How to Coach Using the CliftonStrengths® for Managers Report

The CliftonStrengths for Managers report -- designed for managers, leaders and influencers -- is here. But how can coaches effectively apply and use the report in their coaching and consulting work? Join Austin Suellentrop for Part 3 of a series on the CliftonStrengths for Managers report as he dives into best practices Gallup and coaches have discovered so far in their use of this tactical tool.

Gallup Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 9, Episode 32. This is Part 3 of a 5-part series. Access Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 and Part 5 of the series on the CliftonStrengths for Managers report.

 

The first step you should take is to take a deep breath, process and understand your own report. Be able to speak to, with confidence and sincerity, What does it mean to you? What have you learned? That should be step No. 1.

Austin Suellentrop, 3:52

Our focus as coaches should always be on the person we're coaching. What are they trying to accomplish? Like what's their goal? What's the challenge they're facing? How are you going to help them get where they want to go?

Austin Suellentrop, 4:24

What's great about this, if you've been able to do some of that sort of early "Name it" and getting into some of the "Claim it" conversations with it, this can really be a very helpful tool, pivoting to the "Aim it" piece.

Austin Suellentrop, 7:58

Jim Collison 0:01

I am Jim Collison, and live from our virtual studios around the world, this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on June 25, 2021.

Jim Collison 0:21
Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, love to have you join us in our chat room. There's a link on our live page right above me there; it'll take you to it. Sign in with your Google account and join us in chat. If you're listening after the fact, and many of you do, we'd love to have you contact us through our email. So coaching@gallup.com, and we have someone watching that all the time. Appreciate your questions that way as well. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. And subscribe there on YouTube just so you get notified whenever we put out a new video. Austin Suellentrop is our host today. Austin is the CliftonStrengths Portfolio Manager here at Gallup. And I get the privilege of I think working with you just about every day now, Austin. Welcome back to Called to Coach!

Austin Suellentrop 1:11
Always fun to be here, Jim. Thanks for having me.

Jim Collison 1:12
Always great to have you. We are excited to think through this brand new CliftonStrengths for Managers report. I'm not gonna lie: This has been your work over the last year, I think, as we've probably been putting this together. We've been talking about it for a long time. We launched it at the end of May. Mike McDonald and I spent some time on Tuesday on a Called to Coach talking about how to use this report as a coach first, so for yourself. Today, Austin, you've got some material prepared as we think about how to use this in your coaching. And so we want to spend some time today talking about that. What do you have for us today?

Austin Suellentrop 1:49
Yeah, thanks, Jim. So, first of all, this is absolutely, it's exciting that we're here. It's exciting that we're now talking about the application and the use of our new report. We have been working on this for a long time, right? It's been it's been over a year's worth of work that really was the sort of a cumulative work of 50-plus years of work -- of studying people and studying managers and organizations. So to, it's been out in the world for about a month now. Right. And in about that month's time, one of the things we are doing on the on the Gallup team is we are experimenting with it ourselves and using it on our own teams inside our own organization with our own clients. But then also, we are gathering feedback from coaches and clients on how they're using it.

Austin Suellentrop 2:35
So my hope today is to share with you a little bit of the high-level sort of strategic way to think about how you can leverage this in your coaching and in your consulting and in the work you may do inside of an organization or with, you know, external clients of your own. And I think the thing I want to start with with this report is a bit of a lesson we've learned at Gallup over the years that pops up whenever we launch anything new. So whenever we launch a new tool or a new resource or a new video, whatever it may be, when we put new things out there, we see this interesting phenomenon happen -- which is we see uses spike for this new tool in a lot of different ways.

Austin Suellentrop 3:22
What we notice when we dig into it and we talk to people is they get really excited -- our coaches, our clients, our own teams get really excited about this sort of new shiny toy. And so they run to the new shiny toy and they try to use it in every situation they can, because they get excited about it. There's legitimate excitement and joy. And so when we, when we position this report, for you coaches, I really want to sort of reinforce what Jim and Mike talked about. The first step you should take is to take a deep breath, process and understand your own report. Be able to speak to, with confidence and sincerity, What does it mean to you? What have you learned, right? That should be step No. 1, because you need to be able to understand how it's going to best help any client you work with, right?

Austin Suellentrop 4:14
Because our focus as coaches should always be on the person we're coaching. What are they trying to accomplish? Like what's their goal? What's the challenge they're facing? How are you going to help them get where they want to go? That should be the leading, the leading filter we're thinking about. If this report can help them get closer to where they're trying to be, take it and run with it. We shouldn't be forcing this report into every conversation, right? We shouldn't be forcing this report into every coaching relationship. It should be a tool that can help further the relationship with your client. That's got to be the most important thing to remember.

