The CliftonStrengths® Learning Journal Launch

Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 12, Episode 10

Below are audio and video plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

You've taken your CliftonStrengths^® assessment and received your Top 5 or All 34 report. Now what? How can you explore your dominant talents on your own time, at your own pace, so you can constructively and productively apply them to your work and your life? The CliftonStrengths Learning Journal is here to help you (or those you coach) do just that. This downloadable, writable -- or printable -- PDF report can jump-start your strengths journey, or enable you to revisit your strengths and go deeper than you've gone before. Join Gallup's Klare Chapman to learn more about this valuable resource and bring your strengths to life.

Taking your strengths [assessment] isn't the magic; it's when you actually do something with your strengths.

Klare Chapman, 4:21

[Use the journal] as even prework before you're going to do that first coaching session with somebody; it's just great reflection to get this person thinking about their strengths.

Klare Chapman, 8:48

It's not just how we personally feel about our strengths and how it helps us get work done. But it's also, How do you come across to other people? How do you build teams and relationships and things like that?

Klare Chapman, 21:02

Jim Collison 0:00
I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on March 12, 2024.

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. If you're listening live, we'd love to have you join us in chat. We'll take your questions there. If you're listening after the fact, you can always send us your questions. Email us: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube -- YouTube, so you never miss an episode. Klare Chapman is my guest today. Klare is Gallup's Global Commerce Director, and her Top 5 are Learner^®, Analytical^®, Responsibility^®, Achiever^® and Input^®. Klare, it's a great day when I get to be with you. Welcome to Called to Coach!

Klare Chapman 0:59
Thanks, Jim. I really appreciate it. Couldn't be more excited to be here.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Jim Collison 1:02
Yeah. Glad to have you here. Let's get to know you a little bit, just so folks know the context. We're spending some time launching this new CliftonStrengths Learning Journal, but let's find out about you first. Tell us a little bit about what, what we pay you to do at Gallup and those kinds of things about your job.

Klare Chapman 1:18
Awesome. Yeah. So if you've ever bought anything from the Gallup Store, that is me and my team. We have a global storefront. We transact in 27 different currencies around the world, in four different languages. We sell CliftonStrengths codes, as you know, learning resources, books, courses, everything in the Gallup world. So I've been at Gallup over a decade now, and I don't think I've ever had a job I love as much as the one I'm doing today, I've done a lot of different things at Gallup over the years, gotten to know a lot of people. And my favorite week of the year at Gallup is always Summit week. That's when I get to see a lot of you, and it just really brings everything we do to life. So thanks for having me, Jim.

Jim Collison 2:06
What's the challenge? This isn't in our notes, but, How challenging is it to run a global ecommerce store?

Klare Chapman 2:14
Wow, yeah. We have over 600,000 transactions a year. So just making sure everything is running very smoothly, and you can purchase things when you want to purchase them, and hopefully not have issues. It's, for Responsibility in your Top 5, it can give a person a lot of anxiety, quite frankly. But I have a great team behind me. And we have a lot of monitoring we do at Gallup, too. If we ever have, you know, Amazon, Web Services goes down or anything like that, our team sometimes knows before Amazon does. So amazing team here, and, you know, love your feedback, too, on things we can do to improve it.

Jim Collison 2:54
Yeah. It's an amazing challenge. This is one of the -- I get this feedback through the community. Shipping is always an issue; global shipping is particularly hard. Housing physical product in different countries around the world to get it where it needs to be, not as easy as everyone thinks. It's a, it's a challenge to keep a global store, especially at the volume. Sometimes the volumes are very, very high, and we don't have enough; sometimes they're very, very low. So it's, it's always a challenge.

Klare Chapman 3:21
Yes. And I think, I mean, I'm the same way too. We all view how we buy things on Amazon as kind of like, well, that's how everyone should be able to do it. Right? Whether you're a small business selling or not. But that's what we expect for shipping times and ease of purchasing. So we're always trying to elevate our experience too.

The Story Behind the CliftonStrengths Learning Journal

Jim Collison 3:39
Yeah, yeah. Well, today, we're here to talk about the new CliftonStrengths Learning Journal. And we've been spending -- you and I have been spending a little time talking about this. Give us a little background. Why did we create this? What was the feedback that we got that helped us create this?

