CliftonStrengths® for Managers Report: Everyone Manages Something

The name of the report is CliftonStrengths for Managers. But what if you're not a manager? Turns out, everyone manages something. Whether it's being a parent, coaching a sports team, participating in a community organization or helping your team at work achieve its goals, you can apply the reservoir of insights you get from the CliftonStrengths for Managers report to your daily life. Learn how the report gives you powerful life tools for realistic goal-setting and partnering with someone to find discovery, growth and success, including the implications for your engagement and wellbeing. Mike McDonald joins the webcast for the last part of a 5-part series to help you leverage the report for all of your leadership roles.

Gallup Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 9, Episode 36. This is Part 5 of a 5-part series. Access Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the series on the CliftonStrengths for Managers report.

 

The report can create an entry point into not just getting more work done in my traditional role in what I'm paid for, but creating better outcomes, arriving at goals in any single space that I occupy.

Mike McDonald, 12:58

Including others in setting goals and explaining the consequences of not meeting goals, we would say, drives that notion of goals being realistic.

Mike McDonald, 20:47

If ... I have a partner ... I'll try -- I'll say "Yes" ... instead of "No." I'll probably try things I wouldn't have before. And inevitably, if I try things I didn't before, I'm going to find discovery, growth and success.

Mike McDonald, 42:27

Jim Collison 0:00

I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on August 9, 2021.

Jim Collison 0:18
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. And with the CliftonStrengths for Managers report, that's never been more important. If you're listening live, we'd love to have you join us in our chat room. If you're on our live page, there's just a link right above me there. It'll take you to the YouTube instance, and then sign in with your Google account and join us in chat. If you're listening after the fact -- and we get a bunch of these every day now, it seems like -- you can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube. There's actually a Subscribe button over in that corner. And that you'll get notifications whenever we do a live event. Dr. Mike McDonald is our host today. He works as a Senior Workplace Consultant with me at Gallup. And Mike, always great to have you, and great to have you on a Monday. Welcome back to Called to Coach!

Mike McDonald 1:10
For all the reasons that I can count and more, Jim, Monday with you and talking about the CliftonStrengths for Managers report, I think that's it. I think that's this -- I just, I can't even dare to dream.

Jim Collison 1:23
Pretty dynamite, if you have -- well, thanks. It's great to be with you. And it's a great way to start the week. I just always -- folks gonna be listening to this throughout, you know, different times. But it's always great to do it first thing and get your week started right. Mike, we launched the CliftonStrengths for Managers report. So if somebody is coming in, this is the first, first webcast they've listened to, this is Part 5 of a 5-part series we've kind of walked through, using it as a coach; using it and coaching managers with it. Today we're going to talk a little bit about, It's for everyone, and how to use it in that. Austin came on twice; talked a little bit about and how to use it, both from a launch perspective, and then he spent some time working our way through it. So lots of materials as -- this is the first one, don't, don't stop! You can, they can all be listened to in different orders. But -- so we can continue to, you can continue to listen here.

Jim Collison 2:15
But Mike today, I'm particularly excited because when this thing launched, I had this thought, you know, it's really for everyone. Like it says it's for managers. And that has been, for us, it's been great to launch a report that's role-specific, and I think we're gonna, we've had so much success with this Manager report. Keep your eyes open in the future; there may be some additional roles coming as we think about this. So as we slice this data by role, right, and we look specifically at managers, it's been great to kind of then drill in. And you spent a ton of time with the resources in that Managers report.

Jim Collison 2:49
By the way, you can, if you don't have that Managers report, it's just an add-on to your account. So go to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths, and you can purchase it there to add it on. Top 10 in nature; it's got the Top 10 available plus a bunch of resources. Mike, before we get started, though, you worked on this. You've gone through the launch with me. We launched it May 27. Any thoughts on the report itself? Any things we've learned just from what we've heard from the community? And then we'll launch into this idea of Everybody Manages Something.

Mike McDonald 3:21
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Jim. I'd love to reemphasize a couple points that seem to be what everyone is appreciating in the marketplace for the traditional, I guess, reception or for the traditional audience or the intended audience. But I think we met, I think we hit the mark that we were looking for, Jim. We were getting a lot of confirmation about the language and the tone of the report. I know Austin talked about this. I know you and I have talked about this, about we get less assumptive about who a person is in this report, knowing that they've already gone through, you know, ideally, coaching; that they've already seen their full 25-page Full 34 report; and that they've explored and unpacked really their self-awareness. Now we just specifically get into that identity around the role of being a manager.

Mike McDonald 4:08
And so we, you know, we lead with an assumption: that they've got some tailwind behind them in that self-awareness and get more accelerated, I would say, into the application. You could see, even in the, even in the tone that's set for the Top 10 strengths, just bam, bam, bam, you know, right out, right 1 through 10 power-phrased statements that just hit the center of who you actually are. And it's almost like you have to talk the report out of that being who you are, rather than being talked into who you actually are. So it's a little bit of a flip that way. Very direct, you know, we know managers like to get straight to the point, right. So, you know, let's not delay; let's not tarry; let's not belabor the point. Let's just get right at it.

Mike McDonald 4:51
So a lot of the language and tone starting off about why you succeed, why you might struggle is, is led to with that type of attitude. And then the action items, really thinking about how the report operationalizes the person through those action items. And again, you'd almost have to look at those action items and talk yourself out of those things being useful to you rather than talking yourself into those things being useful to you. So again, you know, whether those things, you know, we're not trying to be prescriptive, but we do know a thing or two about managers. And certainly, we have the advantage and the head start of people who have, again, already gone through that full 25-page Full 34 report. So, but the action items get a lot of buzz, Jim. I know that was something that got your attention, but, you know, through, and through the distillation of the entire report, getting it down again: This is what managers want to do; like, how do we move something? Let's, let's set something in motion. And the report helps accelerate that.

Jim Collison 5:28
I've been working through the report myself. Arranger, Woo, Maximizer, Communication, Activator are my Top 5. I -- has been -- spent some time over the last couple weeks thinking through this Maximizer. And I always think of it in terms of the productivity I have at work, but I've also been trying to think of it in the context of as being a dad, as being a father of 5. And we have a lot, I mean, having Arranger doesn't, doesn't hurt either in this Arranger-Maximizer context. I've often thought of it in the context of myself, but I'm beginning to think, How can I use that Arranger-Maximizer for my, for my kids, right? How can I use that for the, in the work in the future here with the grandkids?

Jim Collison 6:30
And so it got me thinking, like, you know, this report's just not just cause I manage things. I manage the community; I don't manage anybody directly at Gallup at this point, but I have a, I have a lot of community management going on. Certainly easy to apply there.