Austin Suellentrop 4:59
So I start with that because I'm excited about this. I think it's a fantastic tool. I'm using it daily in my own management. I'm using it with teams that I work with all the time. But I'm doing it because I know how it can help me. Because I know how it's helping me get somewhere and further a relationship and further a conversation with somebody. So I think that that's where I want to start is being sure we're focusing on the right things. So let's say, hypothetically, you've filtered it, and you've, you've seen, Hey, this report can help the person I'm coaching get where they want to go, help them understand. How do I position it? How do I bring it into a coaching relationship? And I think there are a couple of different ways that we've seen it already, in one month of it being used, a couple of best practices that I've found.

Austin Suellentrop 5:48
So here's the first thing. The first thing is that it should not be the only tool we're leveraging, right. So this Manager report should not be viewed as like a PDF that is the end-all, be-all for strengths and management. Right? It's part of a learning package; it's part of a development package, if you will. So if you want to introduce strengths to a manager, this is a really solid tool to introduce strengths through the lens of being a manager. If we do it that way, if this is the first time you expose somebody to strengths, it's going to help position strengths as a role-based tool, as something that can help them in their job very easily, right.

Austin Suellentrop 6:33
So it's going to help position strengths as part of their day-to-day life, it's going to help position strengths as a necessity on how they get things done. Right. So it can help position strengths in that real sort of tactical way, early on. But we also know that there's going to be some teaching that needs to happen for that, right. It's gonna, it's gonna, there's gonna need to be some baseline education done if this is the way you're introducing strengths to them. So that's why we include things like on-demand learning modules and all the resources that are available in Access.

Austin Suellentrop 7:03
So the best practice, we've found, if you are positioning this, if you're introducing somebody to strengths through this report, is to really make sure you build into your process that baseline education, right. So having them complete on-demand learnings, having them do some legwork on the front end to learn about their themes. That is a way to help sort of jump-start this. If we think about sort of where I think most of the uses we've seen so far have been, have been managers that have already been exposed to strengths. So they've either, you know, they've taken the assessment, and they've got their report already. Or maybe they've already gone through some sort of educational workshop or coaching session before. And this is becoming sort of a follow-up, if you will, maybe a second or third conversation tool. That is absolutely where we have seen the most pickup early on. We're one month in; that's where we've seen the majority of the uses being.

Austin Suellentrop 7:58
And what's great about this, if you've been able to do some of that sort of early "Name it" and getting into some of the "Claim it" conversations with it, this can really be a very helpful tool, pivoting to the "Aim it" piece, right, pivoting to, What do I go do? How do I put all this strengths stuff into practice, if you will, right. So if I were drawing up a coaching relationship from scratch, and I were to say, what's the dream scenario? The dream scenario would be that I spend time with my client initially, introducing them to strengths, right. So doing my sort of classic, whatever my mechanism is for teaching them about strengths -- a workshop, a conversation, whatever that may be. And that after they've started to embrace a little bit of OK, yeah, this is who I am, when they start getting interested in What do I do? -- that "Aim it" piece -- that's where I would really start to introduce this report. To me, that's where this is going to really be helpful for managers is giving them ideas and thoughts around how they can use their strengths in their role every day.

Austin Suellentrop 9:05
One of the things I know in my career as a consultant with Gallup, but also for the 10 years I spent as a client prior to that, was I could see some people instantly grab onto strengths. And, and it was a an easy sort of transition for me in the conversations with them to go from understanding strengths to doing something with it. I saw that happen. But most people -- there had to be some work that I did with them to help them sort of pivot from "OK, this is cool about who I am. I get this; I see this," but they struggled with that pivot on how to implement something every day. So part of the, the Helps and Hinders that we have in this report -- and especially in that action-item section -- it's not designed to be, "Hey, here's a list of a bunch of things; go 1 through 40 and knock them all out," but rather to help kick-start their thinking to help them think about, "Here are some potential things you can do. Feel free to copy and paste. It's, look, there's a check box next to each action item, so you can check it off the list." But to get them thinking, This is the kind of stuff that may work for you.

Austin Suellentrop 10:14
So that would be a real logical place in the coaching relationship is when you're working with somebody on the action-plan side of it; the "Aim it" piece around how they can really invest in their strengths. So just a month in, that, that's what we're seeing so far. I would say the the most important thing for us as coaches -- and I'm gonna say; I've said it once; Jim said it once; I'll say it again: It's hard to go use a tool with a client if you yourself don't have an experience with that tool. Because what's going to end up happening -- I talked to a coach just last week who had this happen. They were using the report, and they were coaching somebody around it. And the client asked them a question, and they had no idea how to answer it. Because they themselves hadn't spent the time walking through and sort of filtering through the report themselves. And it was a simple question; it was, it was around the reflection questions. Right. And they, the, the client asked them, "What do I do with these? Like, how do these help me?" And the coach hadn't thought about it, because the coach hadn't spent time reflecting on, on their own results.

