Leveraging Strengths-Based Development in Your Coaching

Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 12, Episode 14

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

If you want to understand what strengths-based development is and how it works for the people you coach or manage, you need to grasp some foundational truths: What are the 5 Clues to Talent? What are the differences between talents and strengths? How do you know when someone has developed a talent into a strength? What does it mean to Claim and Aim your strengths? You can then build on this foundation: How does strengths-based development differ from conventional development? Aside from their talents and strengths, what do you need to know about a person to develop them effectively? How can they "flip the script" on their own development? And how can you help them build a development plan that takes all of these factors into account? Join us for a practical, informative Called to Coach webcast, as Gallup's Dean Jones gives you the tools you need to develop others based on their strengths.

When we talk about strengths, we're actually talking about applied talent.

Dean Jones, 6:16

When we coach strengths, ... we're coaching performance to excellence.

Dean Jones, 11:31

People think that strengths and weaknesses are actually opposites, and they're not. By investing in a weakness, you never end up with a strength.

Jim Collison 0:00
I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on October 4, 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, and many of you are, we'd love to have you check in in the chat room, but we'd also like your questions there during the program. If you're listening to this after the fact, via the podcast or on YouTube, you can always send us your questions: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube, so you never miss an episode. Dean Jones is our host today, Dean is a Global Talent Development Architect and a Senior Learning Expert for Gallup, and it's always my favorite day to be with Dean on a Called to Coach. Dean, welcome back!

Dean Jones 1:03
Hi! It's good to see you. I'm happy to be here. It's been, I was noticing in the chat today, Justin said, Justin said, it seems like ages since I've been on a live Called to Coach. And Jim and I were just talking about that. It, it has been ages since there's been a live Called to Coach and since we've been together. So it's been a while. It's been a while. So it's good to, it's good to be here, and it's good to be talking about strengths.

Jim Collison 1:25
Yeah, always, always good to be back. I think I told you in my notes, it was mid-May the last time we did one of these live. We've had a busy summer and a lot of activity, but also it's time to start talking kind of about strengths-based development. And Dean, this is a, it may be seemingly like a broad topic, but I think a very important one. Why don't you open us up a little bit today? How are we going to approach this topic of strengths-based development?

Strengths-Based Development: Foundational Truths

Dean Jones 1:53
Yeah, it's interesting. So when, when I was thinking about our topic for the day, I was thinking about what we should talk about and, and what would be useful and valuable. You know, part -- the place I always go is I always, I always kind of look at the stuff that I'm working on and the stuff that I'm thinking about as a topic to -- that, that's where I look to see, would that be of interest to our, our strengths coaches? And a lot of what I'm thinking about and working on right now is gearing up to help people do individual development plans for the next year. So that happens in our organization. I know that happens in a lot of organizations this time of year, is people are starting to think about the end of the year. They're looking forward to those conversations they'll have, to go back and reflect on what they've accomplished in the year and think about, you know, how close they are to the performance goals they set for themselves. And also think about, What are those areas they want to develop? And as I have conversations with people about strengths-based development, I realized that it's just an opportunity to clarify some stuff. You know, there's some people I think that, you know, even as much as we all talk about strengths develop, strengths-based development, I think there's an opportunity to be able to, to think about it in a different or in a clearer way. So I thought it'd be a great topic for us to tackle today.

Jim Collison 3:12
Yeah, I agree. And I think it's always a great reminder, and that, and that may be that strengths-based development is something that happens throughout the year, and not only tied to a performance review or only, right. Like, we have those 5 Coaching Conversations that we talk about, but how this can be also, I think, today, the, sometimes the temptation can be to, to build these big plans around it. And we're going to talk some of that, but it also is on a daily basis as things are happening, right? And so just a good reminder, we're in this thing every single day.

Dean Jones 3:49
That's right. That's right. It's interesting, yeah, it's interesting. Well, so the last time we were talking about, the last time we actually had this conversation about strengths-based development, I was a little concerned, like, hey, hey, Is this going to feel redundant for people? The last time we actually had this conversation was back in 2000 -- the very, very beginning of 2016. And at that point, we only had about 1,000 Certified Coaches under this current program. So, and now we have, you know, 20,000 and, and 30,000 in the community. So it's a different, different world.

Dean Jones 4:22
So, yeah, I thought, here's where I thought we'd start into the conversation is to just talk -- I always love to kind of just make sure we're all working from the same foundation. So I want to talk a little bit about strengths. And the, and so when we're thinking about development, you know, and we're, and we're thinking about strengths-based development, the first thing I think that we got to remember is that strengths is synonymous with performance excellence. That, that when you're thinking about strengths, you're thinking about -- sometimes, I think that people still confuse talent and strengths, and that they're using that interchangeably. By definition, strengths is really synonymous with performance excellence. I love this quote from Don Clifton. He said that, "Excellence is the manifestation of talent through practice and learning." I'll say it again, because I think it's a good one, and not one that we use as much: "Excellence is the manifestation of talent through practice and learning."

Dean Jones 5:23
So by starting to apply our talent and practice and grow and learn, that's the -- what we yield, we end up yielding is excellence. And it's important to remember that you don't have a strength unless you've got results. So as you're shooting for, as you're developing your strengths, sometimes I think people will say, "Hey, I have a strength in a particular area." And what they mean is, "No, I've got talent in a particular area, and I'm working on developing that into a strength." Just to make sure that we're all on the same page, we always say that our definition of talent is, it's naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that can be productively applied. Again, naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that can be productively applied. So what we're talking about when we're talking about talent is we're talking about potential. When we talk about strengths, we're actually talking about applied talent. So our definition of a strength is consistent, near-perfect results in a particular area. So you don't really have a strength in an area unless you can point to a tracker -- a track record of consistent, near-perfect results in that particular area. It's not necessarily a bad thing. You may be working on your, on, on producing results in that area, but you don't really have a strength until you got results there.