Jim Collison 6:43
But it got me thinking, like, everybody manages something. And, and, you know, whether that's a, you're on a board; you know, you're part of the PTA; you're managing a soccer team or football team, depending on where in the world you are, you, you know, you, we've got, we've got these Influencing responsibilities. We've got, we all have these things that we influence. And I almost, and for a lot of folks, if they're like, "Well, I'm not a manager. I don't need the report." Yeah, but I think we all have things that we influence in some ways. And so I really want to dive in a little bit to the "Why" on this, how, Mike, how could everybody use this for those things that they influence? Get us started a little bit around, that you've thought through kind of a framework for this. So get us started in thinking about that.

Mike McDonald 7:29
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Jim, I was just writing this down. I've been thinking through this. You know, I love our tagline about "Everybody needs a coach." Right? But then you have, you just nudged up right against it with this notion of Everybody manages something. And I love it, like I, you know, I'm on record for it in a couple of our conversations, but I think that really captures the center of it. And I think it just reveals to us how much, you know, and I see Nate's, you know, commentary in the chat, how much, you know, of the verb and the noun of managing and being a manager we actually get into, right. And, and I think there's some revelation there where we can start to reposition the report in a really multifaceted way so that it's, it's not so role-specific.

Mike McDonald 8:12
And again, I know -- we designed it with the role specificity in mind that we're, you know, we know the emphasis of that, of managers and team leaders in the world and the workplace. But I think there's a versatility to it that you cause us to unpack, which doesn't, you know, which, which makes us, what would I say, I think reveals to us about all of the roles that you described, in addition to the traditional sense of what the report was structured for. So regardless of how we get there, I think there is a unbelievable amount of insight. And I think what you're doing is causing us to think outside the box and to look at this from a different angle.

Mike McDonald 8:46
So I love the tagline. I love the center of it and the attitude. I think our, you know, the the operationalization of our conversation now is what do we actually do, you know, beyond just looking at it in a different way and being intrigued by it? So a couple of things that I thought through, you know, if we just think about, Jim, even the translation that you had normalized it through in your own individual perspective: boards, being a parent, being a grandparent, being a spouse, being a member of a community, a church, a school -- whatever those varieties of roles are, we all, to your point, are managing something, right?

Mike McDonald 9:19
And so when I broke this down, I was just thinking about it in the most standardized units of under -- of thought and what the report might be useful towards. But first off, I think the report helps us just be very practical. We're gonna talk a lot about what "practical" means as we manage to what's practical. Obviously, people -- and that's the, it's one of the constants, too. I'm going to insult our intelligence by talking about people. But in the manager reference, people are teams, right? Or we talk about employees in the workplace or associates in the workplace. So, but, but in our lives, we're talking about constituencies, stakeholders, could be grandkids, could be board members, you know, etc. And then I think if we use the report really well, I think it helps reveal to us even additional layers of depth to purpose and priority, like the really meaningful things in our lives. And we'll talk about that.

Mike McDonald 10:14
But just as a teaser there, just imagine, for each of us, just if we really sat down and read through this report and used it as a self-diagnostic, how much would it reveal to us about the things that are important to us in our own lives? Right? How we learn, how we grow, who are the people that help us accomplish those meaningful and important things? And then how do we actually break them down into practical best steps? So Jim, I'd love to have us an attempt, we could crowdsource this; we got a lot of smart people on this call. But it'd be great to rally our collective intelligence and to put this all together.

Mike McDonald 10:46
But a couple of stats, you know, and I always like to lead off with that framework of the empirical, the emotional and the experiential. But, you know, goals -- we're gonna, we're gonna use goals as the point of reference that really unifies this notion of Everybody manages something, right. And it could be me trying to get my daughter to make her bed; to me trying to get my team to actually, you know, increase revenue hours by X percent in 2021 -- and everything in between. The goals is the, it's the unifier, right. It's one of the standard representative features of managing.

Mike McDonald 11:20
And so a couple of data points I think that put a backdrop to this is by mid-February -- you all know this, but I think it's a, you know, you all lead to and help coach to goals as much as anyone out there -- but by mid-February, for context, by mid-February, 80% of people who have set New Year's resolutions will have abandoned them, right? No matter how large, no matter how small, they're gone. In fact, one of the most embarrassing questions you can ask somebody is what their New Year's goals were for 2021 at this point, and then watch their face flush red!

Jim Collison 11:50
We're midway, though, you can still recover!

Mike McDonald 11:53
That's right! It's never too late! It is never too late.

Jim Collison 11:56
We got 5 months left to go as we're recording this now. You can still get to them. But the point, point taken there, right?

Mike McDonald 12:03
Yeah. We're not great. We're not great. And, but the report can can tell us something about How do we get there? So I think the practical nature of the report can show up. U.S., when we look at the U.S. individuals, if we think about the workplace -- but I would translate this to ourselves -- this is where I want to lean on a keyword "realistic." And Jim, I think you had caught that in the chat. But "realistic." People in the workplace who agree they have realistic performance goals are over twice as likely to also strongly agree they have a healthy work-life balance. I think that's worth the pursuit from any angle, Jim.

Mike McDonald 12:36
So, you know, for any of us thinking about our roles or the people that we're coaching, that notion of realistic goals is obviously paramount. And the fact that it's got such a strong influence on the work-life balance that we feel, I love that integrated aspect now -- that we do have a legitimate entry point to start talking about lives. And I think to your, to your callout, the report can create an entry point into not just getting more work done in my traditional role in what I'm paid for, but creating better outcomes, arriving at goals in any single space that I occupy. So starting off with, like, you know, 80% abandon goals; twice as likely to have a healthy work-life balance based on realistic goals. And I think the report helps us understand that: How do we break down goals in a very practical step-by-step, pragmatic fashion? And so that's important for us.

Mike McDonald 13:29
The highest arc of this, if we really do this well, you know, and I, again, as we think about the translation of the report beyond the workplace and thinking about wellbeing, high engagement, high wellbeing, when they're both part of a person's experience, it's profound. There's right now about 12% of the U.S. who can say they have high engagement and high wellbeing. That 12% who can say that they're high in both of those levels, 12% are living that life well-lived, like, they are thriving optimally. So the pursuit of that, and again, if we use the report as a great invitation, hey, qualify yourself as managing someone, managing things, but how do we use this to your own self-benefit to actually live a great life?

Jim Collison 14:16
Are you saying, Mike, that we may be able to turn these on our own wellbeing? In other words, I'm managing, I'm influencing my own wellbeing, and so turn wellbeing into the object to be managed. And say, OK, now that I know that, I've got these steps I need to take. How can I take my Top 5 or my Top 10 and begin to point it towards this idea of wellbeing and managing that? Is that what you're saying?

