Want team-members to be curious about each other?
Want them to give positive feedback to each other?
Looking for a game with a point?
Here, red10 ‘s Andy Stanley explains the guessing game he uses with the GALLUP® CliftonStrengths psychometric.
What is CliftonStrengths?
CliftonStrengths is a fabulous tool that allows you to identify your strengths – those things that you have a natural ability to do well, in order that you can focus your time and energy on doing more of those, and less of the things that you find difficult, or unpleasant.
Focusing on strengths, and developing skills there, empowers people to achieve greater performance.
How do we know that?
Data from GALLUP, shows that people who have the opportunity to use their strengths are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and to strongly agree that they have the chance to do what they do best every day.
So that’s:
6x
as likely to be engaged in their jobs
6x
as likely to strongly agree that they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day
and
3x
as likely to report having an excellent quality of life!
Plus, people are more confident and more likely to achieve their goals. They’re more likely to report having ample energy, feeling well-rested, being happy, smiling or laughing a lot, learning something interesting, and being treated with respect. And they’re less likely to report experiencing worry, stress, anger, sadness or physical pain.
People who use their strengths are three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life.
Who wouldn’t want that for their team?
OK, that sounds good. How would you use Strengths Finder with my team?
That’s easy!
Before we bring your team together, we ask them to complete an online CliftonStrengths assessment, in order to find out what their top 5 strengths are.
When you take the CliftonStrengths assessment, you uncover your unique combination of 34 CliftonStrengths themes.
The themes, which sort into four Domains are a culmination of decades of research led by Don Clifton to study and categorise the talents of the world’s most successful people.
Together, the themes explain a simple but profound element of human behaviour: what’s right with people.
Individually, each theme gives you a way to describe what you naturally do best or what you might need help from others to accomplish.
What are the 34 strengths?
Good question! The 34 strengths are grouped into 4 ‘Domains’: Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building, Influencing and Executing and you can explore these here
Each member of your team will be given a report which lists their Top 5 strengths. They might be, for example,
INPUT
IDEATION
ADAPTABILITY
POSITIVITY
EMPATHY
That’s 2 from Strategic Thinking and 3 from Relationship Building.
So what do you do with that information?
We play a game! Not just any game though, we play the CliftonStrengths Guessing Game.
We arrange each of the strengths in their groups and stick them up in the 4 corners of the room. Then we ask one member of the team to step forward and we ask the rest of the team to guess what their strengths are. It doesn’t matter if they guess correctly. The beauty of this game is that it allows the team to tell each other what they really love about their colleagues.
Imagine if Janet steps forward and her colleagues all choose a strengths that they think she has. One at a time we would ask them to explain why they have chosen that particular strength.
‘I’ve chosen Empathy Janet, because when I had some personal problems last year, you were always there for me and you really showed me that you cared!’
‘I’ve chosen Harmony, because you always work hard to make sure that we all get along. I love that about you!’
‘I’ve chosen inclusion. When I arrived in the team, you made sure that I was welcome and you introduced me to everyone. You really made me feel accepted. Thank you Janet!’
Next, Paul steps up and the team guess his top 5.
‘I’ve chosen Strategic Paul, because you are always totally clear about where we are going and what we need to achieve!’
‘I’ve chosen Adaptability. I know that you will always make the best of a situation, regardless of how often things have to change. I love working with you because of that!’
Soon, the whole team are giving and receiving positive and heartfelt feedback. They hear great stories from their colleagues about the positive effects that they have on other team members. They walk away feeling valued, respected and in some cases, loved.
That sounds great. But why do you call it a game?
Because we give out points! 5 points if you guess one of the top 5 strengths and 2 points if you guess the correct domain. When everybody has had a turn, the team member with the highest number of points is the winner!
The truth though, is that everyone wins with this activity. Teams learn about each other’s strengths and can see where how strengths are distributed across the members. This can help to identify areas of potential weakness as well as areas of real aptitude.
On top of all that, everyone has fun and individual team members find out just how much they are valued by their colleagues. What a great way to build relationships in your team!