Dean Jones 6:46
So I think it's important for us as strengths coaches, so in talking to strengths coaches, I think it's -- remember that ultimately what we want to be coaching is performance, not just self-awareness. So as we're coaching people to develop their talents into strengths -- so to understand what those talents are and start to apply them and start to develop them into strengths -- what we're coaching, ultimately, is performance, not just self-awareness. And in the beginning, certainly, a lot of the conversation is around identifying what your talent themes are, understanding those talent themes, becoming aware of them, like that. But ultimately, what we're doing is we're coaching people to move toward excellence and to demonstrate excellence in the work that they do. And so it's combining their domain expertise, what they've learned, and their practice to be able to do that -- right.

Claiming and Aiming -- Using Your Strengths to Their Full Potential

Jim Collison 7:39
Dean, I will say, oftentimes -- I see this happen a lot in the community -- you know, we have a Name it, Claim it and Aim it philosophy as we think about applying to these, these themes. But sometimes we, and I jokingly say, sometimes we get stuck in the Name it, Name it and Name it, where we really -- and listen, it feels good. This is, in the 10 years I've been doing this kind of work, trust me, to get together and talk about these themes and how they could potentially be used, floods our body with endorphins and dopamine, and it feels good, and we just love that part of it, right? But we can -- I've seen this, and we can get stuck sometimes on the endless Name it cycle of what it could be, and it's defined as this and defined as that. And we come up with graphics, and we, we have cute little things that we put online. Nothing wrong with any of that, right? But, but as I hear you say, we've got to continue, you know, the Claim it part, individually own it, and then begin to actually push it forward, right, to, and have a way of tracking the results. I think that's another area sometimes we, how do we know that theme is being deployed into an area of strengths and we're using it to its fullest? And how are we measuring that kind of on a regular basis? And so that's just, in my work in the community, again, we joke about it, but we gotta, we gotta do more than just Name. We gotta Claim and Aim that, push it forward as well.

Dean Jones 9:07
That's right. You know, it's interesting. So a friend of mine, friend of mine that I've known for a long time just did CliftonStrengths last weekend. And it was funny. I, you know, it's funny -- we were talking, and I realized she had never done it. And so I said, You, gosh, you got to go do this thing, right? So she, she did CliftonStrengths, and, and the thing that I that I love about it, and I think that all of us as coaches see, is in the beginning stages, when people have done CliftonStrengths, and they start to read their report and start to grapple with, start to understand what their what their dominant themes are, people experience being known. People experience, Oh, wow. This is exact -- this is me! Yeah, this is obvious! This is who I am. And there's sort of this magical thing where people really experience being known. And so, you know, when you talk, Jim, about the endorphins of being able to do it, and where it is positive, I think it's, it's incredibly gratifying for people to experience being known, right? So many places in life, we don't experience being known. And it's, it's this incredible positive thing.

Dean Jones 10:12
But it doesn't stop there. And, and really what we know is, is that when you, you know, when you've got talent in a particular area that, and you start to develop it into strengths, it's a transformational process for people. So when -- strengths really is transformational for people. They start to see themselves in a new way. So there's new ways of being able to see themselves, to see others and see their environment. And literally, it starts to kind of reorganize the way that people see themselves. They're left with new ways of thinking about themselves, new ways of feeling and behaving. And, and there are new openings that they see for action, based on really focusing on and investing in their strengths. So the, you know if, if, one of the things I always tell people is, as a coach, if you aren't having these kind of insights and epiphanies with your clients, then you want to be really helping them to be able to get grounded in their strengths. It's a natural thing that happens with everybody as they start to get grounded into the, into their, their CliftonStrengths report, and they start to understand their talent themes, and that starts to emerge. So that's an, that's an important piece of it, right?

Dean Jones 11:25
So just to recap, I think, that people, we want to remember that what we're coaching when we coach strengths is we're coaching performance. And we're coaching performance to excellence, and that talent identification, helping people understand what their themes are, and being able to name their themes -- that's the first piece of it. But ultimately, we want to get to a place where people are starting to develop themselves so that they can apply that talent in meaningful ways and deliver results. So one of the things we've made a distinction on, on is the difference between -- and if you've been through the, our, our coaching courses, you know this -- is we made a big distinction between strengths development and conventional development. And it's a way of kind of talking about how strengths development is different. It goes back to that question that Don Clifton asks, famously: What will happen when we think about what's right with people rather than what's wrong with people?

Dean Jones 12:21
And, and what, what it points to, really, is strengths development is really designed to be a breakthrough in the way we think about human development, right? It's designed to be a way that we, where we're thinking differently about human development, and -- fundamentally. And, you know, I always think back to the time, I think, that, you know, when Don Clifton was making these assertions, we look back at them now and say, "Wow, that seems pretty obvious," you know. And I, you know, all breakthroughs are kind of, that's sort of the nature of breakthroughs, right? After the fact, it seems obvious; before that breakthrough, it, you know, no one would, it would seem counterintuitive. And at the time that Don Clifton was doing his research, you know, the thing we have to remember is psychology was still, you know, in an early stage; psychology was relatively new. And Don Clifton was interested in studying what makes people successful.

Dean Jones 13:18
So his, his, you know, he didn't set out to say, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to go invent strengths, or I'm going to go, you know, understand talent. Initially, what he was really looking at was what makes people successful. And at the time, the prevailing wisdom was that if you were successful, it is either a function of having a high IQ or having a great personality. Those were the two things at that time that people thought led to success, right? And that's where, you know, I don't know if you know Mensa groups. Mensa groups, you know, if you got a high IQ, you can join a Mensa group. And, you know, everybody can talk about their, how smart they are, you know. Or, you know, also at that time, the Dale Carnegie stuff, the Zig Ziglar stuff, you know. And it was all a function of what the prevailing wisdom at the time, which was, which is having a high IQ or having a great personality, that was the thing that led to success, right?