Mike McDonald 14:39
It is. I, you know, I think what we, you know, it's funny when we talk to a lot of clients -- and you all, again, have this point of reference -- but when you start talking to people about engagement or wellbeing, it almost instantly can frustrate them because they're like, "I have no idea. How do I make that tangible? How do I make that real?" Like it's like telling the wind to stop blowing, you know? And what the report does, and what our coaching does, is helps translate that to, again, standardized units of discovery and understanding and application about, Oh, now I know how to operationalize wellbeing on my own behalf. As I involve outcomes, I involve others in meaningful and productive ways. So the targets, and this is what's so important about this will, you know, this gives us a target to hit and a way to actually hit it, which puts people in that span of influence.

Jim Collison 15:29
Well, and I think is probably the minimum layer of influence, when we think about that the, in the groups that we are in, in the friend groups that we are in, we all have an influence, whether that's on Facebook, or in face to face, or however that's working right now, as we record this in August of 2021. You know, we still have some levels of social distancing, and some of those things that are going on, right. But we all have, we all influence each other. And I, and I think this would be a great opportunity to help others with their wellbeing. In other words, in those groups, how do we influence healthy wellbeing habits in the groups that we have? Guess what? You're influencing that group that you're in, right? And so I think great opportunities to begin to gently influence, gently lead, gently lead by example, right, and push through those things. And then do it in a strengths-based way, right, do it in a way it's most effective for you.

Mike McDonald 16:22
Yeah, could not agree more. You know, one of the things, Jim, is, you know, it sounds dangerously cliche, but we all know this to be true as coaches: It's really hard to create something for someone else when you're not consuming it for yourself. And I think that's a struggle, because sometimes it feels a little selfish or self-preferential. So, but, but we know, again, if we're gonna give this away, I keep going back to the tagline, I think the, you know, that I give you and Maika so much credit for: How do we give this away? Well, we have to be able to consume it ourselves first. And so I love the cycle, right? The rising tide is going to lift both boats, and nothing's coming at anyone's expense.

Mike McDonald 16:59
And Jim, that takes us to, you know, really what I'd like to talk about first and foremost, when we think about other people. And when you had called this out about Everybody manages something, well, everybody manages someone too. We're managed; we manage others in many ways. That actually gets ideally requalified as partnership, collaboration, right. But nonetheless, there's influence there to your callout. And I think what Lisa had put in the chat, right, influence being a keyword, but when it comes to managing others, I want us to think about the report. And I called out a couple of centerpieces to this: goals, and beyond just goals, realistic, realistic performance goals, right. And I think sometimes we can get really aspirational, really broad and almost breathtaking, in, in how big we are and how much we want to accomplish. And inevitably, that can overwhelm us or defeat us before we start.

Mike McDonald 17:53
And so specifically when we think about managing others, this notion of realistic goals -- "realistic's" the keyword there. And I wanted to break this down for us, as we think about how we use the report to arrive at realistic goals. So again, this could be the point of reference: my daughter making her bed as a daily habit, or my team, everything in between my team getting X percent higher revenue goals, revenue hours, this particular year. But one key feature -- what translates to realistic, one key feature is including those people in the goals. Right. And I think the report helps us to create more effective conversations in the action items.

Mike McDonald 18:31
There are some terrific questions -- guided, suggested, dangerously close to prescriptive. Ask these questions; they'll activate not just the strength for you, but they'll actually give the output of that strength away to someone else. So including others in setting goals. Our research would say that when the conversation includes that person around their goal setting, they're more than twice as likely to say that those goals are realistic than when they're not included. So that -- one second, Jim --

Jim Collison 19:02
Yeah. We'll, we'll have Roy edit that out for you. You'll sound better.

Mike McDonald 19:08
That Monday start got a little rocky. I thought I could do it without having to hit the Pause button. All right. Thank you, Roy. Smooth. Well, let me repeat that. So our research says that those who say when the conversation includes them around their goal setting, they're more than twice as likely to say those performance goals are actually realistic than when they're not included, right. So, so play that in reality. I don't just go to my daughter and say, "Make your bed every day." Right? I unpack it, right? There's some context around that. What does that simple act and habit cause her to do?

Mike McDonald 19:45
Same thing with my team. Like, we don't want to just transactionally just ratchet up extra work for the sake of extra work. What does it actually mean? The second feature, Jim, that then actually causes something to be considered realistic is that we clearly understand the consequences of not meeting those goals. Not just the absence or presence, but, but both. So we know that the consequences of not meeting performance is really powerful. And again, this seems to be the key reference point, but it's twice as likely when we, when we understand clearly the consequences, positively or negatively, we're more than twice as likely to say that performance goals are realistic.

Mike McDonald 20:19
So the main thing here is that we're connecting the action to the outcome, right. And I think what, what, really what we're probably doing that this team knows about is putting that span of influence and ownership back in the person, right. We're not going to hold hands; we're not going to micromanage. We're going to clearly outline, Here's what success looks like; what's at stake if we meet it or not; and then leave it up to them to go and grow. So those two features: including others in setting goals and explaining the consequences of not meeting goals, we would say, drives that notion of goals being realistic.

Jim Collison 20:55
I think a great example of that is in our fitness center at Gallup when we would do team -- you know, fill in the blank -- Corporate Cup; Trek up the Tower. You know, we had, we had a May Day 5k -- fitness activities for us that we would, we would come together as a group, set goals. And I remember being on teams of folks -- I'm not a runner, but I ran for the, for 10 years, from 40 to 50. And, and we'd set those goals together. We'd talk about them often. We would remind each other that we had them. Like it was, we didn't all have the same goal, by the way. This wasn't all of us trying to run a sub-3-hour marathon. I mean, for me, I just wanted one sub-4-hour, right. And so I just continued to work. But you were a part of that.

Jim Collison 21:40
And we worked these, we worked these community or these group goals together -- all having different goals, but all influencing each other in a way to, to hold each other accountable on those, on those goals. Constantly asking: How's that coming? How's that going? Haven't seen you in the fitness center in a while. Haven't -- how's, you know, those kinds of, those pieces. So that 2x number is not an -- is not a hard one to kind of grasp when you know we're doing this together, that that productivity goes up. Right, the success of that goes up pretty easily. Mike, Lisa was asking, Where do we find those numbers?

Mike McDonald 22:18
Yeah, there is a, there's an article out there. I'll make sure that, Jim, that I resuscitate that and bring it up. But yeah, this, there is an article out on the, on gallup.com. It'll be well worth your pursuit to unpack all this notion of realistic goals. It's terrific work.