Austin Suellentrop 11:22
So I think that's the kind of thing that, as a coach -- for your credibility, for your relationship with the person you're coaching, spending some time working through it is really important. So that's just sort of my first, first pass here at sort of sharing some, some thoughts around this. I'd love, I know, I'm seeing that the chat room sort of, sort of come back. Jim is there, are there any questions so far that we can, we can jump in and talk about?

Jim Collison 11:44
Not yet. I've got one for you, though. Drag that mic a little bit closer to you as well, if we can, if we can get that. There we go, no worries. Austin, we kind of created a guide to help with this. Do you want to, you want to talk a little -- I'll bring that up on screen here, but you want to, you want to talk a little bit about that guide?

Austin Suellentrop 12:00
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things we were very sensitive to and very intentional about was we, we didn't want this report to come out and feel like it was this sort of disparate tool that wasn't connected through to anything else we did, right. And so what we did was we took the 4 Coaching Conversations that we teach in our coaching training, right? And we very easily mapped, OK, how could this tool, this report we're talking about, how could it fit in to those 4 Conversations? What, what are the kinds of questions you could ask along the way, as a coach, to help sort of leverage this a little bit? So Jim's pulling it up. This is something that we've made available for our Certified Coaches. And it's something out there that can sort of, it takes the 4 -- here it is -- the 4 conversations, right.

Austin Suellentrop 12:55
When you establish a relationship, how do we fold in, in that first conversation, topics about being a manager and getting them thinking about their strengths in the role of being a manager? So simple things. And then we actually link to certain tools we have in our coaching kits that make sense to sort of flow in this part of the conversation. But then as we get into the profile a little bit deeper, right, what you'll see is some of the questions are very similar, but we're just aiming it at a different, a different report. Right. So what was your first impression of your CliftonStrengths for Managers report? That's a question I know many of you ask all the time, but you ask it generally about their strengths. Right? You say, "Hey, what was the first impression when you got your results?" Or "When you read this report, what was your first, your first reaction?" It's a great open question to ask early on in a, in a coaching relationship.

Austin Suellentrop 13:53
But by aiming it at the manager's report, what it does is it narrows the focus to really be thinking about their role. And again, it positions strengths early on as something that helps them be a better manager. Now, understanding when to do this is it conversation 1, 2, 3? Whatever it may be, that's where your expertise as a coach and your relationship with the person you're coaching is so critical. You're going to know much better when is it appropriate to bring this in? The culture of the organization in which this manager works, that's going to be a critical factor as well, right? There are some organizations where strengths has been positioned as a, very much like a feel-good personal development, feel-good sort of team-building tool. That's wonderful. That's where we, where we start with a lot of organizations, right? But understanding that, if that's how it's positioned, maybe you need to bring this in a little bit later in the game, right? Maybe this becomes something in that conversation 3 or 4. But if it's, you're introducing strengths for the first time, and it's a culture that's very much a, sort of an achievement-oriented, all-business-all-the-time kind of mindset, maybe it makes sense to introduce it in that first conversation.

Austin Suellentrop 15:09
So what we wanted to do is provide you coaches with tools that could show the flexibility of this and empower you to make the decision on your own and when you think it is most effective to introduce the report. Well, what I, what I want you to know, is that you can ask a lot of the same questions you currently ask and just ask it about the Manager report. And it can really help them unpack it, in terms of what piece resonates with them the most? What piece, you know, what are they reading in here that really hits them on the head? Or what do they read -- one of the questions I'll never forget, a coach asked me one time, when I was being coached, "What are you reading here that scares you?" Oh, man, there's a, there's a line in my Manager report that I identify with so much in terms of that, that emotion of I know what it feels like as a manager when I have a, when I can sort of unintentionally overtake conversations with my team members. And unintentionally, I can shut them down because they don't feel like they want to fight to get the, a word in in the conversation. It's absolutely something I, that scares me as a manager, that I might do that. Because, because I'm high Empathy. I don't want people to feel that way. Right.

