within individuals. Accordingly, what follows is the genius I see in each of the themes of talent identified by the Clifton StrengthsFinder Inventory.

ACHIEVER

The genius of your Achiever talent begins with your tremendous motivation, drive and determination. You are in constant motion to reach your goals. The second aspect of your genius is found in the types of goals you set. You have daily goals in the form of lists of things to do. Then you have future goals tied to your daily goals. Finally you have ultimate goals. Your ultimate goals are always tied to excellence. So the genius of your Achiever talent is the tremendous amount of motivation and drive you have to reach your goals and to move your goals toward being excellent in terms of performance, productivity effectiveness and efficiency. No wonder this talent is called Achiever.

ACTIVATOR

The genius of your Activator talent begins with the concept of action. You want

action and you can make things happen. Most of all, the genius of your activator talent

gives you the ability to see how to make things happen. Whereas others have ideas that

only swim around in their minds, you can quickly see how to turn ideas into actions,

programs, and services. This points to the greatest aspect of the genius of your Activator

talent. You are creative and very innovative. Finally, you have a tremendous amount of

motivation, energy and personal power when it comes to taking an idea and then putting

it into action. You are particularly motivated to be innovative in turning your ideas into

action, programs, and services. You are a dynamo in turning ideas into actions that

generate revolutionary changes.

ADAPTABILITY

The genius of your Adaptability talent begins with where you “live” in terms of your mind. You live in the present - even the present moment. Whereas others live their lives in their “rear-view mirror”, always looking to the past and being tied to the past, you are a right here – right now person. The genius of this perspective means that you can change and change quickly. Rather than being rigid, you are flexible; and rather than being tied to some pre-set plan, you can quickly change to meet immediate demands and circumstances that require attention. But the real genius of your adaptability is seen in circumstances that make others scramble and cower into some safety zone for security. Your genius talent of Adaptability comes to light in chaos. In fact, you not only deal with chaos, you get energized, come alive and get a thrill out of chaos as you “ride the wave” and quickly make the changes that chaos requires. This then points to another genius aspect of your Adaptability talent. You can learn and change so quickly.

To be Continued.....

The 4 Most Important Words

If you subscribe to newsletters, are on Twitter or buy magazines, you can identify with the fact that you have come across many articles that gives you advice starting with the following words: “the 4 most important this or the 5 most important that.” It is as if there is a formula for success, a formula for weight loss, a formula for rising up the perfect kids. But life is not a formula, is it? So, if the heading of this post is, “the 4 most important words”, what would formula are we referring to?

Thankfully, there’s no formula. Tom Peters (www.tompeters.com) says that the 4 most important words is “WHAT DO YOU THINK?” What does “what do you think” mean? It means YOU ARE A PERSON OF VALUE WHO HAS AN OPINION THAT I WANT TO HEAR! How many times, in the course of a day, do you ask people “what do you think?”

One of the ways to be effective, is by asking the right people “what do you think?”. What are some subjects that you can categorize your question in?

If you want to get something done, ask the Do-ers “what do you think?” The Do-ers have talents like Achiever (hard workers), Arranger (organizers), Consistency (producing standard operating procedures), Discipline (produce structure and routines), Focus (setting priorities for the goal) or Responsibility (committing to getting things done). Who are the Do-ers in your world?

If you want to influence people with your ideas, ask the influencers “what do you think?” Influencers have talents like Activator (getting people to start something), Command (selling your ideas), Communication (getting the message out there), Maximizer (making your ideas better), Significance (striving to make it a success) and Woo (strategic networking). By getting input from your influencers, your ideas will grow into something larger than yourself.

If you want to build better relationships, ask the relation builders “what do you think?”. They have talents like Developer (investing in people), Empathy (feeling what others feel), Harmony (creating peace), Includer (including those that feel left out), Individualization (making people feel special) or Relator (building close and trusting relationships). Who are the relation builders in your world?

If you want to think differently about a problem or an issue, ask the strategic thinkers “what do you think?”. These are the people with talents like Analytical (brings data and facts), Futuristic (how will the future look like if you act), Connectedness (what will the consequence be of your decision), Ideation (thinks outside of the box), Input (resource giver), Strategic (what is the best option). The strategic thinkers in your life will help you to make better decisions.

BOTTOM LINE: Look at your world. Identify those that are do-ers, influencers, relation builders and strategic thinkers. So, in what category do YOU fall? What will YOU answer when someone asks you “what do you think?”

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