Jim Collison 22:34
Let's, let's continue as we think about then, so "managing others to manage ourselves." Like what does that, what does that mean?

Mike McDonald 22:42
Well, and so that's the other piece of insight. I think, as many of these reports, you know, can, can be used well is to provide a mirror, right? So Jim, just imagine, and I was kind of testing this out on myself, you know, this really helps us put together a plan. Like we can actually take the content of the report, if I, if I look at it from a self-diagnostic standpoint, I can self-select and customize the content of the report to reveal the best of me and to put it into a operationalized plan -- a step-by-step plan to manage myself.

Mike McDonald 23:16
One of the, you know, key lead-ins to all of this is, Where do I find success? Where do I find struggle? So how does that then lead me on to how I take the plan forward and aim it at a target? Right? So when we think about developing a plan, here's things we know, right? People experience meaningful career growth when they consider what they find enjoyable and why. You all know this. But the report I think helps us put a plan to that. It's more than me just, "Oh, this is where I get energy," or "This is where I get, you know, a lot of effect," but what do I actually do? And how can I do more of it? So the "How" comes out of the report; that, that is an advantage, right. When we think about thinking through the lens of a manager, we start to get to the "How."

Mike McDonald 24:02
So if we use the report well, it starts to reveal aspects of our priorities, aspects of our, of our purpose, where do we get the most and least energy? But I think what it does is it allows us to create those natural pathways with intentionality. And, and keeping with the theme of practical; keeping with the theme of, of realistic goals, helping us identify not necessarily what does this singularly and overarching outcome look like? But what's the most effective first step look like and the most effective second step?

Mike McDonald 24:36
So Jim, I'll go back to your metaphor, right, of a marathon. Yeah, we want to finish it. Maybe we have a certain target time that we want to hit. But maybe as much as anything, rather than looking at it as a marathon, maybe it's a series of 100-yard dashes. And the report helps us break down into tangible, realistic goals, How do we string together a series of action items or decision points that come out of the report and manage something, manage other people, manage ourselves?

Jim Collison 25:07
Yeah, you know, we often, we use that metaphor a lot, like, you know, "Life's a marathon, not a sprint." And now you got me kind of thinking, though, there are moments, right, where we need, we kind of do need to just pick it up and sprint through a section of this, to be like, OK, I know I'm gonna need to get through, you know. And you know, you've, I think you've run this before -- the Lincoln Marathon's got this hill, that, at the clubhouse, right. At the, and you, you come up this, and everybody dreads it, you know. You're, and, and I just tried to attack it when I'd get there, like, Get through that thing so you can move on to the next. And so, there may be some moments where, again, to accelerate or to inspire, we can, we can get in there. I, the on that hill one time, they handed me the time -- I was running with a group that was getting a specific time, and they handed me the responsibility of holding the time flag.

Jim Collison 26:06
Now you'd think, "It's just a time flag." But that meant I was leading the group. Now they were still doing the pacing, but I was, I was physically holding that flag as a leader of the group. Well, that, that put some adrenaline in the, in the tank, right? I began to really lead out. In fact, at one point, they're like, "OK, give it back! Give it back." But it filled me with, with responsibility. It filled me with this, this, you know, this energy to get up that hill, so to speak. And so I think there are moments where we can be energized by that; where we can put on that responsibility and, to help not only those around us, but to help ourselves achieve that goal. Right?

Mike McDonald 26:49
No, well, and that, you just, I think you just described it, Jim -- the psychology behind all of it. Like you didn't want to give up the flag. Who knows what that did to your time, right? We could only imagine -- if we could, if we could take a look at the adrenaline coursing through your body at that point in time, I mean, that'd be a pretty interesting effect to study. And I think that's all of what, you know, so here's the thing. Developing that plan, you know, when we find the evidence of that success showing up with tangible outcomes and results, we find a reserve that we may not have realized otherwise.

Mike McDonald 27:22
So imagine, Jim, you getting that flag, if that was actually established on purpose, right? If you knew that at that point, that was a goal or a portion that you were striving for -- and not just what it represented to you but also what it represented to other people, right. And that starts to cascade on -- cascade itself on out, which, you know, takes us to a couple other portions of where the report can show up. But that's a great example; what you just described is perfect on this.

Jim Collison 27:47
Well, that was the same race -- as I'm coming in, Maika, I was getting, we've talked about this on Theme Thursday quite a bit. I was getting, I was really running with Maika to get her in a sub-2-hour, and it's the first time I met her really, right. So as we're coming in I'm, I'm gather, I so, I got so pumped up during that. I was gathering other people who had fallen, fallen out, you know, they had started walking, and we just -- finish with us! Like, Come finish with us! Right?

Jim Collison 28:12
And, and I think that's just a great metaphor for what we do in life all the time is that we, we have these moments of success ourselves, and we can start pulling people along with us, right? Come along! Run with me! Finish this thing with me! And so it gives us a great opportunity as we think about the outcomes of this. And, you know, we had a very clear time outcome we were trying to achieve, but I didn't start the race thinking I was -- I'm gonna pull 15 people in with me, right? But as an influencer, as a leader, it's what I wanted to do. And that responsibility helped push both me and everyone forward in the process. Right? Wasn't, nobody gave me that responsibility, Mike. It's not like I started the race with, like, Hey, could you pull the stragglers in? You know, it was, it was in the midst of life.

Jim Collison 28:57
And I think oftentimes we find ourselves in those leadership positions, unintended. And so we've got some, you know, I'm looking at my report right now, and I've got this, I'm looking at Maximizer, because that's what I'm spending some time on. And, and the very top 1 action item says, "Mention each team member's major accomplishments while you're coaching or giving feedback." Well, if I just take the coaching and giving feedback and say, "Talking to my kids," like, what if I spent some time mentioning their major accomplishments each time we talk? How powerful is that?

Mike McDonald 29:28
Right. It's, well, it's, it's incredibly powerful. We're back to, you know, so that's, that's one of the features, Jim, that we talked about with the report is it helps us have better conversations. Right? And so think about the attitude and the shift of the conversations that we can have and our ability to influence, back to Lisa's point. One of the things we know is primary to this is it helps us engage in a different dialogue. One of the 3 feature, or one of the, 2 of the 4 features that I'd like to talk about, but think about the shift in our conversations, right?

Mike McDonald 29:59
And so when we think about conversations, realistic goals, progress on goals, what that all looks like and feels like in the workplace, right? People who strongly agree they've had conversations, even within the time frame of the past 6 months, about goals and the identification of successes are almost 3 times more likely to be engaged. And we all know there's something about that ongoing dialogue. Well, I think, for some people, the capacity to influence can be limited, because they really don't know what kind of conversation is productive and useful.