Austin Suellentrop 16:27
But in a report, to put it out there, if I'm not asked about that line, right, if I just have it on paper, I can very easily gloss over it. Some, sometimes maybe even ignore it and say, "Oh, that's not really me." But a coach calling it out and saying, "What on this page scares you?" gives me the freedom and it gives me the space to acknowledge there is stuff in here that hits me on the head. And it scares me that that might be who I am. That's where a report transforms from words on paper to a tool that helps my development. It's the courage of a coach asking me a tough question. So I think we've written all of this content in a pretty direct tone of voice and pretty straightforward. And some of the, some of the words are hard-hitting. And so without the opportunity to share how we feel about what we're reading here, it may not have its full impact. So I encourage you as coaches to still have that courage; to ask those tough questions and to aim those tough questions you've been asking for years, using other reports and other resources -- use the same thing and approach it to this report.

Jim Collison 17:36
Austin, let me cover again, for our Certified Coaches, how they get to that. So if you go to -- and I put this in the chat -- if you go to gallup.com/certifiedcoach, it'll take you to a page that looks like this. And then Section 4, Coaching Tools and Products, if you click on that, it'll go through all of the products we have available, with some helps that, that are there. And if you scroll down, you'll see A CliftonStrengths Report Specifically for Managers. Download the Coaching Guide. Click this button here; it'll download a PDF for you. And that is available if you want to do that. So that is the way, the way to get it done. Austin, we kind of covered this question in the launch. But let's cover it again because we probably have some new folks. Are there pieces of this report that are unique for individuals impacted by the order of their themes? We know the Insight Report, the Top 5 Insight Report, is, is customized. Talk a little bit about that.

Austin Suellentrop 18:28
So this version is not cust -- is not personalized. So everybody who has Achiever gets the same 2 pages of content in this report. There's a couple of reasons why, right? First is we believe the content we've put in this report is powerful enough and effective enough that it speaks to Achiever; that it's going to be a helpful tool with standard content, regardless. The second reason was simply a matter of the work scope to get this report out to the world. So by going with standard content, we're able to translate this report, and next month, we'll hit 7 new languages with this report. And by August, we'll hit 3 additional.

Austin Suellentrop 19:05
So by the end of the summer, we'll be in 10 additional languages, to match what our 34 report is available in, right? So we chose and we opted for our effort being spent there -- to get it translated out to the world, rather than it would have taken similar, actually, probably a larger quantity of work just to get English done in our Insight Statements, because the, the number of, the pieces of content that have to be written are so much harder, or so much larger. So I would say this version: standard. Is there a world where we can have you know, CliftonStrengths for Managers 2.0 with personalized insights? I think that's certainly something that could happen down the road, similarly to how you know, when StrengthsFinder first launched, it was standard content. And then Strengths 2.0 came out, and it was personalized. I think that's a world we'd love to see down the road. But this, as it is right now, is standard content.

Jim Collison 20:00
Benson asks a question. And I think you alluded to this a little bit; we can clarify it, though. If it might be best to use it after a strengths intro (which completely makes sense to me), is there any forecast for providing it as an upgrade for those who already own their Top 5? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Austin Suellentrop 20:16
Yeah. So it's interesting. I appreciate this question, Benson, because one of the things we talk about and strategize about a lot at Gallup on the team here is, What's the best way to bring any offering to market? What's the best way, the best user experience and the best way to make it easy for people to get it? So we've tried very intentionally to make this an easy thing to get and an easy thing to buy, and price it and offer it that way. If we were to start introducing things like upgrades, what's going to end up happening, our concern is around code management and how complicated the code-management experience gets. And so we already see some, some hiccups and some struggles when people are seeing all the different reports we have available for purchase right now, in terms of a $19.99, a $39.99, upgrade, a $49.99 34 report, and now a $39.99 manager report, confusion sometimes around What's the right one for me to get?

Austin Suellentrop 21:16
So we're trying to simplify and streamline what we offer. We believe the value of the report is there. So there is no intent right now to introduce an upgrade version of this. We do offer it bundled with a 34 code on the front end, if you're introducing somebody to strengths for the first time at a discount. They can, they can buy the two together in a bundle. That's the premier, I'd say, offering we have around it. So I wouldn't anticipate a upgrade anytime soon. We are always thinking about the best way and the easiest way for you as coaches and for our clients to manage all the different offerings we have.

Jim Collison 21:50
Yeah, and and I think, Austin, much like the 34 report, it's a great opportunity for our coaches, if, if folks want to start with their Top 5, that gives you a ton of runway on your coaching and at the right time, based on the position. We're going to talk, Mike McDonald and I are going to talk, a little bit more about how to use this with managers coming up in July, middle of July, I think it's the 12th. And then later on, we're going to talk about what does this mean for everybody else? But I think it gives some really good options that way for you to introduce it kind of when it's right for your client. Sally asked, and we've talked a ton about this too. But she asked, does our Certified Coaches discount code work on this report?

