StrengthsFinder
Where does StrengthsFinder come from?
StrengthsFinder is a personality test, developed by the Gallup Organization.
To come up with the set of 34 strengths, the Gallup Organization initially interviewed more than 1.7 million professions, across a variety of fields. Gallup’s research led to the development of categories, known as strengths.
The StrengthsFinder test identifies a person’s top 5 strengths, and it’s based on “positive psychology,” or what is “right” about people, not “wrong” with them.
In 2004, the name of the personality assessment was changed to “Clifton StrengthsFinder,” in order to pay tribute to Don Clifton, who died in 2003.
In 2007, Gallup updated the test and released the new book, StrengthsFinder 2.0.
How does the StrengthsFinder work?
The online StrengthsFinder test takes about 35-45 minutes to complete, and it contains 177 questions. Over 18 million people have taken StrengthsFinder since it was introduced in 2001.
Each question on the StrengthsFinder test asks you to consider two statements and then choose one of five options. These options range from “Strongly Describes Me” (for one of the statements) to “Neutral” (for both statements) to “Strongly Describes Me” (for the other statement).
Once you’ve answered all of questions on the StrengthsFinder test, you’ll instantly learn your
top 5 strengths, out of a possible
34 strengths.
Why is StrengthsFinder useful?
StrengthsFinder can be an excellent team-building tool, because it gets people talking…in a very positive way! Identifying and discussing individual strengths can be a great ice breaker, and the long-term benefits of StrengthsFinder include people using their strengths to help themselves and each other.
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There are a total of 34 strengths (known as themes), which fall under 4 categories (known as domains).
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The 4 categories are: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking.
What are the StrengthsFinder themes and domains?
Below is the full list of StrengthsFinder themes (strengths), separated into domains (categories).
What do StrengthsFinder results give you?
Once you have your top 5 strengths, you can see which ones fall into each of the domain categories. For example, you might have three Executing strengths, one Influencing strengths, and one Relationship Building strengths. You will be given a full description as well as further insights into each strength.
Because there are 5 top strengths, out of 34 possible strengths, and the order of the strengths matters as there are more than 33 million possibilities. Or to put it another way, the odds of you having the same strengths, in the same order, as someone else are 33,000,000 to 1.
That’s what makes StrengthsFinder such a valuable tool in helping people understand their strengths and how to use them. It’s easy to grasp the basics of StrengthsFinder, but dig down a little deeper, and the test can reveal some incredible insights.
StrengthsFinder and The King's Church Prestwood
The King's Church Prestwood have decided to use this tool in order to discover individual strengths and to find ways of developing as a team. Says one of their elders, Chris Shepherd, "I heard a talk about StrengthsFinder at a festival called Spring Harvest and was inspired to undertake the questionnaire myself." Another church member, Alison, has used it recently at her place of work, Wycliffe Bible Translators in High Wycombe, and found it very interesting.
International Speaker coming to Prestwood
On
Saturday 8th February at 7.15pm Jill Garrett, who was involved with the design of StrengthsFinder, is coming to speak at Prestwood Village Hall. The evening will be hosted by The King’s Church, Prestwood and Jill will be giving insights to the church on their results as well as speaking about the process and benefits of
StrengthsFinder. Perhaps you would like to discover your strengths, or you are part of an organisation that would like to develop their ability to work together? Then do come along to find out more.
Jill is regarded as an authority on leadership development, team effectiveness and the effective use of individual and organisational strengths and her passion is to enable each person to be and do their best. She also works part time in Myanmar.
For further details and to book a place for the evening please email philippa.wallin@btinternet.com