Theme Thursday Season 6 Wrap, 2021 Preview: Teams and Managers

We summarize and wrap Season 6 of Theme Thursday, and discover what we have learned about the 34 CliftonStrengths talent themes this season plus discover what's in store for 2021. When we improve teams through owning our CliftonStrengths, we improve performance. When we improve performance, that's how we get to the kind of organic growth that allows us to have stronger economies, a stronger world and better wellbeing. And great managers hold the key: As they move from boss to coach, they help team members understand who they are already and hold them accountable for being even better, maximizing the team's engagement and impact. You might even be a manager in ways you never thought of! So join Jim Collison and Maika Leibbrandt for this Season 6 Wrap, as we focus on teams and managers. Strong themes, stronger teams.

Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including time stamps. Full audio and video are posted above.

I've noticed this year, specifically on Theme Thursday, the evidence that we are making a positive change. ... I hope that means we are planting seeds of better conversations that are more about how people can have a better life.

Maika Leibbrandt, 4:35

Whether or not you come to strengths or performance from an organization, that is your greatest multiplier for changing the world is to do it within a workplace.

Maika Leibbrandt, 7:31

What we've allowed you to do with Theme Thursday is you don't have to teach strengths. You don't have to coach strengths. You can coach the person.

Maika Leibbrandt, 12:37

Jim Collison 0:00

I am Jim Collison, and live from our virtual studios around the world -- or at least here in the state of Nebraska -- this is Gallup's Theme Thursday, Season 6, recorded on September 17, 2020.

Jim Collison 0:21

Theme Thursday's a Gallup webcast series that dives deep into the CliftonStrengths themes, one theme at a time -- this season based on developing teams and managers with CliftonStrengths. And today is the, is the ever-so-important Season Wrap. If you're listening live, love to have you join us in our chat room. It's available right above me there if you're listening on the live page. You can click on the link, take you to YouTube. Sign in there and get that done; let us know where you're listening from. If you have questions after the fact -- and many of you are doing this as well -- you can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe as -- to this in your favorite podcast app. Just search "Gallup Webcasts." Or if you're on YouTube -- oh, we forgot to have the pre -- do this in the preshow. Just go down there and click the Like button right [on YouTube] down there. There's a Like and Subscribe button that are right along the bottom there. Do that. That helps us get discovered, and YouTube is good for CliftonStrengths. So why wouldn't you do it? Love to have you do it now. Maika Leibbrandt is our host today. She's a Senior Workplace Consultant with me here at Gallup. Maika, we missed you last week because we took another week -- we took a lot of weeks off this year. Welcome back to Theme Thursday!

Maika Leibbrandt 1:17

We've been, we've been sort of agile and responding to a lot and, I think, expanding our role, certainly, this year. So thank you for everybody who's allowed us to take some weeks off and, and take more time to let Theme Thursday fill more of the year. I think it's been a great experience.

Jim Collison 1:34

Yeah, it has been a year, Maika. I mean, I think we're here at the end of it -- at the end of the season for us. But not, not technically. We've got some things we're going to talk about here a little bit later in the show. So don't just turn this off, because we have some important things coming. But it -- wow! Like what a year! And, and we have seen a lot of things. What do you think, as you, as you reflect back on Season 6, you -- we've gone, you and I, have personally gone through a lot together in this year of, of 2020. What do you think, as we think about Season 6, what do you think you take away from it? And what have you learned, particularly as we think about virtual, like going virtual, doing these things virtual? Talk to me a little bit about that. If you were to kind of name one or two things that really, you really learned, what, what would they be, do you think?

Maika Leibbrandt 2:20

It, you know, if you had written great notes, there'd be an answer that I just had to read you!

Jim Collison 2:24

I know! I didn't -- I fell down on that one; I wrote my notes.

Maika Leibbrandt 2:27

This is perfect, Jim. You know what's always gonna stand out to me about 2020, but I think about this "line in the sand" that I will have as this demarcation from "old us" and "future us" is that conversation you and I had. (I don't think our favorite chat room was with us; it was just you and me, and it was in March.) And we were nervous beyond just podcasting of how we were going to reach our people. And I don't even just mean our audience or our clients. But how we were going to reach this world of people who needed the advice, analytics and learning that we can offer if we couldn't travel, which is just one example of all the change that everybody has had to adapt to.