Austin Suellentrop 22:30
Sure does. It works on, so the Top 5 code, the upgrade code, the 34 code, or any of the 3 ways we sell the Manager report. So the Manager report by itself; the Manager report bundle with the 34, or the Manager report bundle with the 34 and the Digital Team Activities Guide. If you buy that bundle together, your code applies to any of those 3 as well.

Jim Collison 22:53
Yeah, and I think that isn't, we probably haven't made a big enough deal about that. I always recommend, if you're buying codes -- with the exception of CliftonStrengths for Students, which we know doesn't work -- if you're buying codes, make sure you're using your Certified Coaches discount in that, to make sure it's being applied properly. Of course, if you have questions, ping us. You know, from a support perspective, you can call us. There's a chat feature, not 24/7 on chat, but available during, during the day for a lot of folks. And of course you can contact us through the social channels as well if you have questions on that.

Austin Suellentrop 23:27
So I see Andrew's question here. I'd love to answer this and talk to it --

Jim Collison 23:33
So Andrew says, was the Manager report developed on a particular management-process framework? That's a really good question.

Austin Suellentrop 23:39
Great question. So one of the things, I'm going to say, "Yes and no." The -- not in terms of a managerial process, but a framework around our perspective on what we know the best managers do differently. So from, if you think about the 70-plus years of research we have on managers, what led to the development of the Q12, from an engagement perspective, what led to the publishing of books like It's the Manager; First, Break All the Rules; all these, these sort of very defined perspectives we have on what the best managers do differently. I think that was the framework we looked at, because that's what informs what is effective and sort of outcome-oriented behavior versus ineffective behavior for managers.

Austin Suellentrop 24:28
So that would be the framework we follow. We study managers in that setting. That's what sort of informs our best practices. All of the content in this report is newly written for this report. So it's not found other places. Thematically, you'll see some similar things because we have a perspective on management. We have books and courses and articles and white papers on what the best managers do differently. So that's the framework we looked at, layering on the uniqueness of what different-themed sort of talent profiles would do along that framework. So great, great question. Love that.

Jim Collison 25:05
Benson makes a good point here. He says, "Thanks, guys, I love the idea of doing the Top 5 first, but that means the cost is redundant." And that is true. "Hard to justify $20 plus $40, right, when you just" -- Do what's best for your customer, right, on this. There are multiple options. Yes, there's more expensive ways to do it and less expensive ways to do it. And you guys are all smart in figuring those things out. Do what's best at the time, working, kind of working with your customer. And, and we do realize, there isn't, there isn't always a perfect upgrade path on that where it's it's captured every single time. We know that; I get a lot of feedback around that. Do what's best for your customer.

Jim Collison 25:45
Austin, another question I got, and Amy alluded to it a little bit earlier on this, as the coaches have been trying to do it. They purchase, they purchase it, and they get an email from us that has a code in it. It's -- OK, so, so now what do I do? And, and I'll just let you know, for, for, if you already have an account, just log into Gallup Access. In the upper left-hand corner is a, is a menu. And I think in that menu is a redeem code option. Just drop that down, choose it and you put the code in and it will redeem it for you and unlock that report. By the way, the Learning Center is also, I think this left menu is the most missed menu that we have that's out there. The Learning Center, where your kits for our Certified Coaches that have taken the training, that have digital access to the Digital Kits, are there as well. So make sure, Amy, you don't miss that. You'll get that code. It'll show up -- if you bought it, it'll show up in your code management so you can get it there as well. Make sure you're logged in when you do it, and then apply that code there in Gallup Access. Austin, would you add anything else to that?

Jim Collison 26:43
Yeah. So that's one of the things, if you think about the last 3 months, think back to -- I mean, it's hard to think backwards to April of this year, when we launched our code management sort of enhancements in Access. We put a lot of shortcuts, a lot of quick links to the top actions. One of the things we're looking at, but that was a, overwhelmingly a big success. We've got great feedback that that helps streamline the experience. There's still more work to be done. And we know that.

Jim Collison 27:10
So one of the things we're looking at is, How do we make that redeem-code process more top-of-mind, easy to click, easy to get to right away? So that's something we're working on is, is continuing to make that as simple and streamlined as possible. It is inherently one of the challenges we have when we have one platform that our consumers use, our coaches use, our enterprise clients use, right? There are going to be some situations like this. It gives us a lot of economies of scale to build great tools in a broad way. But some of the sort of drawback is you have default settings that don't always make a lot of sense for certain use cases. So we are, we're working to streamline that. I think you can expect by the end of the year an enhancement to allow us to make that easier.

