My Signature Themes - Strengths & Behaviours
Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organisation suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviours. These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.
A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.
My Signature Themes report below presents my five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by my responses to the StrengthsFinder* test. Of the 34 themes measured, these are my "top five."
My Signature Themes are very important in maximising the talents that lead to my successes. By focusing on my Signature Themes, separately and in combination, I can identify my talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.
Connectedness
Things happen for a reason. I am sure of it. I am sure of it because in my soul I know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals, responsible for our own judgements and in possession of our own free will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force.
But whatever your word of choice, I gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it. This feeling of Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. My awareness of these responsibilities creates my value system.
I am considerate, caring, and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, I am a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, I can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of my faith will depend on my upbringing and my culture, but my faith is strong. It sustains me and my close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.
Relator
Relator describes my attitude toward my relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls me toward people I already know. I do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people—in fact, I may have other themes that cause me to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends—but I do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around my close friends. I am comfortable with intimacy.
Once the initial connection has been made, I deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship. I want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and I want them to understand mine. I know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk— I might be taken advantage of— but I am willing to accept that risk. For me a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust myself to the other person. The more I share with each other, the more I risk together.
The more I risk together, the more each of us proves our caring is genuine. These are my steps toward real friendship, and I take them willingly.
Communication
I like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write. This is my Communication theme at work. Ideas are a dry beginning. Events are static. I feel a need to bring them to life, to energise them, to make them exciting and vivid. And so I turn events into stories and practice telling them.
I take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors. I believe that most people have a very short attention span. They are bombarded by information, but very little of it survives. I want my information—whether an idea, an event, a product’s features and benefits, a discovery, or a lesson—to survive. I want to divert their attention toward me and then capture it, lock it in. This is what drives my hunt for the perfect phrase. This is what draws me toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations. This is why people like to listen to me. My word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.
Futuristic
“Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” I am the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon. The future fascinates me. As if it were projected on the wall, I see in detail what the future might hold, and this detailed picture keeps pulling me forward, into tomorrow. While the exact content of the picture will depend on my other strengths and interests—a better product, a better team, a better life, or a better world—it will always be inspirational to me. I am a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions.
When the present proves too frustrating and the people around me too pragmatic, I conjure up my visions of the future and they energise me. They can energise others, too. In fact, very often people look to me to describe my visions of the future. They want a picture that can raise their sights and thereby their spirits. I can paint it for them. Practice. Choose my words carefully. Make the picture as vivid as possible. People will want to latch on to the hope I bring.
Ideation
I am fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. I am delighted when I discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection.
Mine is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so I am intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. I revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. I love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre.
For all these reasons I derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to me. Others may label me creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps I am all of these. Who can be sure? What I am sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.
*To find out more about the Strengthfinder test and the background to the huge amount of research carried out across over 2 million people see the book ‘Now Discover Your Strengths’ by Marcus Buckingham.
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