Mike McDonald 30:31
Now, right, as we think about the variety of roles that you're talking to us about, we can shape and shift and target the content of those discussions to be most effective. So I love the fact that we have an output that gets created there. Turning it back into ourselves, I think that's great about -- Lisa's going to spin back credit to you, Jim. So we'll talk about influence -- good partnership there. It was her endorsement that swung me on it, though; I wasn't convinced until she said it. So the, the report, I think, also helps people -- one of the things we've been doing is having managers or people who are trying to manage things is when they go through those action items, or when they go through key features of the report, to think through each of your Top 10 strengths and who is the best partner you have, when it comes to that strength? Who is the best advocate you have, for each of our Top 10 strengths? And, and looking at the, you know, considering the revelation of what the report tells us about ourselves.

Mike McDonald 31:28
Now, it doesn't have to be a unique person for each of your Top 10 strengths. It could be one person for 4 of the 10, you know, or it could be a mix of 5 people who seem to really endorse and advocate for you on a couple. But what it does is it helps us understand -- and Jim, this is what you were just describing -- how much of our social network brings this to life. And I think that report informs and helps us think about, not just who we are as we contribute that strength to other people, but who do we need to spend time with -- that's a great sounding board for me with my Ideation? Or who is it that I've given permission with higher Maximizer than myself to kind of tell me when my Focus and Achiever are more about getting the job done than about doing the job with some standard of quality or excellence, and starting to get into some of that narrative?

Mike McDonald 32:14
At the very least, what it does, Jim, is it just helps us reveal important people in our lives and what if we spend more time around them? So when you and I talked about that tease out about, into wellbeing, right, and one of the most, you know, the one of the most powerful constructs in 5, those 5 elements of wellbeing is that that social element of wellbeing is not to be fooled with, right. But I think it's the easiest one sometimes for us to set aside because it doesn't feel like work. Right? It doesn't feel like we're actually -- you and I enjoying time together, we don't necessarily see, you know, a tangible, quantifiable product until organically or a little bit later on. But, but I think there's something for us with intentionality that we could use the report for, to really identify that -- and not just identify it, but actually do something with it.

Jim Collison 33:04
Yeah, kind of reminds me of pairing this with the board of directors, you know, that exercise that we have of identifying those. And beginning to plug the, some of those names into the, like, OK, who, because of these things, who is my accountability on this? Or who can outmaximize me? I love that kind of concept of who could outmaximize? I think I'm a pretty good Maximizer. Who could outmaximize me on this, or hold me or, or be there, right, in this? That's, man, that's a great, I could even think about adding this in when we think about the individual development plan. And I'm going through that, right, I'm identifying the, I got the goal, I'm identifying these themes. And then based on the first section of this, what I do successfully, how can I bring in some of these things to push through with the goal, right? It gives me, gives me another clear -- and the exercise I do that in, oftentimes I'm dealing with college students who have a project they need to get done. Their influence is the project. They have to complete -- the outcome then becomes the project.

Mike McDonald 34:09
Right. Right. Like yeah, do you actually, can you, now that you know what this person looks like, the name is still yet to be filled in the blank. Right? So one of the things, when you think about college, we know that having a mentor is a, is a huge shift in a college experience. So imagine this type of exercise, right? I don't know who my mentor is going to be. I just know what one looks like, based on this definition. And now I can actively seek that person out and, and knowing what success looks like. So now I'm in the driver's seat. I get to pursue and find that person who's right for me that really transforms my college experience. But without that, we, I don't, the report gives us some ignition to even start to create that awareness and to extend it on through to a transformational experience on campus.

Mike McDonald 34:53
Jim, one of the things that takes us on then too is just the ability to, when we think about managing ourselves, being engaged in dialogue in that key constituency, key stakeholder network is, is this still the inevitable managing outcomes, right? And how do we get work done through and with other people, I think, again, the report does a great job as it creates entry points for output. Being able to assemble, you know, not just a list where we're doing chores or tasks or, you know, picking up things at the grocery store, but starting to meet the mark on lists of things that have eluded us for a while now, right. Those habits that we want, do want to develop, those habits we do want to acquire. How do we actually start to manage outcomes, so to speak?

Mike McDonald 35:44
And this is where, again, I think the report, some of the exercises that we've done with it, is to help the people we're coaching think about, What could you solve for in one month? What's a habit? What's an outcome? What's a, what's a series of tasks that just has eluded you -- it's always work that feels like work? But let's take a look at what could we actually solve for, if not accomplish in one month, and pick something out. And then go through the report and customize it and look at a series, look through the action items, and just customize 4 or 5 now unique approaches from the combination of your strengths from those action items that will give you the best chance, as leading indicators of success, to actually mobilize and move that forward.

Mike McDonald 36:30
And then we do what we do in every single case, right, Jim. We get at the end of it. We have evidence that we're collecting along the way. At the end of the month, did we solve for it, or do we still have more work to do? We've studied success; we've studied the lack thereof, and we continue to operationalize that on forward. But it brings, it aims, you know, it takes us even beyond the categories of the strengths now. And we start to look at just infinite possibilities as we cross-connect different action items with other action items to get this super tailored plan towards a target of success. But what that does is it'll, it'll reveal to us, right, as we all know, our preferential route. Because, Jim, the content of your report's different than the content of mine.

Mike McDonald 37:13
Maybe mine is, I need more thought time. And that helps me actually commit and find energy in a way to follow through that I wouldn't before. Maybe for you, Jim, you spend more time with other people. And that helps give you energy and more intentionality about how you follow through on something that you hadn't before. Nonetheless, it starts to cause us to think even more differently and broadly. And again, variety of roles, because now we're opening up our lives to the report and not just getting work done as managers relative to outcomes that are traditionally associated there.

Jim Collison 37:44
Mike, it's such a great reminder, on this, to think through the outcomes. You've got me kind of thinking, you know, I've been spending some time post-, if we can say that, kind of post-COVID, postpandemic, a little bit thinking about my communication style. And, and I've told people I've had great success with both one-on-one calls, you know. Or I shouldn't say "both"; I've had, I've had the most success, when we think about, is talking to people one-on-one. It's just an area -- I have 8, you know, Developer is 8; Relator is 9; Individualization is 10. Right? I have this, this tight package at the bottom of my Top 10 that really has shown during this time. And I, the metrics I have are maybe hundreds of one-on-one calls since the Summit with people to help them individually. And I, and I, that's way more powerful. Now, this is awesome as well.