Jim Collison 27:56
Justin is trying to rival Lisa Feldman on questions, and so we'll bring him in. Nice job, Justin -- I'm just, I'm trying to start a rivalry. "Regarding the package with the Digital Teams Kit" -- this is the the Teams Activity Guide that he has in there. What do you suggest for a team? One team member buys it with the kit and the other members buy it without? That is, I hadn't thought through that scenario. But, you know, the having the kit for a team, Austin, some, some thoughts on that? Again, I would say what works best for the team. But any thoughts on this?

Austin Suellentrop 28:25
OK, dream scenario, the manager would have it. Dream, like that's, that Team Activities Guide is designed to be manager-led. Right? So if you were to think about pie-in-the-sky, perfect scenario, that's where I would lead is have the manager get it so the manager can lead the activities with, with the team. But in terms of reality, understanding what's the, what's the culture of this team -- is there a champion on that team who's really leading the strengths effort and it's not the manager? They should have it, so they can get in there and use it whenever, whenever possible. So that would be my take. Feel free to do what's best -- always feel free to do what's best for your client and your team. But I think that it was designed with the manager in mind, that the manager would be the one with the team.

Jim Collison 29:04
Yeah, it's a good, it would be associated, and that's probably the right way if you want to do it in the bundle: have the manager buy it on their account, so they have access to it through our LMS system. Lorin asks a good question. And she's, they're a current Gallup client, so thank you, Lorin, for that. "After buying the 34 report, the cost of the manager report's very pricey," right. "Any thought to making it an add-on? I can't get my leaders to buy in. I was able to get a few." Any thoughts on that, Austin?

Austin Suellentrop 29:30
Yep. So when buying in, if you're looking at buying in bulk, we do have bulk discounts for all of our clients when looking at large orders. Lorin, so Lorin, I'd ask, if you, if you're OK with it; if you want to, we can connect directly and talk through your situation and sort of your unique sort of deal. We are -- again, we're a month into the launch of this. Right? So we are absolutely gathering feedback on every aspect of how it's working, how it's not working. And we'll, we'll always be willing to pivot and adjust accordingly. So I do think we have unique things we can do with our, with our clients directly. But I'd love to connect with you one on one. And we can talk about your unique situation.

Jim Collison 30:06
Yeah, if you get in that, don't forget, if you get in that situation, client or coach, and you just need a little help, send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Great way, we'd love to kind of talk about it before, before you go, you know, before you go to do that, we may have some options for you. It's just good to discuss it. And if you have some questions for me -- Austin, one of the things, I'm a little, I should be hesitant in saying this, but one of the things I've done post-Summit is try to connect a lot more frequently and a lot faster with our Certified Coaches just via Zoom or Facebook. I've actually been doing Facebook calls, which most people go, "I didn't even realize you could do a video call on Facebook!" Which it's super convenient to get it done, to kind of answer those questions. Because we get some of these blanket statements, sometimes some of these blanket questions and you're like, "Well, I don't know, it kind of depends."

Jim Collison 31:00
So if you, if you are a customer, and you have a Gallup rep, they're really the best source for you. Go back, go back to them and run these questions by. If you, if you're a Certified Coach, then I'm here for you. So send me a, send me a note; ping me on IM; track me down on Twitter; follow, find me on LinkedIn, whatever it takes. Send -- and my watch is spying on me now, reading things back to me. Austin, anything -- I think we've gotten through most of our questions from the chat room. Oh, Ali asks, this is a good one. So "What is a large order? Just trying to get a sense of, is it 50, 100, 500? I've never asked but maybe I should have!" And yeah, what do we consider, when we think "bulk," what do we, what do we consider bulk?

Austin Suellentrop 31:44
So that, this is one of those things where it's always gonna be, it's gonna be different sort of situation to situation. But you know, if we think about this report, aimed at managers, right, so if you were thinking about a bulk order of strengths assessments in general, like 34 reports, that's, that's for a universal audience, right. That could be applied to anybody. So a bulk order that is larger in scale, when we look at a bulk order of Manager reports, we know that the audience of who managers are is narrower. It's a smaller population. So a bulk order of Manager reports may be smaller. So it may make sense in a bulk order of 100 Manager reports, whereas it may be 1,000 regular strengths reports, if that makes sense. So I do think that's where having a conversation with us makes a lot more sense to talk about your unique situation. That's, that's what I would say is my best --

