I enjoy it when there is a convergence of thought between myself and something that I read or hear. It helps me to feel like I am on to something.
I was reading the book StrengthFinders by Tom Rath as preparation for a departmental retreat. Connected to the book is a personality inventory designed, much the same as Myers Briggs or other such tools to identify one’s five main strengths. Loath as I am to take these types of assessments (though for some reason I have no problem determining which Disney Princess I am on a Facebook quiz), I completed the inventory and received five strengths. Whether these are my actual strengths or not, they certainly correspond to my perception of my strengths.
- Ideation
- Intellection
- Strategic
- Futuristic
- Input
As offensive as I find the lack of parallelism in form of the categories, I think that they nailed me pretty well (of course many years ago I took The Color Test and found the results equally compelling). Likewise there was a disconcerting horoscope-like feel to the description of each of the terms (when I worked at the bookstore so many years ago, I walked by a young woman looking at an astrology book and remarking to her friend, “Oh, I am SO Libra!”). But again, it was generally on track, I knew, for example, that writing regularly in my blog would not turn up as a strength.
But it wasn’t the strength descriptions that struck me, but the introductory chapter. The author remarked that the general American reaction to any assessment is to note weaknesses and work to “get better” in these areas. This assessment takes the opposite approach, suggesting instead that working extensively on weaknesses is not as productive as developing strengths. Rather, one should focus on areas of strength and pursue paths that work well within these. Within our lives and careers (hmmm, interesting distinction there) we should also build complementary relationships with those who have strengths that fit well with our own.
I remember presenting this six years ago during my first major workshop for teachers. I talked about the different personalities within a successful technology infrastructure, that to be successful a plan needs visionaries, planners, technicians, maintainers, and teachers. Few (if any) educators possess all of these areas of strength, and without complementary relationships, a program will fall in the the area of weakness.
In looking at myself, I am clearly a visionary (without any of the overly positive connotations). I am a pretty good planner, and I am a good teacher. However, I have severe limitations in the area of technical planning (I know how I want things to work, not how they work), and I am a terrible maintainer. I lose interest in projects almost as soon as they roll out, and I’ve moved to something else.
The traditional approach would be for me to focus on getting better at the two weak areas, but the reality is that I likely will never get very good at either, and the effort used there could have better results if directed toward areas of strength. Rath puts it nicely that results are ability x effort. High effort in areas of low ability improve the score but do not make as much impact as high effort in areas of high ability. I need to find people to join me who have strengths in the areas I lack or build systems that take care of these parts themselves.
This is not to say that people cannot improve (nor am I saying, Toni, that I can’t get better at keeping the house clean, just because it doesn’t come naturally to me!), but it does point out the primary importance of developing strengths, even over improving weaknesses.
As always, I welcome your comments.
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I had a class for my masters in educational leadership that was based almost entirely on that book. After reading this post I might have to revisit my work in that class and the inventory results. I remember them to be accurate as well.