Dean Jones 14:10
And the real breakthrough from Don Clifton was to say, Hey, there's something different that actually is connected to success, right? That if you know your talent and can apply your talent in meaningful ways, that that will lead to being successful. And, and, and he was interested, you know, the, his early conversation, you know, his early work was really thinking about, OK, well, how do we define talent? What are the things that we know, we know? You know, rapid learning, glimpses of excellence, yearnings, things like that. How do we define, how do we define talent? How do we start to trace whether, whether, how somebody is defining talent and, and, and developing it into strengths? And so that led to really thinking about development in a different way.

Dean Jones 14:59
So we know that strengths-based development is fundamentally different, and, and we would say, a more powerful approach than conventional approaches to development. In conventional development, you're really looking at, and you still see this in a lot of organizations, where we're looking at, we're looking for improvement areas. We're looking for those areas where somebody in an organization is -- either needs improvement or not meeting expectations relative to competencies in a particular role. And development is applied to help somebody be able to meet the expectations of a particular role. So there's this kind of gap analysis that gets created, where we say, Hey, what are the, what are the competencies or the expectations for a role? How are you, how are you performing relative to those? And development is used as sort of the way of intervening in those areas where you're not meeting expectations, or you're not performing as expected in a particular role. And the, the idea is, is that, is that, if you've got a failure or you got a weakness in a particular area, that by, that providing development will get you up to that, and, and ultimately you'll be able to perform successfully in the role, right?

Dean Jones 16:13
The problem with it is, is that it's based on this false notion that strengths and weaknesses are opposites. People think that strengths and weaknesses are actually opposites, and they're not -- right? By investing in a weakness, you never end up with a strength. By investing in an area where you need improvement, the best you'll get to is average or mediocrity. You -- by investing in an area that you, that, where you're not succeeding, you never end up being world-class, right? So strengths and weaknesses are not opposite, right? And the, and so the focusing on weaknesses and focusing on applying development in areas of weakness doesn't give us access to excellence, right? And remember, I said before, as strengths coaches, what we're coaching is excellence, right?

Dean Jones 17:08
So as we start to be able to think about, we got to start to think about, OK, well, where, where would one apply development, then? If you wanted to, if you want to end up with performance excellence, where would you apply development? So you don't go after those areas of failure, those, after areas of weakness. You'd want to know, Hey, where's the areas of greatest potential that I can invest in, so that I end up with excellence, right? We say here at Gallup, oftentimes, that weaknesses don't develop into strengths, but strengths develop infinitely. So those con-, that conventional approach to development, ultimately, what it yields is mediocrity. It doesn't really, it doesn't yield excellence. It doesn't yield the kind of world-class performance that people want for themselves, right, and organizations want for the people that work in that organization. So that's where strengths-based development becomes really powerful.

Jim Collison 18:03
Dean, can I ask a question for --

Dean Jones 18:04
Yeah.

Global Breakthroughs in Understanding Talents and Strengths

Jim Collison 18:05
Around that? We mentioned early in the program, you know, we, we've been talking -- you and I have been talking about this here for years now -- 8, as we go back to the first time. Do you, do you see signs of that changing in our culture, in a global culture, that people are, like, that message is beginning to break through some of those older stereotypes or those older methods? And do you think we're making progress -- generally, overall -- on that idea, and it's starting to, it's starting to seep its way into the culture globally?

Dean Jones 18:45
I would, you know, from my perspective -- and again, this is just my perspective -- I think it's sort of yes and no, right? I think this concept of talent, this concept of talent, is, is more prevalent than it was 10 years ago. This notion that, that what, what people are bringing to the, what people are bringing to the organization is that they're bringing their natural talent, and that everybody has talent to contribute. And that it's not just, it's not just a function of the education that I had or the way I performed in my last job, but that what I'm bringing is my talent. And you see this, you know, when you, when you look at organizations where there's an emphasis, I don't think -- the vernacular sort of followed it, but where there's an emphasis on talent management, right? People think about talent development or talent management inside of organizations. So from that standpoint, I think there's, I think there's been a shift.

Dean Jones 19:38
The other thing that, where I would say there's been a shift is that, clearly -- and we see this from our research is -- 10 years ago, people didn't think about their organization as the place where they were going to get developed. Mostly that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, what people thought was, I'm going to go to grad school, or I'm going to go to trade school, or I'm going to go to an advanced education program, you know, whatever that is, right? I'm going to go get developed over there, and then I'm going to bring my development to my organization, right? And that was the way it was. And I would -- the organization was where I applied, applied all that development that I had, right? So I'm going to go get a graduate degree over here, and then I'm going to bring that here.

Dean Jones 20:20
Now, it's interesting, everybody, most employees believe, would say, No, I'm choosing the organization that I'm, that, to, that I'm going to join based on the opportunity to be developed. And in fact, we've seen that in our research, that the more talented somebody is, the more likely that that's going to be the, the, the primary decision-making criteria. We did a study with a client of ours a number of years ago where we looked at super talented people and, and we, and how they were unique and how they were different, and, and what attracted them to an organization. One of the things we could see, one of the fundamental things that we could see was, really talented people were looking to say, Hey, is this an organization where I'm going to be developed? Is this an organization where I'm going to grow, right? They weren't as attracted by the current pay and benefits, because really talented people always know, Hey, I'm going to make money. And I'm going to, you know, I'm always going to get that stuff, right. I don't have to worry about that stuff. What I have to worry about is, Hey, am I going to grow in this organization? And are there opportunities for advancement?