Klare Chapman 3:52
Well, I know we have a lot of coaches on today. And, as you know, we have a lot of resources and materials for our coaching community. We have a lot of those same resources and tools for managers out there, whether they're doing strengths or engagement or all those things; even things for students, right. But we don't have a lot that has been developed just for that individual who's maybe discovering their strengths for the first time. We know that taking your strengths isn't the magic; it's when you actually do something with your strengths -- you reflect on them, you hopefully have a coaching call with someone and go deeper. And so, knowing that we didn't have a lot for that individual's strengths journey, we said, Hey, how could we package up some of the best insightful questions that our coaches ask, that maybe some of you ask, and put that more in a journal format, so that people can kind of explore their strengths on their own, own time, all those things, and go deeper there.

Klare Chapman 4:55
We also know that sometimes individuals, they come, they purchase their strengths, they take the, they take CliftonStrengths, and we never see them again. So being able to meet people where they're at, how can we help them on their journey for an affordable price? That's kind of the impetus of why, why we've created this journal.

Journal Need-to-Knows: Audience, Pricing, Access

Jim Collison 5:17
We're gonna talk about what it is here in a little bit, and we'll show some pictures of it, for those who are joined us live or watching the podcast. Who is the journal meant for?

Klare Chapman 5:27
So like I mentioned, we're, we're personally targeting those individual buyers. And we can tell when someone comes to our website on the store, are they a first-time buyer or have they visited before? So we're really going to try to target those first-time buyers. I would also say, though, this journal is very useful if you're somebody who, maybe you took strengths a while ago and, you know, whether that be in school or for an activity work or whatever, and you haven't, you haven't really revisited them, you haven't reflected on that. Maybe you've had a big life event, too, that's really changed your outlook on things. Going through the digital Strengths Journal is just a time to reflect on your strengths and you as a person, how you bring those to life. So it's also meant for people that want to go a little bit deeper, too, and maybe want to revisit their strengths.

Jim Collison 6:17
Talk a little bit about the price point, and then talk some about the format that it's in and physically how, how folks get it.

Klare Chapman 6:25
So the price one on this in United States dollar is $9.99. I know, this is like, wow, this is a pretty low price, Gallup! Like we said, we're mainly doing this to help bring strengths to life for people and help them go deeper, not necessarily as, you know, the next huge moneymaker at Gallup, by any means. So I think it's a very affordable price. Part of what plays into that is me personally, I wanted us to create something that was easily accessible, I could use this anywhere I wanted to, I could print off a version or use a fillable PDF if I want to, versus having it, as you're aware, on our Learning Management System, under Learning Resources, we have our kits and other resource guides are in there. Those are not something that you can download or, you know, there's downloadable resources, but you really do have to use those materials on the Gallup system, internet connection, all those things.

Klare Chapman 7:26
So with this, making it easier to download and use as you'd like, with a lower price point. This is a copyrighted material from Gallup. And so each person does need to purchase their own copy -- respect the copyright. But that's also part of the $10 price point is, you know, we're not talking $100 here; this is very easy to use in a team session if you wanted to, or things like that.

Using the Journal in Your Coaching

Jim Collison 7:54
Right now, like you mentioned, it's a, it's a, it's a downloadable. It's not intended to be purchased one time and used many times; it's intended for each individual to have their own copy of it, as well. As you think about, you know, this audience, it's going to be loaded with, with a lot of our Certified Coaches. How do you think, what are some ideas that you might have on how a coach might use this with those that they're coaching?

Klare Chapman 8:21
Yeah, great question. So, as we were building this resource, I did seek some of our trusted coaches, their feedback, and just asked their opinions. Like, Is this relevant to you? You know, we're targeting individuals for this, but would you use it as a coach? And our coaches did say, like, Hey, actually, yeah, I would. Love the price point you're thinking about, love the ease of a downloadable, fillable PDF. And using it as even prework before you're going to do that first coaching session with somebody; it's just great reflection to get this person thinking about their strengths, reviewing their strengths report, or even using it as homework afterwards, depending on what your individual coaching looks like, or if you're doing a team session with a group.

Klare Chapman 9:09
So really, it's just to complement what you're already doing. And I think, you know, you'll see in some of the questions, like, they're great questions, right. But we know your ability as a coach to ask great questions, like, that's definitely a talent. But that feedback and insights that you offer to somebody when you're coaching them, that's the magic. OK, so we, you know, no intentions here of replacing coaches or anything like that. It's really just another tool that you have, to use as you see fit.