Maika Leibbrandt 3:06

But you instantly jumped in like an emotional spatula and sort of scooped me off of the floor of anxiety and said, "Maika, we've got this; we already do this. We've done this 8,000 times. It's no different than podcasting." And that certainty that you had about it -- plus, it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't overinflated. You were right. We had so many more at-bats at being in people's pockets -- on a plane, on a train, wherever you're going, still changing their conversations, connecting them to each other and helping them, helping them learn.

Maika Leibbrandt 3:40

And that sort of, I think, assuredness allowed us to jump in to -- what we ended up doing was teaching the rest of Gallup overnight, How do we do this? What are the -- everything that we know about virtual, we've learned from podcasting. Let's start there. Let's not think about it as all of a sudden you can't travel, so you have to just take the exact same experience and bring it to Zoom. But it can still be an experience because what people show up for isn't the classroom. It isn't the fancy Trapper Keeper. What people show up for is a lot of what they show up for in Theme Thursday. It's the, I think it's, it's the trust equation, right? It's credibility, reliability and intimacy, divided by self-orientation.

Maika Leibbrandt 4:22

So if it's about others, and you're honest and you're present and you show up and you invite other people in and you avoid, I think, sometimes that temptation to, like, put up a fourth wall, it works. And by "works," I think I've noticed this year, specifically on Theme Thursday, the evidence that we are making a positive change. And I've seen that evidence in our, I mean, our numbers have grown like exponentially of how many people join live, our downloads -- you can talk about here in a moment a big celebration that we can, we can reveal -- have grown.

Maika Leibbrandt 4:56

And to me that's exciting, but it's really exciting because of the ripples effect that happen after that. Because I hope that means that we are planting seeds of better conversations that are more about how people can have a better life instead of just, you know, sell a product or take an assessment or experience something new. But how can you embed that into what you're actually doing? Because we've said this from the very beginning of Theme Thursday, where we started out saying, it's really so that this common language that we're speaking is truly common. And I remember you and I having conversation around Season 4 of How do we really talk about success? Let's get over the Name it, Name it, Name it tendency, and really help people, I think, take up more space in the Aim it side of that, that coaching journey. How do we help people truly harness the power of performance that CliftonStrengths is about? Not just feel better, not just talk about yourselves, but do better. And we've seen that happen. So it's been, it's been a really beautiful year in that sense. And I think only the beginning.

Jim Collison 5:55

We've learned a lot. One of the things in that conversation I've always appreciated: You took that kernel of that idea of like, Hey, we've done this before; we know how to do this. And you ran with it in a way, you know, our GGSC [Gallup Global Strengths Coach course] -- the new ASC, right -- we call that Gallup Global --

Maika Leibbrandt 6:11

That'd be a Strengths Coach --

Jim Collison 6:13

I assumed everybody would know that part. But the, it's not just, like, it's not like we just took a podcast and now try to teach people that way. Or it wasn't like we just did Zoom calls. Right? I mean, you and the team thought through the whole process of, like, How do we do this in a way that's engaging? And I'm not sure many have -- are doing it that way. I haven't seen very many doing it the way we do it inside of our courses now. And, and so good on you for taking that, just that nugget. Because it would have been, if it would have been up to me, I would have just been like, "Well, let's just create a podcast and then we'll send them some materials." You know, and you were like, "Oh, we got some, we've got some things we can do." So, exciting to see that happen, as well as, we talked about these 5 Truths. And Maika, that's one of the things I think you've, you know. And so, for folks maybe joining us for the first time, remind everybody of these 5 Truths that we talked about through in this season.

Maika Leibbrandt 7:08

Sure, I bet we can even do it from memory. So I found so much more good source material in Strengths Based Leadership that we hadn't talked about. Our original charge this year for Season 6 was to talk about teams, because that's what a lot of people come to a coach for. I think that's -- perhaps in organizations, what our mind has already budgeted for is focusing on the importance of a team. And whether or not you come to strengths or performance from an organization, that is your greatest multiplier for changing the world is to do it within a workplace.

Maika Leibbrandt 7:41

So we knew we wanted to do something on teams. And it's been fun to get to play this out, like, in real time, in front of people. But Jim and I have also learned how we work best together, which is we just throw out a bunch of ideas, and then we wait and see which one bounces back.

Jim Collison 7:57

Well, and which ones you strategically lean towards -- this is, in particular

Maika Leibbrandt 8:00

Didn't we figure that out in the Strategic episode, like 2 weeks ago?