Dean Jones 21:25
So I think one of the big shifts -- back to your question -- one of the big shifts that we've seen is, is there's this lens now where, where employees, when they're thinking about the organization, are looking, are listening for, are looking for, Hey, is this a place I'm going to be able to learn and grow? And I think that's shifted. And I think one of the things you've seen with organizations is they've had to think about learning in a new way. You know, the, you know, old-school organizations thought about learning as, you know, Am I, am I just providing the stuff that helps people to be able to do their jobs, right? I'm going to train you just so that you can meet the expectations of the role. Now, what organ, what employees expect is an organization that's a learning organization, you know -- sort of the ultimate fulfillment of Peter Senge's book, right, from years ago. Right? Is they expect an organization where, where they're going to be, in the organization, they're going to be constantly developing and, and understand, you know, having a manager who's a coach; having a manager who understands their talent and can coach their talent is, is all part of that, right? So that's a shift.

Work Still to Be Done: Understanding Strengths-Based Development

Dean Jones 22:36
The part I don't see is, is I don't see that there's still, that there's a clear and fundamental understanding of what strengths-based development is. A lot of times, what I see when I talk to managers and when I talk to leaders in organizations is they're using strengths in kind of an old-school way, right? They're using strengths to do conventional development, and so they're thinking about, they're still thinking about that person in terms of what they need to fix about that person, rather than thinking about, Where are the areas that this person shows excellence, demonstrates excellence or show, you know, where I can see huge potential and where I can invest in those things? So the lens is still this lens of, I got to fix something. This person's fundamentally broken in certain areas or insufficient in certain areas, and I got to fix something -- versus thinking about that person as, as someone that's, that is a set of talents that are ripe for development and ripe for investment, right? So I think that, I think that's still missing.

Jim Collison 23:42
One of the, one of the reasons I asked this question, I think it's so important, as we look back over the eight years, 1,000 you know, 1,000 Certified Coaches, so to speak, maybe, when, when we did this last, and 18, 19,000 now, is that, you know, and I live in a little bit of a bubble on LinkedIn. But I do follow many of our, of our Certified Coaches in that, and I see. So my, my feed is just a ton of you, listening to this, posting pictures of events and things that you're doing with organizations, right. Opportunities for you to take CliftonStrengths in an organization and talk about this. And as you were mentioning this, I was thinking, it's never been more important now to understand this, because we have an, we have an incredible reach today, as I see, globally, as these Certified Coaches are in these organizations that we just didn't have those numbers 8 years ago.

Moving the Needle on Organizational Performance Through Strengths

Jim Collison 24:41
And so, so Dean, I just, I guess I just want to emphasize, like, for some of you, you might be listening, saying, "Duh!" But for others of you, make sure, and we have, we have incredible impact happening. I mean, you know, 9/10ths of my feed are pictures of, of, CliftonStrengths Discovery Days or folks have this opportunity to have this kind of influence and to take it from the Name it, Claim it and Aim it and really drive it towards organizational performance. And I just, I've never felt more the responsibility of that globally than I do right now, just as I kind of put these pieces together, and you're kind of like, Oh, yeah. We have a, we have a huge responsibility here. Let's, let's make sure we're doing this right as well.

Dean Jones 25:30
Yeah. I think that we have a huge responsibility, and there's a huge opportunity. I always, the thing I always look at is we have, roughly speaking, just about, just right under about 30,000 people around the world that we've trained to be strengths coaches over the course since, that's, roughly speaking, since about 2012. So under the current program, just a little less than 30,000 people that we've trained to be strengths coaches. And at the same time, we have about 2 to 2 1/2 million people each year that do CliftonStrengths. So, you know, there are a lot of people out there that need a coach, you know. And so there's just a huge opportunity out there. And, and all those people work in organizations that are still evolving. So there's just a huge opportunity to be able to do that.

Building a Development Plan for Others

Dean Jones 26:15
So, so when we think about strengths-based development, right? I want to give you a little bit about strengths-based development, and then I want to talk a little bit about building a development plan. So when we think about strengths-based development, and, and, and I want to talk about the strengths piece of it, we're really fundamentally just saying, Hey, in order to develop somebody, we're going to start by identifying what their talents are and developing them into strengths, right? So what does it mean to have -- to do strengths-based development? It means you're starting with talent as the foundation. So you're starting with an understanding of that person's talent and their potential, and then thinking about how we're going to develop them into strengths. So it's a different kind of gap analysis than the kind of gap analysis you see in conventional development, where we're looking at, How's that person performing relative to, to certain competencies or expectations around that and looking for gaps there.

Dean Jones 27:11
What we're looking for when we're doing strengths-based development is we're thinking about, Who is this person? Where is the, where is, where is their talent? And then, Where can we invest in that talent? How can we help this person to demonstrate excellence? How can we help this person to be able to be really world-class, right? And thinking about that. Part of it is, is helping that person, I think, there's the part where I think most of us as strengths coaches think about, which is helping them to understand themselves, helping them to have good sense of their own, have some good self-awareness, having that good sense of their own talents and strengths, so that they've got that really as a foundation.

