Getting to Know Clifton Strengths' Guiding Principles
4. Differences are an Advantage
Being well balanced sounds fantastic. It is an especially good descriptor of diet. “Part of a well-balanced diet” might be something you hear on a commercial for a food product. As individuals, however, being well balanced is not something as achievable as you might think.
The 34 themes measured when taking Gallup’s Clifton Strengths assessment fall in one of four domains: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, or Strategic Thinking. The domains provide a general understanding of how themes of talent operate, and an overall understanding of how the talents within each on can make an impact. The vast majority of the 18 million and counting people that have taken the Clifton Strengths assessment will find their top 5 strengths in predominantly one or two of the four domains. It is not typical that an individual’s dominant themes will spread evenly across all domains. In other words, people are not well balanced when it comes to talents. People are unique. People are specialized.
The New Testament gives a metaphor of a human body to understand the variety of gifts that God has given people (1 Corinthians 12:15) These differences are important when coming together to encourage one another to the work the church is called to.
People are different, and this has less to do with gender, race, or the language we might speak. This fourth guiding principle of Clifton Strengths points us to understand that not only is there a 1 and 33 million chance that someone else will have the exact same top 5 as you, but that this is a good thing. Your themes of talent (strengths) may not be well balanced, but they are well paired with someone else’s. It’s time to move beyond ownership of our strengths, to recognition of another, because we are better when we’re together.
Do you want to know how you are designed to make your unique impact in the world? Contact Gallup’s Certified Strengths Coach, Dan Vincent, at dan@kaleocoaching.com to get your Clifton Strengths Assessment code. Kaleo Coaching is currently offering a great price of $20 for the code, plus a coaching session with Dan to learn how to interpret the results, and make a plan on how to aim them towards your goals.