Jim Collison 8:04

Yeah, I was like, Oh, my God, you're, as you were talking, actually -- and we're hoping this is the experience for a lot of you as you're working through some of these -- as you were talking, I just, you can see it. You can actually see me responding on camera. You, you say something about yourself, and I go, like, I have this realization, like --

Maika Leibbrandt 8:22

I watched it back after you said that. I went back, I was like, Oh, I did not catch that when we were live. But yeah, you're right. You, you were listening!

Jim Collison 8:30

I physically change. And I'm like, you know, and I'm kind of kicking in. But let's -- continue with that. Because that was -- we discovered that about ourselves this year.

Maika Leibbrandt 8:38

We did. And the idea that stuck, or that we came back to, that now I can maybe take a little bit of credit for, as a partnership for sure, was How do we talk about every theme as it relates to really answering the "How" to the domain? Which even then felt a little bit too conceptual. But what helped us solidify this was thinking of turning the 5 Truths of a Strong Team, which we find in Strengths Based Leadership, into ways that you could explore further answering the "How" of every theme.

Maika Leibbrandt 9:11

So not just saying this, you know, Achiever's an Executing theme. So it means they "do." But really helping people ask better questions of the people on their team with those talents that go beyond, you know, How do you execute?" So thinking about Achiever, they're going to execute differently than somebody with Arranger, although they both fall into that Executing Domain. And it's really easy, whatever kind of visual grid you're using, I think it's really easy to cluster that and stop the conversation. I think what we have done in Season 6 is we've ignited a greater conversation to be able to say, Let's honor the individuals within the team. And then, even further, let's honor the, the multidimensional aspects of the individual talent within each person.

Maika Leibbrandt 9:57

And so, I mean, it's been really fun to say, OK, truths of strong teams. How does one theme show up against this truth, which is, They focus on results, not just getting, you know, lost in their own conflict. Achiever is going to focus on results, for example, by bullet-pointing it. Arranger, in the same domain, is going to focus on results by sort of assuming we've already got some moving pieces and I'm going to make the best configuration of those pieces in order to get to the result that we're going to. Just that one truth of "Focus on results instead of conflict" helped us unlock, I think, a significant difference between those two themes that hopefully brought it to life for people when they think about humans.

Maika Leibbrandt 10:40

Because it's also really easy, especially in a configuration of a team, to fall into another trap, which is thinking you need equal representation across all 4 Domains in order to -- and I don't even know how to finish that sentence. I'm not even sure what we're looking for when we're looking for balance across all 4 Domains, but we look for it. And these 5 Truths help us say, No, no, here's 5 things you actually can be aiming for that will help you or will be hallmarks of strength within your team already. Use those as the end goal. Don't use balancing out the grid as the end goal. Then use the makeup of the talents you do have in order to talk about that.

Jim Collison 11:20

Man, that is gold right there. Like I think if you didn't listen to what Maika just said, Stop. Go back. Listen to that again. I think it's so key that, you know, sometimes we try to find the balance, or sometimes we try to, we try to have, you know, we try to predict people's behavior based on their Top 5. Sometimes we try to give them advice without asking them any questions. You know, sometimes we try to do all these things without just asking questions, listening and then guiding them to great, to great things to do, you know.

Jim Collison 11:53

It -- Maika, you -- as we think about the year that we've done here, just now that it's done, what advice would you give to our coaching community or even our like strengths enthusiasts community folks? Maybe they don't consider themselves a coach. And that's OK, this isn't, this -- we didn't make these just for the coaches, although that's the audience that's intended for. What, what kind of advice would you give on how to use -- you wrote 100% of what we did. So what kind of advice would you give now, looking back, to say, "Hey, use it this way." Maybe one or two things that you could just say, "Now that it's done, go back and use it this way."

Maika Leibbrandt 12:30

We can do a concept statement and then I'll give you two pieces of advice. I don't have two in my mind, but I'll come up with them. I think what we've allowed you to do with Theme Thursday is you don't have to teach strengths. You don't have to coach strengths. You can coach the person. And that I'm, I'm currently coleading a strengths coaching course with Al Winseman. That's his line that I have shamefully stolen that I encourage you to steal as well. In fact, I'll just, I'll "Robin Hood"; I'll steal from Al and give to you. And now it's yours. And you may share it among, among folks.