Dean Jones 27:51
The other piece of it, the other side of it, is really helping each person to know, Where are they going? What are their goals? What are the expectations? What is the, what is their organization expecting of them? What is their community expecting of them? What do they expect to themselves? And what does excellence look like for them? Another one of my favorite Don Clifton quotes that I think is relevant here is, he said, "Nothing happens until someone expects something of you in ways you can achieve." I'm going to say it again, because I think it's a good one: "Nothing happens until someone expects something of you in ways you can achieve." It really starts with, not just that there's an expectation, but an expectation that's aligned with the talent you possess and the strengths you're developing. And so development kind of lives in that gap. It lives in that gap between your understanding of yourself, right, your understanding of your own talent and, you know, that picture, that, that picture of excellence that you've got on the other hand. That that's kind of the gap -- the gap that we're creating here. Development lives in that, in that gap. Understanding yourself, and then thinking about, What are people counting on me for? And how do I, and what, what is the, who is it that I want to be -- not just for myself but for the world? Right? That, that gap is, is where we start to, where it starts to get clear what I need to be developed in. Make sense?

Jim Collison 29:26
Yeah, let's, that, that's good. Let's continue.

Dean Jones 29:28
OK, great. Awesome. So I want to talk a little bit about, How do you go about working with somebody to build a development plan? And I think this is applicable, I think this is applicable if you're a manager, if you're a manager working with somebody, and you want to work with somebody in a strengths-based way. I think it's particularly applicable if you're a coach, whether you're a coach inside of an organization, or you're a coach, an independent coach, and you're working with someone, I think that there's, I think there's just a fundamental way that you want to start to, as you start to think about people. I think the first piece of it is, is really helping people understand, assess what their talents and strengths are, and to have a good kind of foundation of that. Listening to, you know, what, you know, looking at their, their CliftonStrengths report, understanding what, what is your talent? What, what, what is your potential? What, what are you naturally good at? What comes naturally to you? I think it extends beyond just your CliftonStrengths, by the way. I don't think -- I think CliftonStrengths gives us the language to be able to point to those things, but I think it extends beyond that.

The 5 Clues to Talent

Dean Jones 30:02
It's one of the places where I like to go back to the 5 Clues to Talent that Don Clifton used to use. It was his early way, I think, of being able to talk about where, How do you know somebody's got talent in a particular area? The 5 Clues of Talent are -- Rapid Learning in a particular place, Rapid Learning; Glimpses of Excellence; Experiencing kind of Flow; having Yearnings for certain things; and having Deep Satisfaction. And it tend, what you tend to see with this, it tends to follow a particular way. You start to, you can, it starts to, Yearnings and Glimpses of Excellence start to give you clues. Hey, maybe there's talent in a particular area, or maybe there's, there's something happening. Then what you start to see is that kind of intuitive sense of the job ahead. And along with that, you start to see Rapid Learning -- somebody being able to pick up things quickly or have an intuitive sense of it. And then that sense of Flow, right? So they get engaged; they're inside of it, followed then by Deep Satisfaction, that sense that, that, you know, they've done something that is, you know, I always think about it in terms of a calling, right? It's something where you would say, Gosh, I, you know, this is a great fit for me. I've got a real calling in this area.

Dean Jones 31:51
So the first piece to really, I think, building a development plan is you have to have a sense of, you have to be able to have a sense of what your talent is, what your strengths are around that. You, you also, and you, you have to really have a sense of, along with that, you have to have some awareness of how it manifests itself. So what are the things -- when you can, can you see your talent in your life? You have to have some sense of that. You have to have some sense of how your life is given by that. You also have to be able to appreciate it. So one of the things we find is it's just impossible to develop somebody if they don't love who they are, if they don't have an appreciation for themselves and their own talent. So it start, it really starts there. So that's the first piece, right?

Understanding the Coachee's Perspectives and Goals

Dean Jones 32:37
The second piece really is to get clear about where, where is it, what do you want to accomplish? Where is it that you want to go? And this is the piece, I think, as strengths coaches, we've got an opportunity to spend some more time on. I think sometimes we spend a lot of time around talent identification and talent awareness, and not enough time helping people to understand, well, what is your sense of yourself? Where is it that you want to go? How do you see yourself? What does, what does excellence look like for you? You know, What is it, what do you want your contribution to be in the world? What is it that you want to make a difference in? What is it that you want to accomplish for myself -- for yourself? And I think it's got to be something -- the challenge I see sometimes is, and you, you really see this in a lot of organizations, is where development gets real transactional real fast. Where it's, people say, Oh, you know, I want to learn this so I can do this. I want to learn this so I get promoted. I want to learn this so I get a raise, right? And ultimately that's not -- in the long run, that's not going to be very fulfilling for people. Ultimately, it's not going to take people to a place where they're going to be ultimately successful.

Dean Jones 33:51
You know, if you're a leader in an organization, you didn't learn what you needed to learn, just so you could get promoted, right? You, ultimately, you started to master stuff because you had a passion for it, you had a talent for it, and you could see that it made a difference, and you, it was something that, when you see, as you mastered those things, you could see that was a thing that you wanted to give your life to, right? So when we're looking at, you know, like leadership is not just about a series of transactions where I learned something, and it gave me more money, right? Or I learned something, and it give me a different title, right? Development really has to be about, ultimately, who do I want to be in the world?

Flipping the Script on Your Own Development

Dean Jones 34:33
Part of what I find, so as I talk to groups, part of what I find is challenging is, I think there's a place where this sense of owning your own development starts to kind of flip over for people. And it's not the same place for everybody. But there's a point where, you know, early in your life, as you're kind of coming up, other people are deciding how you should be developed, right? So you go to school, and you don't, you know, your teachers say, "Hey, you need to learn this," or "You need to master this," right? Or you've got a coach or you've got a parent who says, "Look, you need to learn this" or "You need to master this." You know. And, and so there's other people in your life that are saying, "Hey, this is important," you know, "You gotta, you gotta, you gotta learn this," right? There's a point, though, where, I think, as you become as you become an adult and you become a professional, where it kind of flips over, and it's not so much about What does, what does somebody else say that I need to know? It's what do I want to know for myself? What, and it's that place where you start to really own your own development -- where you say, I'm responsible for my development. I'm responsible for who I am. You get clear about what, who it is you want to be in the world, and your development is your access to that.

