Retaking the Clifton StrengthsFinder – should I, or not?

Gallup (www.gallup.com) has the following short statement on the StrengthsFinder website regarding this question:

Your first completion of the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment will yield the purest and most revealing results. For this reason, each Clifton StrengthsFinder access code is valid for only one time through the assessment. Taking the Clifton StrengthsFinder more than once may actually skew the validity of the results. The Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment measures the presence of talents by presenting you with pairs of statements, and by then challenging you to make a top-of-mind choice between the two. The 20-second time limit and your unfamiliarity with the statements ensure your assessment's accuracy by making it difficult to over-think your responses.

Here is a more expansive explanation regarding this question. In my view and experience, having worked with the Clifton Strengthsfinder as a Level 3 Coach daily, for years, I firmly support the view that taking the Strengthsfinder again – especially after you have read more about the 34 talent themes, or even more after you have been properly coached, is NOT a good idea. Here is why:

1. Manipulation: You can, deliberately or subconsciously, alter or manipulate the results by taking the assessment a second or even a third time. The StrengthsFinder assessment was designed in such a way that it assesses your preferences on a wide range of tasks, emotions, actions and situations. When you take it the first time, you actually have no idea what the question is assessing. The more you get familiar with the different talent themes and their working, the more you are able to actually discern which specific talent theme is being measured. Therefor you are able to alter the results – either by choice, or subconsciously.

2. Incremental changes: You talents do not alter or change with time, although the specific sequence within the Strengthsfinder results may alter if you redo it. Our research has shown that your Top 10 talents remain predominately the same within the assessment over time. You might get slight variations within the Top 10, for instance, your nr 3 talent theme might move down to nr 6, and your nr 5 might change places with nr 9…etc. but it nearly never happens that a nr 2 theme, for instance, will “ fall down” all the way to a nr 16, for instance. If you re-do the test, only in the Top 5 report, against what are you going to measure the possible changes? As 34 are measured, and you just see 5, how on earth are you going to be able to make any realistic conclusions about any changes you can see...?

3. Top 5 Report limitations: For the exact reasons given in point 2 above, it will make a lot more sense and be of a lot more value for you and / or your team to rather get hold of your Full 34 Talent Report, than to retake the assessment. In any case, how would you ever know with which exact talents your “changes” changed places with, if you only retake your Top 5 assessment? This makes very little logical sense to redo the Top 5 in this regard.

4. Clustering: Then, if you have been properly coached, you will also understand that the exact sequence of your talents, like for instance from nr 1 – 5, does not nearly play such an important role in understanding yourself than does knowledge and understanding of the effect of the dynamics (mix) between the Top 5 talent themes. Your talents should rather be understood within specific “clusters”, and the importance of the dynamics within those clustering should be understood. So, the dynamics between your Top 5 clustering is vital; then the dynamics between your Top 10. Your lessor talents (i.e,. nr 11-20 then plays a specific role, as does your Non Patterns (bottom 5 clustering). Retaking the Top 5 assessment 2, 3 or a dozen times won’t cast any light on this important aspect.

5. Importance of Talent Roles: If you understand that specific talent themes within your Top 5 and Top 10 combination have specific roles, you will also understand why retaking the assessment serves no real purpose. Understanding your Core Theme, Ignition Theme, Relaxing Theme and possible Guilt Theme, serves a lot more purpose within personal or work environment that being obsessed with the order of a Top 5 report.

Finally, I sometimes come across people who are negative towards the Clifton Strengthsfinder simply for the reason that they say “it can be manipulated”. Well, you should be pretty darn good to manipulate an assessment when you have no clue as to what it is assessing – the way it usually is the first time you take the test. But, sure, I agree it can be manipulated when you take it a second or third time round. Of course! My reaction to this critic is simply: with all due respect, look deep inside your own self as to why exactly you will want to answer honest and straightforward questions in such a way as to manipulate the outcome. What about yourself then don’t you like, and do you want to change?

The Clifton Strengthsfinder is one of the most researched assessment tools on the market, and is backed up by more than three decades of on-going research by the Gallup University. It is a phenomenal tool that leads to phenomenal results…that is, if you simply use it the way it was designed to be used.

By Dries Lombaard, Director: Strategic Leadership Institute