Maika Leibbrandt 13:03

There's enough collateral that help people understand the science of CliftonStrengths, that you can release the knowledge piece and offer the experience piece. You can coach the person, not the strength. So I think that that means that you're paying attention to their interpretation of how their talent is showing up. You're paying attention to their hot buttons: When do they light up? When do they lose track of time? What are they yearning to do? What do they finish and can't wait to do again? You get to help them attack what they feel are the most salient goals that they have.

Maika Leibbrandt 13:37

We know that people develop in relationships, that nobody, nobody's strengths get better in a vacuum. That's true about strengths. But it's also true about adults in general, and kids as well, that we develop best in relationship with other people. So what Theme Thursday, and a lot of our other great Gallup tools, allow you to do now is be a coach who gets to just be present and hold people accountable and cocreate some, some actions that allow them to perform better without necessarily having I think that backpack of bricks that it can feel like of needing to get all 34 themes right. So coach the person, not the strengths.

Maika Leibbrandt 14:15

Here's the two tips below that. And I'm Ideation, Communication; I'll come up with two. I might come up with 100; you pick the two that you like. Use Theme Thursday, I think, prior to a team getting together. So -- and we always say when you're coaching a team -- start with the manager. I would also say make sure that every individual on that team has some opportunity to Claim -- Name and Claim their own individual talents before they show up against the rest of the team.

Maika Leibbrandt 14:42

So really great piece of advice I would have: Before you show up to coach a team, offer your favorite season of Theme Thursday to that manager or a selection of the difference between the seasons to that manager, and encourage that manager to, to encourage his or her team to listen to their own themes first before a team session. If you want just the nitty gritty, the, the Seasons 5 and 6 are shorter than 1, 2, 3 and 4. So if you don't have as much time or you want to listen to all 5 in a shorter amount of time, 5 and 6 are where you want to hang out. Season 3 is about leadership. Season 4 is about success (going backwards; it's the way my brain works). Season 1 is just loving -- learning and loving every theme. And Season 2 is about theme dynamics. But usually people just want to know what shortest, so 5 and 6 if you want shorter.

Maika Leibbrandt 15:32

But I would say my first tip is before you lead a team session, offer this as a resource to the manager to then share with his or her team to listen to their own theme. And I would say just to -- just one. You don't have to prescribe 5. They find one. They realize they love it. They listen to the rest of them.

Maika Leibbrandt 15:47

The other piece of advice is think about assigning it as a follow-up to your coaching call for a theme that they don't have that their partner does. All too often we think about teams as one group of people that somehow magically meld together. And a whole lot more, I think, practical way to understand a team is interconnected partnerships of maybe two, maybe three people at a time. So you can have them, especially if you're looking at a team grid, have them identify opportunities for great collaborative partnership and then go as, as homework, as they're driving home, when they're taking the dog for a walk, have them listen to an episode that is relevant to one of their partner's themes.

Maika Leibbrandt 16:27

Another thing some people don't realize is they are available both video and audio only. Right. So we've got fantastic transcripts. We've got Mark, who's been phenomenal at helping us really make sure that we've got every, every episode of every season uploaded, searchable, with transcripts to it. We've got Roy, who's done some fantastic editing. We've got an entire team of people that I'm probably leaving out who've made these happen. But if you feel like you're burned out on a screen, and you just want to listen to the audio, find a podcatcher, which is a fancy Star Wars-y word for a catalogue of podcasts. If you have a Apple phone, the default one is just a purple microphone app --

Jim Collison 17:07

Says "Podcasts."

Maika Leibbrandt 17:08

Says "Podcasts." And you can just listen to it. Or if you've always found us on audio only, there's also video, and Jim Collison is one attractive human! And that microphone is worth watching. So --

Jim Collison 17:19

Said by no one ever.

Maika Leibbrandt 17:19

So you can watch -- change up how you're, how you're doing it. Your smart speaker can also play. I could turn on everybody's if I'd say the magic word.

Jim Collison 17:26

I just did this this morning on the A Lady, right? I said, "Hey, A Lady, play Theme Thursday on YouTube." And it took me right to YouTube. And it took me right to the Theme Thursday playlist. So you can do that on your smart speaker. It needs to be the show. The, the, the ones that don't have a screen aren't able to do that. But if you've got a screen, you can do that. It's, it's pretty cool. So --

Maika Leibbrandt 17:41

What advice would you offer, Jim?