Dean Jones 35:47
And, you know, for some people, this happens. I think, in their teen years. There's a part where they start to see, gosh, this is who I want to be. I think for, I think there's people in their 30s that are still figuring this piece out, right, you know, to be able to say, Hey, who is it really that I want to be in the world? And what is the difference I want to make? And what is the contribution I want to make? And what do I want my brand to be? And all, and all those things, right? So, but I think at the end of the day, you gotta start to own your own development. So you gotta just take a step back, right? You gotta have that sense of yourself, right? Who Am I? What are my talents? What are my strengths? You've got to have that sense about where you want to go, right? What is it that you want to accomplish? Who do you want to be known as in the world? And between those two things, you start to see -- it starts to get, the clearer you are about those two things, the clearer it gets for you, where, what, how you need to be developed; what, what development is really available? Because your development is the thing that's going to take you from who you are to where you want to be, to the person you want to be. And, and that's, that allows you to start to kind of be able to focus on that.

Dean Jones 36:57
Now that's, oftentimes, the place I will tell you where people need a coach. And oftentimes, I think as coaches, we're not, that's not the place we, we should be working toward, as coaches, helping people to be able to do that stuff. I think a lot of times with, as coaches, we're more, we're for -- right or wrong, and sometimes, you know, this is, you know, this is the job we're given, right, rather than the job that we want. But oftentimes, as coaches, we're working around talent identification and talent awareness, and we're not thinking enough about, How do we, how do we help people to build development plans that are going to help them to be able to, to be world-class, right? And I think it's being able to successfully do both of those pieces, and then to think about, OK, given your sense of yourself, given your, given your, the picture of excellence that you've got, How do you want to build -- what, what is the development that you want? How do we put together a plan that helps you, that takes you from where you are now to exhibiting the kind of excellence that you want? Make sense?

The Role of Opportunity in Development, Careers

Jim Collison 38:05
Yeah, Dean, and let me, let me, what, for me, it raises the question of, Where does opportunity fit into this model? In other words, if I want to say, you know, here I am, a podcaster for Gallup, doing social media and marketing, but I really want to be a firefighter, right? You know, hey, my, my -- and listen, that's an extreme example, right? But my talents lead to that; I -- high Activator^®, high Arranger^®. I love, I love environments where that's happening, but, and my part, where I'm at in life -- I mean, could I do that? Well, maybe. The opportunity -- again, this is an extreme example. This is an area I see in the community all the time. How do we wrestle with that? Yes, I have these talents, and yes, I want to point them in some direction, but that, that opportunity may not be in front of us. Do I invent the opportunity? Do I go look for the oppor-? Do I move to the -- ? Any thoughts on that? Because it's, that seems to be an, a piece that's sometimes missing is, Well, what's available to you? What could you do, so to speak? Any thoughts on that?

Dean Jones 39:08
Yeah, I got two thoughts -- two, two things I'd say about that, that -- it's a great question, Jim, I think one of the things we have to be clear about is that talented people always have plenty of opportunities. You know, talented people always have tons of opportunities. And the challenge a lot of times with talented people is not, Are there enough opportunities, but picking the right opportunities. And oftentimes, I will tell you, people, I think people get confused because there's opportunities in front of them, and other people are excited about them doing that thing, but they, they, and they may be taking the opportunity because other people are so excited, right? It's that thing where, you know, growing up, we think, you know, our parents know best, or our teachers know best, or our coaches know best, or whoever it is, right, right? And so we do the things to make other people happy. And there's a point, just like owning your own development, where you have to start to be able to be clear about, What are the opportunities that are right for you?

Dean Jones 40:09
So it's that getting clear again about who you are, right, and getting clear about, What is it that you want? When you're clear about those things, it gets clearer for you which opportunities are good opportunities for you, and which are opportunities that you, you should pass on. Right? Just because someone says, "Hey, you'd be great at that!" doesn't mean you should necessarily do it. Because it, it, one, on one hand, it may not be in line with all of your talents; it may be in line with some of them. And on the other hand, it may not be aligned with the person that you want to be, right. And so I think it's choosing the opportunities is more important than having the opportunities, right.

Dean Jones 40:54
I also think for people that people get a little lost on, How do I generate opportunities for myself? And part of it is being clear about what it, this, I can't, I can't under, I can't undersell or underestimate having a picture of excellence enough; having that sense for yourself of, Where do you want to be? Where, where do you want to be? And being able to communicate that to others, right? You know, Jim, if, if, if, really, you know, to use your silly analogy, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna work with it for a second here, OK. But, you know, if, if everybody in your life has a line around, "You know, Jim's dream is to be a firefighter," right? And, you know, "Jim, Jim talks about firefighting all the time," right? And, you know, "He really sees -- a lot of his talents are aligned with being a firefighter. We really see, you know, he was, you know, there was a flareup on the grill the other day. He was able to put that out, no problem," you know. But, you know, it's if, when you're clear about it, and then you're speaking it into your community, like your community gets, starts to get aligned around it, the opportunities start to show up. It's a funny thing how that works, right? A lot of times, people, a lot of times, what you see with people is they aren't clear what they want, so their community can't respond because they're not clear themselves. They're not clear.

Dean Jones 42:16
And so that's where, as coaches, I think we have good work we can do with people to, one, help people get clear about themselves, but then also help people get clear about what it is that they want for themselves, right? Where is it that I want to go? You know? You know, there's this old saying, you know, "If you don't know where you're going, any direction, East will take you there, right? You know. And so you don't need a map, right? It's just, you start walking, right? So for a lot of people, I think it's helping people with that kind of calibration around, Where is it really that I, where is it really that I want to go? Where is it really that I want to end up?

