growth

Talents as Raw or Mature

There is a continuum our talents or strengths lie on.

At one end, they can be Raw…undiscovered, unpolished.

At the other end they can be Mature…invested into, practiced and thoughtfully utilized.

Raw is not necessarily bad. It can be a sign that there is talent available! You might tend to have a gift of gab and be comfortable talking and thinking out loud. This could be seen as a Raw talent. It has potential!

Moving from Raw to Mature is an ongoing journey. We fluctuate along this continuum.

To show up with a more Mature theme, we can grow in our self or other-awareness. We can practice more. We can add more strategy or long term consideration. We can work to make something have shared awareness rather than just live in our own head. We can go beyond considering ourselves and move from ME to WE thinking.

It’s not about perfection but about going. Don’t worry to get it all right, just try to get a little better.

I’ve learned this idea from doing work on Gallup’s CliftonStrengths/StrengthsFinder tool. Specifically their Gallup Theme Thursday Podcast has some great insight on Raw to Mature…specially Season 2 highlights this.

If you’re looking for more on StrengthsFinder or Strengths in general, check out Carnival Group’s Define-Apply-Grow Worksheet and consider dropping us a line.

Post-StrengthsFinder Worksheet: Define-Apply-Grow

When someone is looking to grow or make a change, I often suggest they start with strengths.

You can use a tool like StrengthsFinder/CliftonStrengths just be sure that the assessment doesn’t speak for you. Instead make it your own. Validate, dispute, and add to your results.

This Define-Apply-Grow Worksheet is valuable, putting StrengthsFinder results in your own words and build specific action or goals.

List your Top 5 results.

DEFINE them. Put the theme in your own words. Give real world examples of how you’ve seen it show up.

Next consider how you can APPLY each theme. Where is it within reach to try out right now? Not about growing or expanding it but simply where in your current work, practice, life, can you put it into reality? Think of this like gluing it on the page of your life or paper clipping it to another activity you already do.

Lastly start to clarify how you can GROW each theme. What can you do to take it from Raw to Mature? What can you practice outside of your current scope of work? What new habits can you develop? Is there any knowledge you need to use this theme more?

I usually recommend people work down the page. DEFINE each of your themes. Then move to APPLY, then to GROW. Often there are substantial theme dynamics at play and so two or three themes might have overlap.

Do not feel the pressure to get something written in each box on the worksheet. What is important is to get 1 or two goals out of this and then treat it as a working document. Come back to it and go through it again at some point. Momentum and action is the goal, not filling in all the gaps!

You can download the worksheet HERE

It can be helpful to do this process with a coach…a supporter, question asker, ally who helps you clarify. Carnival Group has coaches trained and ready to help with this. Reach out and we’d love to chat.

Is that you or the assessment speaking?

I’ve found this question a valuable one in coaching and just talking over personality assessments with friends…”Is that you or the enneagram/StrengthsFinder/(insert your favorite assessment here) speaking?

When someone says something that is a little too spot on to be true, it’s a good question to ask.

When we ourselves are assuming a lot about ourselves or someone else based on an archetype we should ask this.

The assessment should serve us, not we serve the assessment.

We do this when we don’t recognize the assessment as a shortcut. It’s a shortcut to quicker understanding or quicker connection.

That can be massively useful! But it cannot be used as a crutch to avoid experiencing another person as they are or doing work to understand our own motivations and personality.

What’s better than an assessment is a walk and talk with someone else or a phone call.

What’s better than an assessment is creating a rhythm of journaling or another reflective practice.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good assessment. I’m a big advocate for the enneagram, the StrengthsFinder, and the DiSC but they are shortcuts. Useful shortcuts at certain times but still shortcuts which bypass the real work often needed. A little knowledge can be dangerous.

Initially inspired by Seth Godin from his Akimbo podcast episode “Spirit of Ecstasy” (Go to minute 28:00). He points out that personality tests can be used as a shortcut to actually get to know someone and build intimacy.

Per an academic paper in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, strengths assessments can lead us down a path that is not congruent with our true selves, especially when we may learn something not totally true, it can be tough to unlearn it. In order to ethically use these assessments, we must create a space for ourselves and others to “dispute, validate and add to their test results.”

A little knowledge can be dangerous

Curiosity is a powerful force and one that I recommend investing into, flexing often, and encouraging in others.

That curiosity, when used as a shortcut can be a dangerous thing.

We can read one article on something and assume we know more than we actually do.

We can hear someone’s type or style on a personality assessment and quickly assume a lot about them.

We can realize the complexity of a systemic problem and immediately be frozen from action because all options visible to us don’t appear to solve the problem.

Curiosity alone is not enough. We must flex our muscles of humility and drive along with it.

Humility that the little info gained does account for the entire lot. Realization that there is more to the person than a basic archetype (no matter how true that archetype may be for us). Acknowledgement that a systemic problem must be addressed through struggle to find an outcome.

Drive to seek out more information to truly validate a hypothesis. Stamina and care to get to know a person rather than place them in a box. Tenacity and grit to wade through the complications of systemic problems and come out the other end rather than avoid entering the muck.

A little information is good. It is the beginning unto more.

We don’t need to become experts in it all but our curiosity must have co-conspirators of humility and drive on the journey to improvement.

Inspired initially by reading Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline where he shows that systems thinking can cause us towards inaction but must instead drive us towards resolve.

Also inspired by applying this to personality tests/assessments by Seth Godin from his Akimbo podcast episode “Spirit of Ecstasy” (Go to minute 28:00). He points out that personality tests can be used as a shortcut to actually get to know someone and build intimacy.

Start Stop Continue

A great mechanism to make an action plan to make a behavior change. At the end of a reflection process, coaching session, meeting, you can write down what you will start doing, what you will stop doing, and what you will continue doing.

For example, I read a recent article on making diversity more than a business case and here are my Start Stop Continue in follow up:

Start: Clarifying and sharing my own personal motivation to work on equality initiatives.

Stop: Accepting the business case for diversity as enough motivation to make change occur.

Continue: Encouraging people in coaching and other situations to create person vision statements and emphasize the importance of this.

It works because it’s easy to remember and gets to the heart of change, behavior and rhythms.

Don’t forget: More like jazz. Less like classical.

Lazy is not Sloth

Excerpt from Fredrick Buechner’s Listening to Your Life

Buechner is describing sloth as what I understand as incessant flow.

When we are focused but not aware. This is valuable in some instances (doing the dishes, tedious but necessary work…) but if it becomes a norm, it can derail and lower meaning in life.

The alternative is mindful. Focuses and aware. A mindful person can be seen as lazy sometimes because they take a walk after a complicated phone call. They spend extra time meditating each morning. They don’t rush out of a conversation.

Idea from Mind of the Leader book

Mindfulness practices has helped me tremendously to not have sloth but occasionally look lazy while bringing my best to those around me.

Strengths Over Weaknesses

Focusing on our weaknesses or liabilities is like tightening a ratchet. It is effective to a point. At some point we get so tight, we break or we can’t go any tighter.

Focusing on our strengths is like using a machete to create a new trail. It is endlessly fulfilling and possible. We can continue to go down the path we are on and start creating a new path on a whim. We have momentum and power here.

We have to use both to grow. Sometimes its about a little ratchet tighter and hopefully more often it’s about the endless possibility of cutting out a new path.

Coaching is Like Scaffolding

When we are operating just beyond our comfort zone or current skill level, we benefit from having scaffolding around us.

This is a place for a coach. Someone who can help you consider the next step, provide a push back on track as we get off, help us feel more certain.

Where could a scaffolding coach help you?

Where can you be a scaffolding coach for someone else?