My goal as a strengths coach
As strengths coach my great hope is to help individuals and teams gain awareness and appreciation of dominate talents and apply those talents each day. The Gallup Organization (www.gallup.com) has been able to quantify a few of the benefits of the work force discovering, understanding and applying these natural talents. People who have taken CliftonStrengths are:
6x more likely to be engaged at work. Disengagement is the biggest problem of the contemporary work force.
6x more likely to do what they do best every day. The quality of work increases notably.
7.8 percent more productive in their role. What company wouldn't want a nearly 10 percent bump in productivity?
3x as likely to have an excellent quality of life. Our goal is to be more productive at whatever we get paid to do, but it's bigger than that.
Honestly, I think it's that last point that makes me most passionate about being a strengths coach. I believe that getting up and going to work has the potential to make us feel strong, desired and kinda magnificent. The problem is that less than three in 10 people report that kind of experience at work. For most of us the reality is that what we experience in our work trickles into most everything else, and for 8 of 10 that means taking a ho-hum, disengaged, just-get-to-the-weekend type of experience into other activities and relationships we value.
When I have been at my professional best it has been deeply productive and appropriately playful. I love going to work we we're getting the job done and having fun in the process. That happens best when we live into what's best about us, not being overly obsessed about what's wrong with us. As my former students like to say to me, "Do you, man. Do you, that's what you're best at."
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