Dean Jones 42:55
I want to say one more, I want to say one more thing. And then, and then, if there's some questions, I'm happy to take some questions around this. I think this, this piece about development, sometimes, I think that, excuse me, particularly in organizations, particularly in organizations, that people think about this thing of development as applicable to young people or people that are early stage in their career. And one of the things that gets frustrating for me is I, oftentimes, I'll have managers ask the question, I'll have managers ask the question, "Hey, I've got somebody who is at a late stage in their career. And, you know, I don't think development is really important for them. I don't think they're really interested in development. They just want to, kind of want to do their job and leave." Right? But the truth is, is, is that what's engaging, whether you're in an early stage of your career or the end, a late stage of your career, what's engaging for, for, for people, is, is being developed. And people never, there's not like a, there's not a piece where people stop developing, right? In fact, we also know, when you look at, from our engagement research, we know that engagement kind of has a U shape to it in organizations, as, when you look at engagement and tenure, you know, that your, you know, some of your most engaged folks are your newest folks, and then people go through kind of a dip. But what's interesting is, as those long-tenured folks, engagement starts to come up again, right? And so you got these people that are, are tenured in your organization and have, and very engaged. They also need to be developed.

Dean Jones 44:27
And my point is, it's the same stuff, right? My point is, is that having these conver-, conversations, Who are you now? Right? What are your talents and strengths now? So at a later stage in your career, your, your talents, more of your talents have been developed into strengths. And we, and you've got a track record around some of those talents, and having developed some of those talents into strengths. At the same time, you're clear about what you want and what you don't want, in most cases. And, at the same time, maybe interested in trying some new stuff, doing some different things. So there's, there's plenty of opportunities for development. And so it's not just about that piece of, Hey, I'm going to develop people so that they get promoted, or I get to develop people so that they can, you know, advance in their career. It's also helping people to develop so that they can exhibit greater levels of leadership and greater, greater expertise in the work that they're doing. Jim, do you want some questions?

Pedagogy vs. Andragogy

Jim Collison 45:30
Yeah, let me, let me, Justin had asked a question a little bit earlier, and we'll call this one back. He said a school system often focuses on conventional development. What might your favorite thing be to say to a teenager who, understandably, feels strengths-based development approach is not for them?

Dean Jones 45:51
Yeah, that's a good question, Justin. I'm not sure all that, I think this is probably a bigger conversation, right, around this. But, you know, it, so the thing that, that just comes to mind immediately is the difference between pedagogy and andragogy, right? Pedagogy is training, is the, is educating, educating young people, right? And andragogy is, is adult learning, right? And it's that shift from one to the -- it's that kind of shift from one to the other. In pedagogy, you know, in pedagogy, you know, you, you sort of assume that, that young people are sort of a blank slate. This is the first time you're going to, you know, like, one of the hardest things to teach is to teach somebody to read, right? It's like teaching somebody to ride a bike. Like, they don't get it, they don't get it, and then, Boom! You know, when you're riding a bike, Boom! All of a sudden, you got balance, you know. Or when you're reading, you know, all of a sudden, Boom! You're reading, right? So you're starting from nothing and, and, and moving to something.

Dean Jones 46:54
With andragogy, when you're training adults, it's a little different because, and it's why I think you have to, the technique is different between teaching young people and teaching adults, because -- and, and sometimes, people don't really want to teach adults because it's, sometimes it's easier to teach kids. You know, I don't, you know, we could probably have a debate on that one all day. Is it easier to teach kids or adults, right? But one of the challenges, I think, sometimes with the teaching adults is they've got, they've got this whole lifetime of experience and knowledge. So when you teach them something new, they have to, they map it on all that experience, and they will tell you, Yes, is this, this jibes with my experience, or it doesn't. And you have to be able to honor all the experiences and what they've learned in the past, in order to be able to teach them. You know?

Dean Jones 47:39
The other thing is that -- I think all good teachers do this, but -- relevancy is typically a bigger thing with, in adult learning. Is -- you really have to, in order to teach adults, you really have to, when you give them something, when you're teaching them something, you really have to have a strong context to be able to show them how this is going to be relevant for you. Now, we also know that when you're teaching young people, it's the same, right, to some degree, helping them -- great teachers help them see how this is going to be relevant for them. It's one of the reasons -- and I will tell you, this is just an opinion I have -- I don't, I think sometimes that we worry too much when we're teaching young people about relevancy, you know, as how are they? You know, it's like this kind of push from a lot of educational institutions to, to only focus on things that are job-related skills. I think part, I think there's certain things that we learn that just make us good people, right, and well-rounded people, and people that can experience life and appreciate life, right? And not everything is something that I'm necessarily going to use to make money. And so I think there's a, there's a difference there. So Justin, I hope I answered your question. It was a good question, and it's probably one we can talk about more, but hopefully that was useful.

Jim Collison 48:51
Yeah, I think back to our high school internship days. I'll have these students in -- high-potential. And the, there was maybe a tendency to kind of focus on -- we were, this was a software development program, and so it was, it would have been easy to spend time thinking about only the skills required to do software development, right -- coding or whatever. And we spent a lot of time just talking about their individual, their individual talents and thinking about how those applied, and we did a lot of things where they had to work together to do things, right, that were not necessarily, you know, a software outcome, but, but some, some areas that they could grow, continue to grow and learn, give opportunities for. Just recently, a couple months ago, I got a email, or I got a message through LinkedIn from one of those high school interns from 10 years ago, who said, "Hey, thanks for giving me all these opportunities professionally. I'd never be where I'm at today if I hadn't spent time, you know, in the high school program at Gallup." And it was just a great reminder of all that work of, you know, it didn't lead to a job here. It didn't, he didn't even stay in Omaha; he ended up moving to New York. But it was, it was that time we invested in him doing that.