Jim Collison 38:42
And we continue to do, you know, these group conversations where we're speaking, you know, we're speaking to the planet, so to speak. But man, I've really kind of dug in and then kind of measured this -- what kind of success am I having with it? And so, that's just a, that's a great, I just -- thinking through that right now, in the context of this conversation, I had not put that together yet, that those 8, 9 and 10 were the, the power. I want, now I want to go dig into those a little bit and see some of those, and continue to say, How can I do that even better? Like how can I make that more efficient?

Mike McDonald 39:16
Yeah, I think it shifts our stance, right. And I think this is one of the trap doors that people can fall through is in a lot of cases, we just wait for the margin to magically show up for us to be able to attempt some things or to meet priorities. This now starts to recast the expectation and the capacity we can pursue those with so much more intentionality. And we all know this, right? That, you know, growth shows up, you know, relative to those goals. Or, you know, the confidence we get actually of setting a goal, making progress on it and achieving it is an incredibly powerful cycle.

Mike McDonald 39:49
And I think what it does too is, is it, you know, it helps us go back and think about, you know, it's funny. We can study success, but we can almost study anticipated success, right, as well. You know, so evidence does matter, but the anticipation of the outcome can matter as well. And I think that's where we can start to forecast, Hey, here's where my strength is gonna show up. And we can find it there at the right moment for the right contribution. And that plan and that structure now starts to put us in a position that causes us to extend effort in a way that we wouldn't have before, particularly -- I just want to go back to this, Jim, it's interesting: When we use this report well and we think about, you know, the, the partnerships, the way we extend ourselves to other people, the way other people extend themselves to us through invitation, it actually changes our perception of reality.

Mike McDonald 40:41
And so there was a study that was done a few years ago. It's the infamous "basket of potatoes" research study. And in this, it's, the lesson is really profound. What they did, Jim, is they had two different populations. And they had them estimate. So what they had is people would approach a basket of potatoes on a scale that they couldn't see how much it weighed. Right? And so Jim, if they were, in this study, you would be asked, so Jim, here's this basket of potatoes. You're going to, you're going to lift it by yourself. You're going to take it from here to there. How much do you think this basket of potatoes weighs? And so Jim, you'd give your estimate. Let's say you think, "You know what, I think it's 5.7 pounds." OK, whatever.

Mike McDonald 41:22
Mike comes up, and I was in part of the, a group where they were testing a different, different perspective around the question. They would say, Mike, same basket -- I'm looking at the same basket of potatoes that you did, Jim, but they're saying to Mike, "Hey, Mike, how much do you think this basket of potatoes weighs?" But before you give your weight estimate, we're going to have you and Casey carry it from here to there." OK. Well, Jim, you were told you were gonna lift it by yourself. I was told that Casey was going to help me lift it and carry it from point A to point B. The group, as you would anticipate -- and this is where I think the report can help us get to performance -- the group that were told that they would have help consistently estimated the weight of the basket of potatoes to be less than the group who was told they'd have to do it by themselves.

Mike McDonald 42:13
So if we use the report well in our lives, and open it up to other people with intentionality through the action plans and different components and features of it, here's what will happen, Jim. Here's why it predicts success is because if I think I have a partner, and if I think the effort is going to be less than it actually is, I'll try -- I'll say "Yes" to it instead of "No." I'll probably try things I wouldn't have before. And inevitably, if I try things I didn't before, I'm going to find discovery, growth and success in a way that's completely novel. Or I would have said, "No," but it was only on that one variable: Will I have somebody else help me? Or do I think I'll have somebody else help me? And so I love this notion of partnership and collaboration that gets through each of the three themes, driven through the report in a way that opens us up in front of us. So --

Jim Collison 43:02
Yeah, very powerful, I think, in the context of teams, then, in our friendships that we influence, right. The -- where, I always say, "Where two or more are gathered, there will be conflict." But maybe I should change that and say, "Where two or more gathered, there will be influence," in that setting, right? It gives us that we're not, we don't have to do this alone. We don't have to, this isn't a individual, you know, medal event, where -- it's a team effort, right? We're gonna share the medal. We're in the Olympics, or we just wrapped up the Olympics yesterday, I think, in Tokyo. And it gives us the opportunity to kind of compete as a team, both thinking about our own, our own mission and purpose statement -- the thing we're here for, as well as how are we adding to the larger collective with that, with that, that idea of purpose?

Mike McDonald 43:55
Yeah, I think it'll be -- one of the things I would encourage you all to do for yourselves and with your clients is, have them read through the report. Like literally read through the report, with the expectation at the end of reading the report to identify 3 or 4 either confirmed or created purpose and priority statements that would show up for them. I think there'd be so much self-discovery and examination that would show up; the filter of what really is important to each of us in our lives would be remarkable. And, and when we think about the report, there's, you know, when we find our purpose, we find a resiliency and a perseverance that we would have never understood or found before.

Mike McDonald 44:35
And it's not just about our personal performance, but it's about purpose, right? And we all know this. We've heard it from everything -- the will of the workplace, the will of the world, everything is showing up. You know, the demand for you aligning with what I was meant to do is, as an employer, as another person in my life, as a group that I selectively belong to, has never been louder than it is right now. And the point to it on the other side of that, is that the report really starts to tweak the questions we should ask of ourselves, moving way beyond, "What should I do?" to actually starting us getting into, you know, "What is, what is my capacity as a human being? What does that reveal to me, relative to the purpose that I should be pursuing?" And when we do that, we start to identify more opportunities; we identify people that put us in that spot, really, for us to realize that purpose.

Mike McDonald 45:27
So, you know, a couple of things that, you know, I think can operationalize the report again, is, you know, that if we start, you know, if we, if that report reveals to us our purpose, it also follows through in the cycle of telling us how we can arrive at and deliver on that purpose. So it really does cycle back into itself. I think a lot of people, you know, can -- we certainly know other people are using the report to go back through and either summarizing what they thought was their purpose statement, developing a new one, upgrading, you know, the one that they have, so there's a lot of wins and reflective thought and application showing up there.

Mike McDonald 46:05
But think through, if you were to think about an assignment, similar to what we just did earlier, Jim, where we went through each of our Top 10 strengths and thought about, Who is the person that brings out the best of that strength for us in our, you know, constituency or stakeholder map? How do each of your Top 10 strengths support that purpose statement that you've arrived at, or the success of your own mission that you've identified? We can architect that out. And Casey used the term earlier about the blueprint that the report can create. I think that blueprint works just as much when it thinks about, or helps us operationalize that purpose that we all aspire towards. And specifically, right, thinking about now. We've gone back through; we can connect the dots between short-term goals, long-term goals, the people who help us get there and arrival at a purpose, right, that all of our lives should stand for. So it's a great way for the report to reveal it, but then to also actually operationalize it when we connect the dots accordingly.