Jim Collison 17:49

You know, Maika, there's so much great content. I think the section -- even though my favorite section, you know, I had a favorite question there at the very end. You'll have to go back and listen to that to determine what that is. But the questions you would ask about How do we, how do we transform these things we see in our personal life to work? How can managers -- what kind of questions can managers ask that, that help make that transition from What you do well at home? How can we bring that into work?

Jim Collison 18:15

Because we know CliftonStrengths is just not a work tool, right? This can transform the lives of, of families, of people, of children. Even without being able to take the assessment, understanding, as a parent, understanding these concepts of really focusing my children on what they do best transcends labels, right. It's the idea of getting them, of trying to help them discover things. And so that was really, you know, my, my favorite part of it, even though I said, you know, "Teams are a magnet for talent." I like that part too. But the really practical part is the questions you asked.

Jim Collison 18:51

They're all listed in the transcripts. So if you go back to the actual page where we've posted them, you can go into the transcripts and search those as well. All right, Maika. So your advice is actually timely, because we are going to kick into the next 5 weeks what we're calling "The 2020 Theme Thursday Challenge." And I'm actually really, really excited about this. We have gotten together --

Maika Leibbrandt 19:15

You're excited about this? Let me tell you why I'm excited about this. I spewed these ideas out in an email like 100 years ago, and I now have a team of people who just did it. And by me, by me saying I have -- they're not mine. There's just other human beings who are better at making things happen than me. And they, they made them real. It's the coolest thing for somebody with high Ideation!

Jim Collison 19:41

Big thanks to Reilly and Andrew, who got together on our marketing side and said, "You know, we'll do something with this!" And so, Maika to what you said, it's just getting people back. Like, yes, we've done the whole season, but have you listened to every single episode? Have you gone in and really listened? Have you taken advantage of all the ways to get it done? Have you looked at the transcripts? Have you gone in and put it in your car? All these things.

Jim Collison 20:04

So these challenges, we're going to give you an opportunity to do that. And we're just going to show these on the screen. You're going to see these through our social media accounts. So if you go to facebook.com/groups/calledtocoach, they'll be there -- calledtocoach on our LinkedIn page. If you go to LinkedIn and search "CliftonStrengths Trained Coaches," we'll be posting them there as well. We'll be posting them out through Instagram. So we have -- that's kind of a new, that's kind of Reilly's --

Maika Leibbrandt 20:28

Follow @cliftonstrengths on Instagram. You can also follow me @strengthstalk. I will make sure to also list these. But make sure you're following @cliftonstrengths on Instagram.

Jim Collison 20:35

Yeah, no, right on. And actually Reilly's been a big partner in making these work for us. She's actually trying to get me to understand Instagram. So if you're a listener, and you don't --

Maika Leibbrandt 20:42

I just keep tagging you.

Jim Collison 20:45

You don't get it? I know you do.

Maika Leibbrandt 20:46

If you don't, if you don't get it, I can like steal your image and do whatever you're on.

Jim Collison 20:51

Totally right on. You could. I -- cause I'm never out there. But it's OK. If -- for some of you are, so that's good. So each of the weeks, starting October 1. So we've got from -- if you're listening live, you got some time. You may be right in the middle of it by the time you're listening to this as a podcast. But each week has a challenge. And what we're going to ask you and then those you coach: Take this, steal it, incorporate it into a 5-week plan with those that you're coaching. Encourage them to do it. Take the graphics. They're available for you. Use them. We love --

Jim Collison 21:18

Is there a hashtag we're supposed to be using?

Jim Collison 21:20

Oh, that's a good question. I don't know if we've -- maybe we'll come up with a creative hashtag.

Maika Leibbrandt 21:23

Let's do it right now. Greatest chat room on the internet, create for us, right now, a hashtag for these challenges.

Jim Collison 21:30

All right, we'll watch the chat room for that. Week 1: Listen to -- listen to a theme you wish you had more of. Now, we want you to listen, and then combat -- combat! -- come back into the social groups. And let us know what that did for you. Like how did that help? What, what did you discover about yourself? So we want you to listen, one, one you wish you had more of. Maika, what would that be for you? What do you wish you had -- ?

Maika Leibbrandt 21:54

You wish the world had more of. What's a theme you wish the world had more of?

