Understanding and Investing in Your Analytical Talent

On this Theme Thursday Season 4 webcast, Jim Collison, Gallup's Director of Talent Sourcing, and Maika Leibbrandt, Senior Workplace Consultant, talk about Analytical.

Analytical is about boiling ideas down to an essence. It is thoughtful and curiosity based. Individuals with high Analytical value evidence and truth. If you have strong Analytical, you don't just take something at face value, you dive into the individual particles that make up that idea.

When Analytical is at its best it is innovative. You are constantly discovering new ideas, because you don't just assume everything is true. You can see all the parts to an assumption, which can lead us to new discoveries. You are the go-to for objective problem solving. Your search for truth can create clarity. You can offer new ways to measure and track success. You can help others think about what they have to demonstrate their success. Analytical can provide a lot of compassion by not being swept up in the emotion.

How do you lean into what you do really well with Analytical? You should be looking for more opportunities to investigate. What assumptions are there currently in your workplace that need to be looked at? What angles have you not considered? How can you increase your proximity to the source? Listening to others' opinions will make you more curious, but don't just read about something that somebody has done, actually go do it. Analytical thrives on information. Make sure that the information that you're getting is as close to the raw source material as possible. Create structure to ideas. Offer your hand in places where others might be overwhelmed on how much there is to consider. You can be a guide of consideration by being able to organize and filter these into a space that makes sense.

Ask for access to information. Ask for root causes. Cultivate questions that are going to help other people think. Find questions that give you the information you need, and also encourages the person you're asking to do more thinking as well. Think about finding the best questions that really open up the conversation. Someone with high Analytical needs to be able to work through the evidence in order to make the right decisions. Where other people will come to conclusions, you will come to questions. How can you get as close as you can to the truth?

Let go of worrying too much about subjective matters. It is completely okay that you value truth and evidence. It is completely okay for you to fall in love more with the fact than the feeling. Don't worry about asking too many questions. Often times you will uncover something that wouldn't have been found if you hadn't asked that question.

If you are working with someone with Analytical, expect practicality. Expect that they are not going to easily be swept up with emotion. They will always be on the side of truth. Expect some critical pushback. It is how they help and show that they care.

Give recognition towards their ability to reason. You can recognize their thought time, as well as their critical thinking muscles. You won't always see when their wheels are turning, because they may have done the work well in advance to when they come to their conclusion. Recognize the connections and the relationships they make by being curious. Because Analytical will value truth and evidence gathering over anything else, it will not get stuck in always looking to the same source.

If you are partnering with someone with Analytical, think about stretching their access to source material. Ask them to refine their communication. Individuals with Analytical will likely get better with multiple drafts of those words. They are not only looking for the simplest way to say something, but the most effective. Ask for objectivity. Put them in a space where you can ask them not just what they think, but what they know. Talk about the problem, and then let them sift through the evidence to find a solution. They are great at the sport of curiosity, and so let them take the lead on the search.

If Analytical is one of your Dominant Themes, invest in it this week through the following challenge items:

• Revisit a project that you've completed, and search for the details on how it was successful.
• Read the day's news from four different sources.
• Commit to only asking questions for an entire meeting or dinner conversation.