Last week I launched StrengthsDay. Every Wednesday I take one persons StrengthsFinder results and profile them. I kicked off last time by looking at Jennie’s themes of Ideation, Activator, Strategic, Input, and Learner. You can catch up on that conversation here.
(If you would like to have your StrengthsFinder results profiled then share your five themes here in the order you got them. Each week I randomply pick one person to profile from that list.)
This week I’m profiling Rhiannon Mollart. Rhiannon is actually a good friend of mine, so this should be fun. (I promise it wasn’t fixed!) Whilst I am profiling Rhiannon specifically, I’d love you to join in with this conversation if you either share any of the same themes or if you have any observations you want to add. The more of us who join in the better!
Let’s start by looking at the brief descriptions for Rhiannon’s themes:
- Empathy
- People strong in the Empathy Theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations.
- Communication
- People strong in the Communication Theme generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.
- Developer
- People strong in the Developer Theme recognize and cultivate the potential in others. They spot the signs of each small improvement and derive satisfaction from these improvements.
- Strategic
- People strong in the Strategic Theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues.
- Context
- People strong in the Context Theme enjoy thinking about the past. They understand the present by researching its history.
Ok, as with last week, I’m going to start by asking Rhiannon to answer a few questions to kick the conversation off.
- Can you start by sharing a little about who you are and what you do?
- Which of your five talent themes do you feel is your strongest? Why?
- Which talent theme seems to fit you the best? Why?
- Are any of your talent themes misunderstood by the people around you, if so why do you think that is?
- Do you have any talent themes that you’re really not sure why it came up? Why?
- What other questions do you have?
Suggestion: If you have taken your StrengthsFinder assessment a good thing to do when you read through the descriptions for your talent themes is to underline all the sentences that really resonate. Underline everything that really jumps out at you as being true about you.
Be sure to check back later to follow the conversation about Rhiannon’s StrengthsFinder themes!
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Can you start by sharing a little about who you are and what you do?
Of course! Well…after graduating from my degree in Illustration at art school 2 years ago I took a job in London as an illustration agent. This means I represent commercial illustrators, get them work, do their promotion for them, negotiate on jobs etc. I live in Muswell Hill, North London.
Which of your five talent themes do you feel is your strongest? Why?
I think I would have to say Empathy is my strongest in that it has the most dominance on my life. I am almost physically affected by emotions and sometimes find it difficult to detach myself from the emotions of those around me. So if I see someone cry, chances are I will cry too. It also means I find a lack of empathy in others quite difficult to comprehend.
Which talent theme seems to fit you the best? Why?
Probably communication. It would most likely be one of the first things that someone would notice about me and comes the most naturally. The Strengths Finder book talks about a communicator ‘telling stories’ and that is certainly true. All the time. In any given situation I find myself thinking about how I will re-tell it later. Even unfortunate events become great story-telling opportunities!
Are any of your talent themes misunderstood by the people around you, if so why do you think that is?
Hmm…I had to think about this. I guess the one that causes the most problems is Strategic because it is to do with the way I think and plan. Generally speaking I am unconscious that I do this, but whenever a decision has been made, i will plan all the steps it will take to get there in my head beforehand. Even if it is something as simple as going out for the evening, on my way home from work I will have worked out (fairly subconsciously) the order with which I will do everything I need to do to get ready. This is all fine until a plan gets changed….I am ashamed to say I don’t handle change very well at all. It just seems to jar with me and I will often find myself unnecessarily annoyed when a plan is changed, even if the new one is clearly more practical. I have recently begun to think that this might be partly due to the fact that I will have been subconsciously strategically planning everything I need to do to get to that destination and a change requires a completely new plan of how to get there.
Do you have any talent themes that you’re really not sure why it came up? Why?
No not really, but like Jennie I was surprised by one…. I love all things with a history (especially if that has a good story attached – because that uses my communication theme too!) but I had no idea that it was a part of my character! So when Context came up I didn’t understand it at first. I now spot it in most things but I have yet to find quite how this can be a ‘Strength’ which leads me nicely on to…
What other questions do you have?
I have always seen Context more as a preference than a strength – how could this be used as a strength and what should I do to develop it?
Hi! I have all of Rhiannon’s talent themes but one – I have Woo instead of Strategic. I had to think quite a lot about Context myself. I wasn’t sure that it was accurate until I looked at how I think and what interests me and I love historic novels, real life stories (I was fascinated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution at age 16!). Mainly I see it manifested in needing to know a person’s history. I’m only interested in historical events as they relate to real people and I enjoy knowing where people are from and all the things they have done up to this point. It helps me to know them better. I think most decisions I make, I take into account all that has led me to this point. I’m not that bothered about thinking lots about the future. I’m not a big fan of change either! I put that down to my Context theme and personality I guess.
