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.....