Jim Collison 32:39
Yeah, it's always best to talk. I'm always hesitant on putting that number out there too, because it's never exactly, you know, it's never an exact number. So if you, you, your organization, maybe you're going to do a big, you're a Certified Coach, and you're going to do a big event of some kind. Call us. I mean, send us an email. Let us know; we can get somebody to help and kind of kind of work with that. George makes, has a good question around "other manager-centric reports or books." George, I think we've worked really hard this spring to overwhelm you with -- the wellbeing book is out; CS for Manager report is out. We just spent a bunch of time with the CliftonStrengths Summit. We redesigned the Dashboard, which hopefully you've gotten a chance to go out and see the new Strengths Dashboard, which, Austin, is, I mean, I've been doing this a long time. The new report -- that new design? My favorite of all time, like, I just, I really like what's out there. As we peek ahead, besides the webcasts that I've already talked about with Mike McDonald coming up here in July and August, as you think about the rest of the year, forecast a little bit for me. What are you excited about? Where are we hoping to go here with our coaching community between now the end of the year?

Austin Suellentrop 33:47
Man, when we, when we started this year, I knew the first half of the year was gonna be, was going to be about following through on things we had in the hopper, right. It was, it was launching the the Dashboard redesign. It was getting the book out. It was launching the Manager report. And then the second half of the year, what gets me excited, it's gonna, it's not going to, I don't think you'll see as many big, huge shiny things as we had the first half of the year. But it's our opportunity to continue on, on the feedback loop, on -- one of the things we've gotten feedback on the last 6 months to a year that we need to continue to execute on. So it'll be a larger number of smaller things, if you will. Right. So thinking about continuing to enhance the code-management experience; following through on those, those last couple things that maybe didn't make it into our first update --

Jim Collison 34:34
The last, the last mile, so to speak.

Austin Suellentrop 34:36
Yeah, yeah, sort of. We've got that on the map. So we're in the process of mapping out. I see there's questions about like Strengths Based Leadership and other reports and other things. Look, this report we just launched is validating a thought we had in the market that there was interest in this kind of, in these kinds of tools. So we're talking and we're exploring what's the future the reporting suite look like for strengths, right? I think that, you know, exploring -- are there additional reports that we can, that we can create? Are there additional roles we want to learn more about? That, that's where we are now; that's what the second half of the year is going to be. You can expect probably more focus groups from us around ideating and helping us narrow our focus on where we should be taking things.

Austin Suellentrop 35:21
So that gets me really, really excited. A lot of translations work in the second half of the year. Because we knew there's a backlog of things during COVID that didn't get, didn't get done on that front. So those are the kinds of things that get me excited. We've got enhanced subscription options in Access that we're still working on, that are coming sometime in the second half of this year, to be able to provide a more sort of tailored experience for our coaches inside of Access. So all these things that get me really excited. I think it's hard when you have something so big and tangible as a Manager report, where there's now a new thing in the world that we can be leveraging, that the second half of the year is going to naturally be a little bit less big and shiny, and a little bit more a bunch of little things that add up.

Jim Collison 36:07
I think we'll wrap it with this question. And I couldn't do it without a question from Lisa. So she says, "We can't really talk about developing managers unless we invoke Strengths Based Leadership," right, that book that's out there. "If someone has done the Manager report, can they also get their Strengths Based Leadership report with the Strengths Based Leadership code?" which is in the book. I get a lot of questions that you can't buy that separately; you have to buy the book for that and apply that code. But they are exclusive from each other. In other words, I can have one without the other; I can have them both; or I can have neither, right?

Austin Suellentrop 36:36
Yep. They are distinctly different. Again, the Manager report -- super tactical, manager role, day-to-day life of a manager. Strengths Based Leadership -- more aspirational, really about the 4 Needs of Followers and really filters through those, through that lens. So they manage completely differently. So yes, you can have one without the other; you can have both. Absolutely. Right now, it is current -- I say "right now," it is currently only available through purchasing a book. That's one of the things we are talking about and looking at is what's the future of that look like? Is there a, is there a way for us to make it easier to get that out to the, to the world.

Jim Collison 37:12
Austin, can't you just snap your fingers and have that available -- jeez! Listen, it's a lot of work to do, to create a report. And we spent a year getting the Managers report where it's at. The good news is I think, with anything we're going to do in the future, you might want to join us for the July 21 -- for our Certified Coaches -- for the, Austin's gonna come back in the middle of July and we're gonna talk a little bit, some more about the future. I'm not, not saying we have anything to announce or release, but you might want to come -- I'm just kind of saying. So some good opportunities there, I think, Austin, to kind of keep, kind of keep folks in the loop. Both you and I are looking at chat to see if there's any final questions out there.