Jim Collison 21:57

What do you think -- you wish the world had more of?

Maika Leibbrandt 21:59

I feel like I can't say that. Because I'll just sway everybody.

Jim Collison 22:03

All right. So we'll hold -- we'll hold on that. All right. So let's go -- theme [Week] 2: Do a talent-mindfulness exercise from Season 6. They're also available in Season 5. You don't need to be -- we don't need to be legalistic about this. You can go back to Season 5 if you want to. But we'd really love -- and we know they're at the end. But get through that, and, and get the talent mind -- we want to know what you took from this, right? What did you get out of it? What did it do to you? Maika had spent so much time, did such a great job. We'll have a little announcement about this here towards the end of the program. But do one of them, do one of them. Even if it makes you feel uncomfortable, do one of them. OK?

Jim Collison 22:39

Challenge 3: Listen to your best friend's top strength. Listen to your best friend's top strength, which would be Strategic for me. So No. 4: Listen to your Top 5. Have you taken an opportunity to go through that and spend some time kind of, kind of with your own? Whether listen or watch -- either way -- you could do it, you could do that either way. We'd love to have you pop through and get that done.

Jim Collison 23:03

And then on the 5th week, tag someone who should listen to Theme Thursday, right? Maybe you've got somebody outside of your bubble. We are really worked -- have been working hard this year on kind of expanding Theme Thursday just beyond the "bubble." So maybe you got some opportunities, maybe somebody's never done that before. These translate, by the way, whether you know the assessment or not. I don't know if you realize that, but the way Maika talks and the way she teaches through this, even if you've never taken the assessment before, there's so much stuff that's helpful in there. And so maybe you can do, you can share that outside your coaching bubble, outside your family bubble, outside your whatever, your work bubble, and, and see what we do there as well. OK, this is what's going to be fun. We're gonna --

Maika Leibbrandt 23:45

Drumroll, please! I've decided what the hashtag is!

Jim Collison 23:48

OK, what are we, what are we doing for the hashtag?

Maika Leibbrandt 23:51

#cliftonstrengthschallenge.

Jim Collison 23:53

All right, so make sure you --

Maika Leibbrandt 23:55

A lot of people said "strengthschallenge." I just don't want that to get lost with people weightlifting, so, which is also good.

Jim Collison 24:02

I like it.

Maika Leibbrandt 24:03

We're gonna do #cliftonstrengthschallenge.

Jim Collison 24:05

OK. It's decided. So that's what we're gonna do in the groups. We'll publish that as well. This is a, this is a screen that's got all challenges, 1, 1 through 5, listed out. Again, it's --I'm gonna make this available in the social, on social networks, or you can just get in touch with me if you want it. We would love for you to come up with creative ways to display this every week and check off what you've gotten done. And not just putting a check mark. If that's what you want to do, that's fine. But we'd love to have you take this and modify it in a way that it talks a little bit about how you are doing this. And each week, as we're going through this, when you get through the challenge, check it off. By the way, some bonus points at the end for those who get through all 5.

Maika Leibbrandt 24:50

Bonus points! Excellent! So we didn't even announce the original ones, but --

Jim Collison 24:54

No, no.

Maika Leibbrandt 24:56

But really what we love about this is it's the opportunity to you use something very straightforward to get to that outcome of improving performance. Gallup studies performance management. And in our most recent performance management paper, we found that 14% of employees strongly agree that their reviews inspire them to do better. 14! That's nowhere near enough. But we're not going to get there just by saying, "Let's overhaul performance management." We're going to get there by giving people better language to understand what they bring to the table, better language to challenge other people. Somebody here in the chat said they want more -- a series on using CliftonStrengths to apply to self-care, because it shows up in a lot of their coaching. This is all just a really bite-sized way to change the way that you think about your day, to change the way that you think about your behavior, that hopefully is going to change the way, the conversations that you have with people at work.

Jim Collison 25:51

Ralph asked a question, "Will all of Gallup be going through this as well?" So we actually are presenting this tomorrow. And, and we're doing -- because we did a Summer of Strengths internally at Gallup, and made a little video. We'll talk about that, and, and so yeah, they'll be doing that as well. Maika, starts October 1. That's a Thursday, and so it will be each Thursday we'll release new graphics, new episode -- or not new episodes, but new graphics for you. These will get posted out there. And we'd love to have you join along. I'll be very active. Since I don't have Theme Thursday, I don't really have anything else to do. So I'll just be sitting around --

Maika Leibbrandt 26:26

Other than Instagram.