More About the Audience for the Journal, Buying Codes

Jim Collison 9:44
I do get, from time to time, I do get some feedback: Hey, do you have something like this already made? And so, many coaches, you've already got a version of something that you use. Continue to use that version. We're not, this isn't intended to necessarily come along and replace it. But for those who, who have been asking, maybe they want an easy resource to have available that they can just give out, have someone purchase, and, and bring that in. Best if the individual purchases this, so it lands in their learning center. But Lisa asks this great question along those lines, Klare. She says, Are you focusing on first-time buyers who are using codes that are part of a coaching bundle, just so, you know, to give them a heads up, or people who are coming in cold and buying a code? Talk a little bit about that?

Klare Chapman 10:34
Good question, Lisa. We're, we're really targeting those one-time buyers that literally, you know, a friend said, Hey, go try this, you know, CliftonStrengths. Or they read an article about it or something like that, really, those people that are honestly, like you say, coming in cold. Or most folks come to our marketing site, they learn more about CliftonStrengths. And then once they come to the store, they're like, Yeah, I'm gonna get the All 34. So we're gonna play around with some experimentation there. You've probably heard of A-B tests in ecommerce, but we have the ability to try a group, and we say, Hey, here's a modal where we tell them about the CliftonStrengths Journal right before they're getting, getting ready to purchase, and then a group that we don't, and we kind of see which one does better. So we'll try some different things with, with placement and stuff like that.

Klare Chapman 11:23
Touching on the, Jim, just the, like, distribution method for this, too, when we're talking about coaches, you can purchase these in, you know, let's say you buy 10 of them. And you have the ability, we'll show screenshots here in a little bit, but you can distribute these just like you would CliftonStrengths codes. They're contained inside of that code concept. That's how Gallup Access works for when we sell CliftonStrengths codes, the various report types. When we sell a course, you actually get a code on your Code Management Dashboard that you can redeem for yourself. Or I could say, Hey, Jim, I want you to go to Successful Strengths Coaching, and he goes, he gets himself registered for that class. This resource works the same way. So you'll see it on your code management dashboard. As, if you buy 10 at a time, you see a bundle, and then you can distribute those to whoever you need to. So you do have the ability as a, as a coach to, when you're sending someone, let's say, an All 34, you can also send this along with it.

Language Availability

Jim Collison 12:28
OK. Yeah, so that's not what I said, but I will correct myself on that. And then up in the, if you, a lot of folks get this confused. The redeem button in Gallup Access -- best if they sign in first, then go up to the upper left-hand corner and choose Redeem. It'll take you to a page, just paste that code in, and they're off to the races. You mentioned, it's PDF format; it's writable and printable. You've done some formatting on it to kind of, to make it do some magic. What, what, in what languages are we talking now? And is there any future thought on that as well?

Klare Chapman 13:03
Yeah, good question. So this is kind of a, what we call a minimal viable product, in the fact that it's a bit of an experiment, right. Like we said, we don't typically create resources just for individuals; it's a lower price point than normal. I would love, with my Futuristic in my Top 10, I would love that this sells like crazy in English. We only have an English version today. But it does great, proof of concept's there, and then we can go ahead and translate that into our key languages after that. There's not, like, you know, this is not a 500,000-word document here that needs translation. So if we translated, it could be pretty quick. We just want to make sure that, you know, it's relevant and people, people find value in it, and then we would translate it for our other languages.

Jim Collison 13:59
Some of it'll just depend on how fast it catches on, if it does.

Klare Chapman 14:03
Yep, yep. And Jim will share a link that will take you to the product page on the store. But it is available in all of our English storefronts. But we can, let's say you are in Japan, and we don't show it to you on that store, because it's English only, but you would wish to buy it, we can also send you the link for that, and you would still be able to purchase it.

A Guided Tour of the Journal

Jim Collison 14:29
Great. Great. You've got some screenshots, I think, that you want to share. Let's, and I'll take some questions from the chat while, chat room while you're doing that. So can you walk us through, and maybe, and I don't, I didn't see the screenshots in advance, Klare. Tell us where you want to take us on this journey.

