The Ultimate Leverage Success Blog

Your Top 5 Talents Will Increase Your Productivity

Back in December 2008, I’d written a post that implied that always playing to only your strengths wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be and had referenced something that hit a nerve in the book, Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath.

Despite my thoughts about playing to your passions no matter what, I have found great value in the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment. Truth be told, I’m a big fan of assessments because of the value they add to our self-awareness even as we are self-reporting in our responses. We can gain insights on our behaviorial styles (DiSC), personality preferences ( MBTI® ), and in the case of the Strengthsfinder, our top five themes of talent.

If you have conversations with each of the experts in those respective fields about your results and then synthesize that data, it can be a really powerful tool to enhance your productivity levels not only in business or professionally but in your daily lives.

My friend and colleague, Kim Beasley and I started talking about benefits of the Strengthsfinder again last month and we were both driven to write about how it plays a role in our lives–particularly in business. After reading about my top five talents which are the Learner, Input, Activator, Ideation, Maximizer themes, I realized consciously what could benefit me even more as well as consciously thinking about my own communication and productivity styles as I live my life and run my business. My report also showed how my talents might relate to one another.

So I encourage you to buy Tom Rath’s book, and find out about your top five and see how you can also consciously benefit in your business and in life. I could end the post here. It’s certainly long enough as blog posts go but in the spirit of transparency, I thought I’d share excerpts of my own results to show the assessment’s power.

In fact, how about I break this down into parts and use myself as a Strengthsfinder case study as described in my report. The following are brief definitions and Carol-specific Personalized Strengths Insights excerpts from each of my top five themes:

Those with the Learner theme talent are on a continuous learning and improvement path and love the journey. “By nature, you have little difficulty giving intense effort to projects, problems, or opportunities that capture and keep your attention.”

People who have the Input theme love to know more and archive all kinds of information. “Driven by your talents, you can simplify the most complex, convoluted, or intricate procedure. People usually rely on you to offer clear and easy-to-comprehend explanations.”

Those with the Activator talent can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. “Your forthcoming nature might enable some people to share their thoughts and feelings with you. By nature, you are somewhat comfortable talking about yourself. You may also enjoy listening to people describe their talents, limitations, goals, worries, or successes. Perhaps these insights help you discover what someone thinks or feels. Maybe you acquire information about the individual’s style of thinking, learning, working, playing, problem solving, or studying. Because of your strengths, you periodically stir people’s emotions by motivating them to take action.”

People who have talent in the Ideation theme are able to find connections between seemingly varied phenomena. “Instinctively, you might channel some of your energy toward what you can accomplish in the coming months, years, or decades. Periodically your mind churns out new and inventive ways of reaching your desired goals… Driven by your talents, you regard yourself as logical and reasonable. You spontaneously reduce mechanisms, processes, proposals, ideas, or formulas to their basic parts. You figure out how the pieces interrelate. Your discoveries tell you why something does or does not function the way it should.”

And last but certainly not least, the Maximizer theme folks seek to transform something strong into something superb. “Instinctively, you customarily figure out what makes each person special. You talk to, observe, or study individuals who produce nothing less than excellence to identify what inspires them… You strive to honor everyone’s uniqueness and preferences. Understanding a person’s ambitions gives you insights into the type of support, training, experiences, partnerships, and nurturing he or she needs to thrive.”

So there you have it! If you have read this far, picture me cheering and thanking you profusely! I recognize that this post is longer than usual. And I hope my case study will inspire you to check out the tool for yourself so you can consciously focus on what you know makes you shine!