Jim Collison 26:27

waiting for you. I'll be waiting for you, people listening, to post to Facebook. If you don't -- or Instagram, or -- OK, I'm going to use this as a challenge to get an Instagram.

Maika Leibbrandt 26:38

You heard it here.

Jim Collison 26:39

I'm going to figure out Instagram.

Maika Leibbrandt 26:41

It's just like when you said you're gonna do a million pushups or something.

Jim Collison 26:43

Just like. I did. I did. I hurt my shoulder, I did so many. So just like Wallpaper Wednesday, I am going to figure this thing out. We'll get back together. And actually for those of you following along and who have followed us on Eventbrite, so if you go to gallup.eventbrite.com, at 11 o'clock, I released the November 5 special Challenge Wrap Party. So one more Wrap Party, November 5, same time. It's on Eventbrite -- I just released it. I used a little, I used a little magic on the internet. And so if you follow us there, gallup.eventbrite.com. Sign up, follow us so you get notifications. You got that notification already.

Jim Collison 26:51

We'll get together and talk about the challenges. And then we've got some kind of special announcements of things that are coming up in 2021 that we will use that time to do as well. Want to hear your stories; we'll be bringing those into the show. We haven't really even designed the show yet. We want to kind of see how these challenges go. And of course, how they go will influence what we're doing from a show perspective.

Jim Collison 27:41

So one of the things we made this week to make things easier (Maika, I know you're short on time, so --

Maika Leibbrandt 27:46

It's OK. I'll hang with you.

Jim Collison 27:47

You OK on that?) We made brand new Theme Thursday pages by season. So now if you go out to the Webcasts page, so go to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. Drop the Resources down, go to the Web, the Webcasts page. If you go down to the Theme Thursday section, you'll see each of the Seasons: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you click on those, you'll see three shows at the bottom. If you click "View More," it'll take you to a page that has just those episodes for that season. Easier to find, easier to get to. So if you want to go to Season 5, you can see them all now on Season 5. If you can go to 4, you can do that there. Those are available for you for these challenges. So don't forget to use them --

Maika Leibbrandt 28:17

And say where they are one more time.

Jim Collison 28:25

Yeah, so go to gallup.event -- I'm sorry. Go to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. Click on the Resources tab, choose "[Webcasts.]" Then scroll down a little bit, and you'll see Theme Thursday in there. And you can select them right there. They're available for you. I've been posting those hints in the, in the social groups so they're out there and available. Love to have you go out to the pages and view those. A great way to share them and an easier way to get to them as well. OK, Maika, any questions? Did I miss anything on that -- October, October 1 is when it starts; November 5 is the wrap for it?

Maika Leibbrandt 28:58

When we celebrate the challenges?

Jim Collison 29:01

One of the things we're going to celebrate on November 5 is a million downloads of Theme Thursday. A million. It's -- we're gonna hit it by then. So, now it's I don't know if it'll be exactly on the 5th or whatever, right. But we're about 50,000 away from a million. Which is crazy to me. Like --

Maika Leibbrandt 29:19

It's amazing. But think about the conversations that are happening with a million downloads.

Jim Collison 29:24

So we'll celebrate that. And I'm pretty excited. And that's an overall number since the beginning of time, but it's just kind of a fun number. To hit a million of anything is, is pretty cool. A couple announcements coming up on some things that we'll have more of on November 5. So you're saying, OK, besides the challenges, what else, right? Well, one -- I alluded to this a little bit earlier -- we're actually, you asked, and so we're going to give you, in 2021, we're gonna give you your own talent-mindfulness podcast. So it's coming. We'll have a preview of it on the November 5 show.

Jim Collison 29:57

We'll actually play a part of it live out there, and that feed will start sometime early 2021. So that is coming. And we're going to start with just -- Maika has already done 68 of these! And so we're gonna pull those out, add some additional content to them and provide them for you in their own podcast; then release them weekly throughout the year. So that's coming in 2021.

Maika Leibbrandt 30:20

This is where everyone in the chat group goes crazy, because you've been asking for this every single week. Do you hear? Do you hear? We're giving it to you!