Klare Chapman 14:45
Yeah, so I'll pop this up. And first, I wanted to just show kind of that code management piece that we're talking about. I had some initial folks that said, like, Oh, I, I wasn't expecting it to be like a code that I had to redeem. We do that so that you can distribute it to someone else; we don't assume just the person buying it, they're just using it for themselves. So we'll show you that. And then I did want to show you a couple just preview pages, so you kind of knew what was inside of the journal before you purchase it. So --

Jim Collison 15:17
Share that with me, and I'll throw it on the screen for us. Catherine is asking -- while you're doing that, Catherine's asking, Will we be able to use your discount code on this? Guessing not, with the current price point, but still thought you'd ask. Always good to ask. But yes, you are correct that no, not at this time. OK, screen is up.

Klare Chapman 15:40
OK, so you can see that OK, Jim?

Jim Collison 15:42
Yeah, you bet.

Klare Chapman 15:43
Perfect. OK, so this is the Gallup Store right here. This is the product page for the journal. And it does have some screenshots in here; you can see what you get with this. Just to reiterate, it does come in a 8 1/2 x 11 size, either fillable PDF or printable. It does have an offset, so if you're somebody that likes to put it in a three-ring binder or anything like that, you can certainly do that. And then we do have an international size of A4. So I find that nice for international friends. So OK, so that's what that looks like. It's actually contained under the Learning Tools & Materials section of the Gallup Store. If you click on that right here, you should be able to find it at the very top,

Klare Chapman 15:45
I always just search "Journal," and it'll take you back to it.

Klare Chapman 16:33
Perfect. OK, so let's say you get this purchased. You're excited, you're ready to go check it out. So you will come over to Gallup Access from your Thank You page. And you will go to Code Management right here at the bottom. And you should see this show up on your codes page right here. It's called the CliftonStrengths Journal. And it'll show up with however many you purchase, OK? Next, when you click into that, you'll see your ability here to distribute those codes. And you're off to the races after that. This is contained, oh, here's -- sorry, one final view. Our team has classified this under what's called Digital Kits is the category, and then you'll see that CliftonStrengths Journal.

Klare Chapman 17:24
OK. So once you do, do that, it is actually going to live in your Learning Center over here. So if you have any other digital resources with us, whether it's kits or Team Activities Guide, any of those things, they all live over here in the Learning Center. And then this is the thumbnail that you will see -- the CliftonStrengths Journal. You'll click on that, and then it'll give you the options to download in the various formats, I always tell people, Go ahead and download this, save those files, save those to your computer. And then essentially, you don't have to revisit the Learning Center for this product.

Klare Chapman 18:03
OK, so here's just some little preview shots. We did put some resources in the beginning of this, so you'll, you'll see some here that you'll recognize. But on this, we have people list their Top 5 first. This journal is made for people, if you purchased the Top 5 report, works just fine; if you purchased the All 34, it works just fine. So either one. And then with those first-time strengths user, kind of their viewpoint in mind, we did try to give folks examples, right. So they may not know yet what Discipline^® sounds like or Competition^® strength or things like that. So helping them get oriented to strengths language, I feel like, is part of, part of the strengths journey.

Klare Chapman 18:48
OK, so they fill in their Top 5. And then this is what I was talking about the Resource Guide here off to the left, that gives them the full list of CliftonStrengths and also those short theme statements and then the different categories we have here -- the 4 Domains. So here's a good example on the right of what you'll see for the types of questions that we're asking along the way. It does build upon itself, you know, asking first How they, you know, feel about their strengths. What were some Aha! moments reading through the statements? Kind of some of the typical initial questions that we see around strengths. We've also mixed in some quotes here at the bottom and mixed in. And we've embraced our more playful branding side. If you've been to our Gallup at Work Summit before, that's kind of more of our playful, colorful side that's fun to bring out. So you'll see that throughout the journal as well.

Klare Chapman 19:49
And then this is just kind of my last thing here, just showing you a few more examples of the questions. There is probably about 12 to 14 pages that have various formats like this for journaling and just reflecting on some of these questions. We know, when we've written strengths content around goals and goal-setting, we put that out many times at the beginning of the year, when we're all setting those goals. I have been walking on the treadmill, like I committed to -- just saying. So we know goals and strengths go very well together. And if you use your strengths to accomplish your goals, you end up being much more successful. So we've, we've, some of the goals in here, too, along the way, which probably are my favorite parts of the journal. OK, and that is it for the screenshots.

Other Journal Highlights

Jim Collison 20:46
When you think about just the highlights of some of the other topics, because there's 20 more pages there, what would be one or two other topics, or one or two other things you would want to highlight that would be in the, in the journal?