I think I use context when relating to people and when making decisions with others. I bring up things from the past to help me decide if the plan is likely to work!
For you Rhiannon, you might find your context and strategic interact?
Hope that adds to the conversation!
Very interesting! While Context is not one of my strengths, I quickly ran and grabbed my book to see what it said. (Input, Learner) I realized right away that your “misunderstood” theme is not Strategic, but Context. Strategic is clearly a strength for you – you plan carefully, I bet you generally know what time you need to be ready to leave and your driving path in advance. But when your plans get changed…THAT is a Context issue! Your plan, and the origins of your plan is Context. You get attached to it. That makes it hard to change.
I tend to think that if a talent isn’t working in your favor, there’s some other underlying issue. For me, it was the Activator – I start too many things that are truly impossible to finish. With introspection, I’ve realized I have trouble saying no, I’m somewhat co-dependent (thus less likely know myself as well as I should and act accordingly) and have some self-esteem issues that make it very hard to be successful. So being good at starting things, when I’m not always starting the right things and have trouble finishing them, is not always a blessing.
For you, Context is an issue. Being attached to the plan is good, you have ownership, confidence in your plan, etc. I don’t know a thing about you but maybe you should consider if there are reasons why Context doesn’t work for you in those situations. What pops into my head is that you may feel “out of control” in some way that may be a thread running through other areas of your life.
So the first step in making Context FEEL like a strength would be to have a better understanding of how it is functioning in you life. I can see how Context would be an underlying theme to each of your others…amplifying them to be more effective. You empathize more because you see people’s pain in context of their life, you communicate better because you form your sentences to talk to people in a way they will understand based on their context, you’re a better developer because of your understanding of where your develop-ee is coming from.
I’d suggest you take some time to consider your own context. Think about YOUR history, YOUR background, YOUR hurts and challenges. Look at yourself like you would a new client and I bet it would give you some additional understanding of who you are.
Thanks guys – both really useful comments. Really interesting that you both put my dislike of change down to my Context theme – I’d not considered that but it certainly makes sense. I would really love to become more adaptable and since recognising I don’t like to change plans once they are made it has helped me to understand my frustration when they are. I still feel frustrated sometimes but its usually shorter lived!
Any thoughts on developer? Its the one theme I haven’t mentioned. Rach? As a speech therapist its really obvious how you put this theme to good use on a daily basis, but how do you find it affects your relationships with friends/family/Sam etc?
Wow. This is good stuff guys. I might as well just sit back and enjoy watching you all share some really great insights!
I noticed that you said, “I would really love to become more adaptable”. I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about this. If it is not a natural talent theme, then you’re never going to make much progress becoming adaptable.
Accept that you do struggle with change and that you’re not great at being adaptable. Accept that they are weaknesses but don’t then give too much time to trying and making them strengths. You will almost certainly fail.
Instead you need to be tactical with the themes you do have where there is natural strength. How can you use what you DO have to manage around what you DON’T have?
Also on context, I will say that it definitely seems that for you Context is a supporting theme rather than a dominant theme. So don’t expect the same outcomes from it that you might with empathy or strategic. Rather I think it will help you to, as Jennie touched on, enhance your more dominant talent themes.
Make you dominant themes more powerful by utilising to the full your supporting Context theme.
As to Developer, do you have any opportunities at work to help others out? What about with friends? Do you have opportunities to help people develop their potential, move forward, improve themselves, etc?
If not, is there any way you could look to create opportunities to do this more?
What ways to you see Developer operating through you at the moment?
The combination of empathy and developer bring out a very strong theme of identifying with people in their growth. It softens the sense of seeing people only for their potential and also broadens the focus of development beyond skills etc to a more wholistic framework. Very nice! Even better when you consider the beauty of being able to communicate this potential to people in language that they get because of the emotional connection.
Brilliant! Another set of insightful comments!
As the baby of the office I don’t see myself so much in a developer role with my colleagues although I have found they sometimes like to chat through stuff with me, I think they like using me as a platform to bounce ideas. I’m not sure if this counts but I certainly derive a lot of pleasure when I think they have found it useful to chat through it with me. I also recently suggested one of the artist do some personal work to help him develop his style and was thrilled when I saw the 60 book covers he produced and the clearly evident enjoyment he derived from doing the work.
Ultimately though, I guess I should be looking for more opportunities to develop and use this theme in my personal life. Hmmm, thinking cap…