Jim Collison 30:27

We want talent-mindfulness by itself. OK. All right. It's coming 20 -- it's coming in 2021. We're also going to work on a series of coaching calls, Zoom related. We did, I've done a few of these recently, and they worked out really, really well. We -- instead of, instead of it being one way, it'll be a group call, and we'll have them different times of the, and for different time zones. More details coming on that.

Jim Collison 30:50

Actually Austin is going to move his Community Updates into those calls. So instead of doing a podcast where he's -- we're speaking to you, Austin will join us in these calls, and you'll be able to participate with us in them as well. Called to Coach is not going away. We're still going to continue success stories there and do it that way. We'll still continue to do some learning out through Called to Coach, but we are going to add some coaching Zoom calls to it as well. And then November 5, you'll all find out what's really happening with Season 7 of Theme Thursday. So we have that kind of coming up as well. And so, Maika, anything else that I missed on that as we think about, as we lean towards our November 5 date?

Maika Leibbrandt 31:31

There's so much going on that we just talked about, and I think all of it is worth being incredibly excited about. So play it back if you need to. And don't worry about completing those challenges for October 1. It's just on October 1, we'll be revealing them once per week just to keep things going.

Jim Collison 31:46

Yeah, no, we're excited about it. Jump in the groups. Get active. This is a really good time to start doing this. And we got some very focused challenges for you. Please share them -- take, take -- this is all for you. Take it, run with it, use the graphics, use everything we put out there, make it yours. Use it with those that you're coaching, take it to your church, take it to your school, take it whatever you want. Get folks --

Maika Leibbrandt 32:13

The most that we can do to support the Gallup side of it, the more you can go do to coach the people. And, and that's really why we do what we do is so that you can be present eyeball to eyeball, even if it's over a screen, or even just voice to voice -- text to text -- with human beings who need you. And I think very often, coaches get in their own way, thinking that they have to understand the ins and outs and all the data and be able to reference the technical report and drop stats in here and understand all the differences between all 34 [themes]. You don't; you have to coach the people. And so thank you for doing the hard work.

Jim Collison 32:49

You bet. Well, with that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantages of all the resources we have available. I've mentioned this before: gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. Andrea had just asked in the chat room, "Where do I find these transcripts now?" They're available on each post that we do on gallup.com. So gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. When you do that, head over to the Resources, go to [Webcasts]. Go down to Theme Thursday. They're all available there. Transcripts only for Seasons 5 and 6. We weren't, we weren't able to go back in time and do those just yet, although, Maika, we have a little, little secret, secret project going on right now where we're doing Season 1.

Maika Leibbrandt 33:23

There's so many secret projects going on.

Jim Collison 33:25

So working on that as well. And it's been a busy year for us indeed. Love to have you listen to this as a podcast. And so, like, like Maika said any podcast app, search "Gallup Webcasts." If you want to find us on YouTube, just search "CliftonStrengths." If you have any questions, you can always send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. If you want to see a complete list of all our training and coaching that's going on, Maika is doing some right now. She's playing hooky from the course that she's in, we got to get her back to --

Maika Leibbrandt 33:53

I got to tell you, yesterday, we got some phenomenal feedback about this course, which is hats off to our really brilliant learning designers. It is, it's a hard course. It is 4 very intense virtual days, in ways that I don't think anybody ever thought learning would happen. And a lot of the feedback was, "Wow, how long have you been doing this? Why didn't I know that there was a virtual course before?" And we haven't been doing that long, but necessi -- necessity created some great innovation. So I get to go back and hang out with some future Gallup Global Strengths Coach Certified Coaches. Thank you for today, Jim.

Jim Collison 34:25

Yeah, pretty great. If you want to follow us, if you want to know when things are coming up: gallup.eventbrite.com will get you in there as well. And then I mentioned the groups: facebook.com/groups/calledtocoach. Search for "CliftonStrengths Trained Coaches" on LinkedIn. Follow us at /cliftonstrengths on Instagram. I think that's just instagram.com/cliftonstrengths. I have to add that to my thing going forward if I'm going to commit to being good on Instagram. We, we want to thank you for joining us. Very, very, very short postshow today for those that are hanging around. Don't forget, if you are listening live, we've got the After-Aftershow, I think is what we're calling it. Lisa's got a link to that, and we've got it in the Facebook group. We'll do that as well. Thanks for joining us today. Remember, come back and join us on November 5. We want to hear your stories. And we've got some announcements and a look ahead to 2021. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.