Mike McDonald 46:42
So you all know this, but we can actually use a report. It's got different detail, different content in a way that can just expose different facets. And I use that term "entry points" for people to do things that they weren't ever able to consider before. And it's about managing ourselves, managing others and managing outcomes. And I think that, Jim, to your callout, wraps itself around our lives as much or more so than it does anybody's specific or formal role of being a manager.

Jim Collison 47:38
Yeah, no, I'm kind of excited that you've got, now, like, my Ideation has kicked in, and I got, like, 1,000 things I want to do. And, and I think, you know, I want to, I'm gonna book some time with you when I can get this and sit down together in our partnership, and say, Hey, let's let's -- what do we have, what do we have the same? What do we have different? What are we leaning into? What's working? What kind of things? How could we sharpen ourselves over the course of 2022? What kind of things could we intentionally -- you know, your, where's Maximizer for you, Mike?

Mike McDonald 48:13
No. 7.

Jim Collison 48:14
OK, but it's, your Maximizer, and it's, you know, for me, it's 3. So your, your Maximizer does a great job of sharpening mine in leadership, like in sharpening mine in what we're doing here. And the times I've partnered with you on these, you've made me better. Like, you, in just, in the preshow conversations, in the times we get together to just chat about what we're doing, you're constantly fueling my Maximizer on this to, I've always said my Maximizer is about "more," but you drive that "better" quality to it as well. How do we make these better? How do we get them, you know, how do we make them more effective?

Jim Collison 48:51
And so I think there's some opportunities, even among ourselves, to talk about, Hey, we manage this thing called a friendship that's also at work. Right? How are we going to, how are we going to bring those together? And how could we talk about that in a way that continues to push that productivity forward?

Jim Collison 49:11
One of the other thoughts you gave me, you know, at the beginning of this show, and all the podcasts I do, I have an opening statement: "Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths," right? We have a very clear purpose statement in what we're doing here. We, you know, we interview, now that I've said it, it's hard to come in the middle of this, say it. You know, we interview both strengths coaches, independent strengths coaches and experts to tactics, insights and strategies, right? We have these 3 things that we're trying to accomplish: tactics, insights and strategies. No mistake that when we started these podcasts, we started with a mission and a purpose statement. I think it's really important that we, as individuals, we kind of have that -- that we can say, that we can repeat at the drop of a hat, "Why am I doing what I'm doing?" It's to provide tactics, insights and strategies. That's why we do this.

Jim Collison 50:04
And I think, Mike, you're super smart in saying, How do I come at this report and come out with a, with a mission statement, with a purpose statement? Well-defined, not too overarching, but gives me some direction and guidance on how I influence, right? I'd love to see, if you're listening to this and you've got a, you've put one of these together, I'd love to see those. Like, you can send me an email: jim_collison@gallup.com. Post them in the Facebook groups. I'd love to start thinking through that idea. What does that mean? If I was able to recite that on a regular basis, to know what my purpose is, how powerful could that be for what I do?

Mike McDonald 50:41
Boy, that's a great, that's a great assignment, Jim. You know, one of the things, so as we have this give-and-take here, so you were causing me to think about this, you know, as you were talking there, when we think about, I'm going to take us back to engagement. Right? Hard for me not to, but, you know, we all know this on this call -- the infamous "Best friend at work" question. And, you know, it challenges everybody, because they're like, I don't know how, because I think what they're saying more often than not, is, "I don't know how to operationalize that item." "I know how to operationalize expectations, materials and equipment, right. But how do I, 'operationalize' best friend at work?"

Mike McDonald 51:19
And as we've walked through this, this, the report, with a different angle and a different perspective, starts to call into, I think, a different appreciation and understanding of Best friend at work, in a way where it "operationalizes" it, right? Where it's showing up in partnership and collaboration, and authentically over the course of time really becoming that individual, where we can easily give that score of 5 -- not, again, not of, not as an aspirational, "I hope I have a best friend at work someday," but I have the evidence, repeated evidence of having a best friend at work here.

Mike McDonald 51:53
And so to your point, your callout about Everybody manages something, it pulls back the lens. Because I think the other thing that most organizations or teams, they restrain themselves, or they restrict themselves into only looking at Best friend at work within the working hours of the team; within the working hours of the job that they do, etc. And this just blows it wide open. Do we have a best friend? Stop. Right? Do we have best friends? And what do those best friends, you know, accomplish us to do through mission, purpose, outcomes, acquisition of even more relationships, etc. So anyway, yeah, a lot more bandwidth to this than would initially meet the eye as just a CliftonStrengths for Managers report.

Jim Collison 52:37
I think a lot of folks are like, "Well, I don't need the report because I'm not a manager." And this, that was the single, that was the single objection I wanted to overcome with this series and this webcast in particular. And, you know, we went through this a couple times together, and you've even shed more light on it with me -- and as I think about it now, I get more excited about going back to it for my own themes -- you know, unpacking, all of a sudden now, I've got this, this, this reason, this triplet at the end of my Top 10 that I want to kind of dig into a little bit, and it'll help me understand why that's been successful. But it's also will help me be better at it. Like, are there other things I could be doing to continue to be more effective? Mike, as we kind of wrap our time here, final thoughts from you on this as we, as we both wrap the series and wrap this webcast?

Mike McDonald 53:28
Yeah, Jim. So I did, I did, I did actually carve out what I called the Bottom Line to all of this. And I think the group's done a great job of really working with us through the report. And, you know, I know you and I are stretching the report and opening up some, some space in it to accommodate lots of considerations. So a lot of appreciation for the thought process of the group and just, you know, working within some of that creative space. But I, you know, to me, the Bottom Line, if I was to summarize this, you know, it's, it's really on everyone's mind, and you kind of touched on this earlier. But there's still, you know, there, I, you qualified, I could feel in your delivery, you put it an italicized kind of flourish to the reference to a postpandemic, you know. Maybe not quite there; certainly not quite as stable, you know, as things have been.

Jim Collison 54:12
Less stable than it was a couple weeks ago.

Mike McDonald 54:14
Should we say, yeah, maybe we should just say that. But we could say this, right. And maybe now more than ever, this is still you know, we need to come back around on this and continue to invest and develop ourselves, own our lives, manage our lives in a way that's beyond just -- not just managing for survival, but actually still continuing to exist on success, right. And the report, I think we still think through the lens of engagement or strengths. We all have these critical psychological needs, right, these needs that unfortunately will go unmet because they go unspoken. And I love using the report now to have even more conversations, maybe better conversations so that those needs don't go unattended.

Mike McDonald 54:51
And I think, if anything else, it allows, it'll give us a resiliency that we wouldn't have had before. So this way, we have choices. We have opportunities to succeed despite the circumstances. And that gets me excited about what the report contributes. So right back around full circle to Everyone manages something. And we're always managing something at different points in time -- some have advantages, some not as much advantages, but either way, we can still succeed.