Jim Collison 37:52
But I think, I think this kind of, kind of wraps it, Austin. Congratulations to you. I mean, this has been an enormous effort on your part to get this done. It's a monumental effort to, to do what we just did to get this report done, on top of everything else that's happening. And so congratulations! You got it done during the pandemic. Like that's, like, that's a miracle in itself. Right, I just think, and so we're excited to have this report in your hands. We're excited for you to be able to use it as a tool in your coaching. We're excited for the transformations that's coming out of it. I'm excited -- Austin, it changed the way I looked at my job a little bit, as I started reading through this and saying, as a community manager, that's, that's my, kind of my title, how does Arranger, like, you know, how does that play? And some of those items in there, I'll be honest, I haven't even got off Arranger yet. Like, I haven't even looked at Woo, which is surprising, right?

Jim Collison 39:18
But there's so much richness, and not just, like, don't be a data junkie on this one. Don't read it and say, "I've done it." Like read it and say, "How am I gonna do this? And how am I, how am I really going to apply this to the things that I'm doing?" And so I haven't really spent much time. We gloss over it, and I know we don't call this the Top 10 report, but it is a Top 10 report. So there's that -- we got asked that question endlessly for the last couple years. "When are you going to do Top 10? I wish you had Top 10! Why don't you have Top 10?" Well, we have Top 10 for you. There you go. Congratulations!

Austin Suellentrop 39:13
Well, Jim, I appreciate, like I'm proud to be a part of the team. And I'm proud to work with people, you know, as passionate about strengths and helping, helping change workplaces in the world as I am. I think the thing I'll add to everybody who's listening is we are only a month into the launch of this. Like we only have a month worth of use cases to really study and dissect and share best practices around. One of the things as, as Jim being the community manager, me being the sort of the, the guy leading the effort here, we will be soliciting feedback. Like we will be coming to you at the 60-, 90-day mark, the 6-month mark: "Hey, how are you using this? What's resonating? What's not resonating?" so that we can better inform the best practices we share, right? I think that's the thing I want you all to know is we will be asking you for feedback on this.

Austin Suellentrop 40:11
Because we want to give you time to go play with it, go use it, experiment. And that way we can document what's working out there and better sort of hone all of our skills around how we use this. So thank you for the opportunity, Jim, to come and share with the community. Thank you everybody out there. Look, this started, the -- what you see in this report started in about 12 different iterations ago, and it iterated over focus groups and feedback over the last year. So very excited. You all played a big role in that. So thank you, Jim.

Jim Collison 40:40
Really born out of the work that we did with It's the Manager, right? I mean, as we think, we launched that book that really kind of shook a lot of people's worlds and like, Oh, my gosh, we really need to pay attention here. And so I think coming out of It's the Manager and a lot of things that we learned there. George says, and I'll kind of say this on the way out: "More on Strengths Based Leadership?" George, all of Season 3 of Theme Thursday is all Strengths Based Leadership. So we, it's already done. It's done for you. You can binge on it all weekend. I think we have, I think we have some 40 episodes, maybe, because we covered domains on that as well. And so head out to view Season 3 of Theme Thursday, and you can binge all weekend. I'll expect a book report from you on Monday. With that, we want to, we want to remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we have available. I mentioned Gallup Access. You can go to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths and sign in; that's a probably the easiest way, take you right to your Strengths Dashboard. That resource -- gallup.com/certifiedcoach for our Certified Coaches -- it's got that list of things, including the manager, you know, the, that Implementation Guide (PDF download) that is available there. If you don't know where it's at, maybe today would be a good day to click through all those resources that are available for you. I think some of you, we've probably buried some of our best-kept secrets in there. So make sure that you're going through it as well. For coaching, master coaching or to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, maybe you're listening and you're like, How do I do this? Send us an email: coaching@gallup.com and we can get some information out to you. Stay up to date on all the things I mentioned -- some future webcasts. Head out to gallup.eventbrite.com and they're all listed there. We have a bunch. Austin, did you know are now doing Called to Coach in 7 languages? How cool is, how cool is that? So Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, English -- I think I'm missing one -- they're are available out there, and, and get them, you know, head out to gallup.eventbrite.com. Best of all, maybe share it with your clients that are in those languages as a resource for them. And we're excited to bring that to you as well. Don't forget, I think you have like 79 days to use your Summit pass to get the learning materials there. I don't, it breaks my heart when there's a week to go or a day to go or an hour to go, and you say, "Can you extend it?" Well, let's get to it right now. So get out there this weekend and gallupatworkcom. There's a 2021 Summit; click on that log in with your credentials that you did there, and get watching those breakouts. They were fantastic. You can follow us on any social platform just by searching "CliftonStrengths." And we want to thank you for joining us today. We'll see you back whenever we see you, and we'd love to see you for all of these. Thanks for coming out today. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Austin Suellentrop's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Communication, Activator, Futuristic, Belief and Positivity.