Jim Collison 50:13
Never did we say in the program, you're going to be a soft -- now, he -- a software developer. He was; he ended up being, but many have gone on do other things. And it's been terribly rewarding, you know, to watch, to watch those things happen. Beverly has a good quote. She says, "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Go and do that, because that's what the world needs is people who come alive" in that. And that, Dean, in my own, in my own situation here, I mean, I, never in a million years if what, if, in my 30s, said, "Well, I'm going to be a podcaster someday, or work in marketing or media," or any of those kinds of things, and yet those talents fit right in. And you and Jeremy and Matt, Matt Mosser and Shari Theer spent an enormous amount of time investing in me and my talents to give those an opportunity to learn and grow and, and to, to move forward. And yet, they still have expectations. I don't get to just do this for free. There's expectations, right, as we're talking about that. So it's kind of a microcosm of my own, you know, of my own experience here in doing this. Who would have thought that we would have, you know, we would, we'd be doing these things, You said, you know, "Some people don't even figure it out till their 30s." I was solidly in my 40s before I figured out this was something. Yeah.

Dean Jones 51:32
Yeah. I think it goes back to the thing that Beverly said the, in the chat here about job crafting. Sometimes we call it job shaping, you know, is that, is that, you know, one of the things we know that over time, as you know more about your talents and strengths, it allows you to know what you do best. And the more you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day [item Q03 of Gallup's Q^12® employee engagement tool], we know, the more engaged you are. And great managers will help you with that. If you've got a great manager, great managers paying attention to, what are the things that you do well? What are the things that you like to do? What are the things that are aligned with your strengths? And they will help kind of shape your job around those things and to help you be successful. It's also what a good coach does, is to be able to provide that feedback back to people -- "Here, I hear you saying this." Or "It seems to me that, you know, that these are the areas where you find yourself most fulfilled." And to help people on that journey of being able to say, How do I use, how do I continue to develop my talent? But how do I use my strengths every day to make a difference in the world?

Jim Collison 52:33
Yeah, it's exciting to think -- I got a note from a student from 10 years ago, and 10 years ago, we had 1,000 Certified Coaches doing this. I'm hoping you're hearing now -- you've been doing it for 10 years. I hope you're hearing from some of those folks you coached 8 or 9 or 10 years ago, because it's an amazing feeling when you get that opportunity to say, "Oh my gosh. Like, Wow!" Right? And it's very, very, very fulfilling. So, so I think we have this, we have some of those opportunities now. Dean, as we wrap this up, final thoughts from you, just on this topic? And we'll wrap it.

Dean Jones 53:12
I think there's an opportunity, again, to -- just going, going back to kind of square one here -- I think there's an opportunity, as you're working with your clients, as you're working with managers and leaders inside your organization, to help them to understand the difference between strengths-based development and conventional development. Right? When you've got people that, when you've got folks that aren't fulfilling the expectations of a particular role, and you need to work with them, that's, that's, that's, that's great, and they may need to be, there may be training that they need, and they may need support, and they may need feedback around that. But again, what, we don't want to be, we don't want to be a mystery about that. That's the kind of development to get people up to meeting expectations. Those are the kind of, that's the kind of thing that belongs more on a performance plan than on a development plan.

Dean Jones 54:03
That in strengths-based development, it, there's a different lens. So the lens is not, Hey, Where, where, where are we going to fix something? The, in strengths-based development, where we're literally looking at, what are the things that, where are your natural talents? What are the things that naturally you do well, and how can we invest in those things to have you be world-class? And, you know, the best organizations are the ones that are thinking about that all the time, and have managers and leaders thinking about that all the time -- to think, How do we harness the talents of our folks, so that we, so that they're world-class and we can really be world-class?

Jim Collison 54:43
Love it. I think with that, we'll, we'll wrap it, Dean, thanks for your time today. Great to, great to be back with you. Looking forward to 2025, as we record this late 2024, some exciting things ahead. And, and thanks for -- listen, thank you for the development you've poured into my life over the last 8, 9, 10 years, as we've gotten to do this together. So thanks for being a partner and a coach and a friend through all these things. I think it, as you're talking through all these things, I'm like, Oh yeah, you've done all that for me. It's all there. It's a great -- I could go back and say, Oh yeah, here, and oh, there, and this and that, right. And whether I knew it was happening or not, you were, you were investing in me. So thank you for, for doing that as well. Appreciate it.

Dean Jones 55:27
You're welcome.

Jim Collison 55:28
With that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we do have available in Gallup Access. Lots that's out there for you. I just think, you know, back in, in June, we launched some new partnership exercises that are I Bring, I Need statements available off your Strengths Dashboard, in the Community tab. And, and a cool little graphic there that you compare, can compare yourself to someone else that's shared their, their, their results with you, and you can head out there. If you haven't checked it out, check it out today. Log in at Gallup Access. Go to my.gallup.com, log in. Check out that Strengths Dashboard and Community tab. For coaching, master coaching or to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, we do that as well. You can send us, send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. And that that address is good for any questions that you might have. Stay up to date with all our future webcasts, and we've got some more coming, by joining our Facebook groups. Or find us on any of the social platforms just by searching "CliftonStrengths." Those teams have really been busy. So if you're not following us on Instagram or LinkedIn or any of those other places, search "CliftonStrengths." And there's, they're, they are doing a lot of good work out there for you. Thanks for listening today. For those who joined us live, thanks for coming out. If you're listening on the podcast or in YouTube, thanks for doing that as well. And for everybody else, with that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Dean Jones' Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Activator, Focus, Woo, Strategic and Relator.

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