Jim Collison 55:18
Exciting going forward. I'm looking forward to spending a bunch of time talking about this in the community as we move forward. And so, if you haven't purchased the report yet, if you don't have it for yourself, our Certified Coaches, you can use your Certified Coaches discount to get it, and it takes it down to $30 if you want to get that done: gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. If you're just listening to this, maybe, maybe you're not one of our Certified Coaches or you've come across this and you're listening to it. You can it's an add-on report that you can purchase as well. Head out to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths.

Jim Collison 55:48
Mike, since you have a Ph.D. in engagement, I want to, Lisa asks you this question. She says, By identifying the partner/advocate for each of our Top 10, we end up with maybe more than one best friend. Is there data on whether having more than one best friend is advantageous? Thinking about the Q10 question, "I have a best friend at work," right? And so what, can you, can you, in one minute, can you just kind of give, as we think about that Best friend question and what it really means, can you kind of talk to -- by the way, we have a whole series on this that we've done, but Mike, maybe in one minute?

Mike McDonald 56:20
Yeah, absolutely. So Lisa, not to my knowledge, it's a, it's a, it's a question I think that deserves being asked. I have not seen a thing that references to the, to the amount of people we might authentically reference. And to Jim's callout, the question is pretty specifically, "I have a best friend at work." So the singular is not accidental, right? We know the way it correlates to business outcomes and performance.

Mike McDonald 56:43
Jim, if we were to get into coaching around this, best coaching question to help a team or a leader, well-intended team or team leader, get into the essence of this is we were doing some internal stakeholder, not internal stakeholder, it was some best-practice stakeholder interviews with some leaders around the planet who were like the best of the best. And one of those that we were doing interviews with, and one of the people I got to interview, she and her team just rang 5s on Best friend at work, you know, just, just top to bottom.

Mike McDonald 57:19
And anyway, in the context of the discussion I was having with her, what we were trying to do is to figure out, What do people actually do? What do these team leaders actually do that drives us forward? And what we, she told me she, and I think, I thought it was brilliant. Like, I plagiarized this coaching question as if it was my own, and I would submit it all to you. But she said what she thought really drove that for her team is that at 3:45 every Friday, she and her team have a standing call. And by standing -- this was back when they were on site -- they didn't sit down. They spent 15 minutes; they stood around a table. She asked them one question -- it was the same question every week. "Where did we see the best of our team this week?"

Mike McDonald 58:03
OK, now here's what she contended. And I think she's right. Now keep in mind, the item that has the strongest correlation to Best friend at work is the Recognition item: "I've received recognition or praise in the past 7 days." So here's what she does. She asks this question; the team collectively identifies recognition, right, a celebratory moment at the team level. But they're not just celebrating, they're actually identifying performance and best practices, so now we see the accountability to outcomes showing up.

Mike McDonald 58:33
But then, inevitably, Jim, here's what happens. You know, we you and I would say, "Hey, we thought as a team, we did this really well." But somebody individually is going to do something. So Jim, I'm gonna say, "Hey, team, I thought we did this really well. But you know what, Jim, I gotta be honest. If you wouldn't have been there at the right time with the right contribution, we're not here right now talking about a collective team success." So then what happens, Jim, you're like, "Well, shoot, I love the recognition, but Mike kind of caught me by surprise. I don't have anything to reciprocate; I don't have anything to give back." So now what it does, Jim, is it changes your bandwidth and your perspective for the next week. And you're gonna make sure, Hey, next Friday, our team leader's gonna ask that question. And I'm gonna catch Mike in our collaboration/partnership doing something. And I'm gonna make sure I call that out on Friday.

Mike McDonald 59:18
And we kind of get into this recognition arms race of reciprocity that's driven by recognition. But Jim, it's really hard to recognize well if we don't know each other better. And it shrinks that performance proximity, where you and I just authentically, in an accelerated rate, become best friends at work. And so I love the fact that she, in one question, hyperaccelerated the cycle that took them towards Best friend at work. So, Lisa, I hope that was useful, but I, that question I think is as economical and as effective as any one question we could ever ask: Where did we see the best of our team this past week?

Jim Collison 59:52
I like "recognition arms race." I'm gonna steal that for sure! That is so great, just thinking, cause it does. And it's such a positive way to influence that recognition. Mike, thanks for spending time with me on this series. You know, personally, you know, you're one of my best friends at work. Maika is as well. Austin is as well. We can, I can, do I have a best friend at work? The question is yes, right. I have to give it a strong 5, because I've got, like, 5. And, and, and so Mike, I always appreciate your partnership on this. And thanks for sharpening me around this Manager report. I mean, I had this idea way back when we were thinking about launching this; I couldn't flesh it out. And you certainly spent the time today fleshing that out by helping me, even as I've been interacting with the report myself, you've given me a couple things to walk away from here today that I can take action on them, action items on them right now, and do some things. So you might need to hold me accountable to that. You might need to ask me some of those things going forward. So Mike, thanks for spending time doing this with us.

Mike McDonald 1:00:57
You asked the question, or made the statement: "Everybody manages something." So there was a spark. So --

Jim Collison 1:01:02
Yeah, we had to, we had to get it done. Well, with that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources, including this report and a bunch of resources around it, now in Gallup Access. Head out to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. And look at the bottom of the page there if you want to join us for the CliftonStrengths Community Newsletter. We send that out once a month; it's open to anybody. Go to the bottom of the page, just sign up for the newsletter. We'd love to have you a part of that -- a great way to stay connected to everything that we have going on here. Many of our coaches think that's the Certified Coaches newsletter. It's not; it's a separate one. So if you want to join us for that, you can do it as well. If you're interested in coaching, master coaching or want to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, you can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Stay up to date on all the webcasts, and we have a bunch moving forward for the rest of the year, and for as long as we can continue to do this. Head out to gallup.eventbrite.com. Follow us there; you'll get notified whenever I publish something new. I did this morning at 6:00 Central. There was a new event that came out; you might want to head out there to grab that and see what's coming up. We have some exciting success stories coming. So just stay connected with everything that we do. We want to thank you for joining us today. We'll be live again later at the end of the week with Dean Jones. You're going to want -- anytime Dean is mentioned, you got to join for that. And he's talking about successful feedback, giving successful feedback sessions. So I think it's going to be super important. For those of you joining us live, thanks for joining us. If you're listening to the recorded version, probably just hit Play and the next one will be there. Thanks for joining us, everybody. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Mike McDonald's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Input, Ideation, Learner, Achiever and Focus.