Klare Chapman 21:00
Yeah, good question. I think, you know, when we think about our strengths, it's not just how we personally feel about our strengths and how it helps us get work done. But it's also, How do you come across to other people? How do you build teams and relationships and things like that? So after we kind of take you through some of those individual questions, we ask you to reflect on, you know, Now that you know your strengths, what do you think, what do you think your friends would say about this? Or have you had a strengths conversation with a friend, manager? Things like that. And so just trying to weave that into other parts of your life, too. I think we all know, strengths are fairly universal, right? They apply in our personal lives just as much as work, and maybe your spiritual or community life as well. So helping, helping, again, first-time strength user, realize, like, the whole scope of what that means of how you show up every day at home, in your family relationships, but at work too.

Jim Collison 22:03
Klare, anything else that you had, that we forgot to cover? Anything -- I'll take a few questions from chat room, if you can get them in here in the next minute or two. But any other final thoughts on this, as we wrap our time together today?

Klare Chapman 22:17
No, I think we covered it, Jim. I, I love feedback, right. That can be, you know, open the floodgates and things like that. But as we think of other versions of this, or, again, the translations, you know, if there's things we need to tweak a little bit, especially our coaching community, they're just always so gracious at helping us just do the best we can. So I always welcome feedback.

Jim Collison 22:43
Yeah. We already found an error in it that we fixed. So it was, so appreciate that -- always appreciate that feedback. And Brea had asked if, Does it look like the new Top -- ? It does look like the new Top 5 report. Is it focused on Top 5, or are there content around the full 34? We saw the Top 5 content, but certainly the 34 context would work. Correct?

Klare Chapman 23:07
Yeah, absolutely. And good point, Brea. One of our overall company projects over the last few years is taking this large funnel of Gallup content, especially around strengths, and getting everything in a consistent brand. Right. So that's what you see now with the Top 5 report, and then very much the case with the CliftonStrengths Journal. But again, very agnostic to the report type that somebody would be using. You can even use role reports with this -- the Manager, Sales, Student -- all those things. And I think the reflection questions would, would work the same way, no matter which report type you're using.

Jim Collison 23:48
All right. Well, with that, I think -- I don't see -- Oh, Larry asks a question. He said, Love the concept. Will Gallup use any of this data for science going forward, or will it only be accessible to the coach? We're not collecting the -- these forms are separate from us. Once they make the purchase, this is not being stored online. Correct?

Klare Chapman 24:07
Correct.

Jim Collison 24:07
Like, they're, they're filling in the form when it's local to them. That's, which is nice, from a data privacy standpoint; we don't have access to any of the data that is there. And they can take it with them. And Klare, like you said, I think a good practice is download it, put it locally somewhere, or save it on a cloud drive where you can get to it easily. And then it'll save for you, and you can come back to it. Those you're coaching can come back to it for future use. Well, Klare, thanks for, thanks for coming on here. Excited about this. An opportunity, you know, Lisa reminds us, it isn't MVP at this point; definitely open to improvements. And we'd always appreciate your feedback. If you see things, if you've got ideas, we're always listening to those as well. And, and appreciate any feedback that you send in. Thank -- Klare, thanks for coming on.

Jim Collison 24:36
Thanks, Jim. Thanks, everybody.

Jim Collison 24:59
With that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources that are available to you inside Gallup Access. If you haven't been out there in a while, my.gallup.com, if you want to log in there, get access to the things, your kits, if you're a Certified Coach. If you are looking to become a coach, a master, need master coaching or to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, we do that as well. You can send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to join us for the 2024 Gallup at Work Summit, we're doing that. It's coming up fast, although if this is after June of 2024, I bet we have another one planned. So come out and join us: gallupatwork.com. We'd all love to see as many of you in person. I'll be helping host the virtual sessions, though, as well. And if you can only make it virtually, that'd be great to have you either way. Stay up to date with all our future webcasts. I'm losing my voice here very quickly -- I do not know why. I don't know why it's going away -- by joining us in our Facebook or LinkedIn. Maybe I could -- doing a lot of talking this morning, Facebook or LinkedIn groups or search "CliftonStrengths" on any social platform, and find us there. Want to -- thanks for coming out today. No postshow, because the voice is going out. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Klare Chapman's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Learner, Analytical, Responsibility, Achiever and Input.

Gallup^®, CliftonStrengths^® and each of the 34 CliftonStrengths theme names are trademarks of Gallup. Copyright © 2000 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.