Living Your Strengths - Part 3

This evening I went to the local Borders, and what did I see as soon as I walked in the door? Right there, in the center of the "Just Release" rack, were four books on the "strengths" theme. Two were based on the StrengthsFinder and two were by a former Gallup Organization employee who had been part of that process.

I glanced at Marcus Buckingham's First, Break All The Rules and Go Put Your Strengths to Work. Buckingham, who is now an independent consultant, engages the topic in a slightly different way, so I put those down. The other two books I took to the Cafe and perused while having a vanilla latte.

Now, Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham (when he was with the Gallup Organization) and the late Donald O. Clifton was the first of these Strengths books, published in 2001. The first couple of chapters looked at people--famous and everyday folks--who are working with their strengths. The largest section of the book, like Living Your Strengths, contains descriptions of the 34 Themes. Instead of the scripture passages, there were three quotes from various business professionals for each theme. Following those were "Ideas for Action." Some of these were similar, or identical, to the insights in Living Your Strengths. Here are a couple of the ones from the Learner theme that were not in Living Your Strengths:

• Seek roles that require some form of technical competence. You will enjoy the process of acquiring and maintaining this expertise. (p. 135)
• As far as possible shift your career toward a field with constantly changing technologies or regulations. You will be energized by the challenges of keeping up. (p. 135)
• Because you are not threatened by unfamiliar information, you might excel in a consulting role (either internal or external) in which you are paid to go into new situations and pick up new competencies or languages quickly. (p. 135)

The last section was about Managing Strengths.

The newest (published last year), and smallest, book is Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. In the first chapter Rath talks about "The Path of Most Resistance":

From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to our shortcomings than to our own strengths.

This is quite apparent in the way we create icons out of people who struggle to overcome a lack of natural talent. Consider the true story of Rudy Ruettiger, the 23-year-old groundskeeper at Notre Dame's stadium, who was the protagonist of the 1993 movie Rudy.

While Rudy's perseverance is admirable, in the end, he played a few seconds of college football and made a single tackle...after thousands of hours of practicing. (pp. 3-4)

Rath then goes on to write about his own experience of more than five years of 100% effort at basketball and not even being able to make the junior varsity team.

Again, the bulk of the book is sections devoted to each of the 34 themes. The descriptions of each theme are the same as both other books. Here, the business professionals' quotes, which are identical to those in Now, Discover Your Strengths, are headed "[Insert Theme Title Here] Sounds Like This." However, the "Ideas for Action," also almost identical to the previous book, are followed by a section entitled "Working With Others Who Have [Insert Theme Title Here]." Here are a couple from the Learner theme:

• Regardless of the person's role, he will be eager to learn new facts, skills, or knowledge. Help him find new ways to learn and get motivated. (p. 136)
• Help this person track his learning progress by identifying milestones or levels that he has reached. Celebrate these achievements. (p. 136)
• Encourage this person to become the "master of trade" or "resident expert" in a specific area. This will feed his need for extreme competency. (p. 136)

That last seems to contradict this part of the Learner description:

The Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving fro the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. (p. 133)

In other words, it may work for some Learners, but not all.

Basically, what Winseman and Liesveld did with Living Your Strengths was to take something essentially designed as a personal development tool for the business world and did a little tinkering to make it applicable to the sphere of religion. I am having a difficult time with this constant application of business models to the church. It appears that this is also the theory behind inviting several of us to a seminar with one of the FutureThink authors later this month. At the same time, I have been gleaning some good information from both Living Your Strengths and FutureThink.

Obviously, more to follow over the coming weeks.

Peace,
Jeffri