For First Time, Gallup Brings Strengths Coaching Certification to Washington, D.C.

Gallup is bringing our strengths-based development coaching courses to Washington, D.C. These courses are meant for anyone interested in becoming a certified strengths-based coach, whether you are learning about strengths-based talent for the first time or if you have been a strengths enthusiast for years.

The upcoming strengths coaching courses taking place at Gallup’s world headquarters in Washington, D.C., are:

Successful Strengths Coaching
This two-day course will give you the knowledge and foundation for becoming a strengths-based coach. It will teach you how to help your clients or employees understand, apply, and integrate Clifton StrengthsFinder results into their lives and roles. This course covers the following topics:

• Value of the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment as an effective instrument for measuring talent
• Identify and learn the 34 Clifton StrengthsFinder themes
• Understand and appreciate strengths-based development
• Discover how to use your dominant strengths as an effective coach
• Help your clients understand their talents and how to use them every day
• Conduct fundamental strengths-based coaching conversations
• Network with other coaches and establish a coaching community

Accelerated Strengths Coaching
During this advanced four-and-a-half-day course, you will gain sophisticated insights to help your clients or employees respond to situations, work effectively with others, accomplish their goals, and understand their biases and vulnerabilities. This course covers the following topics:

• Apply your greatest talents in your role as a coach and integrate your strengths to become a more effective coach
• Help your clients or employees understand their talents and how to use them to produce results and reach their goals
• Advise others on how to overcome obstacles, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities
• Educate your clients or employees about how to use strengths to transform their relationships
• Help individuals understand their unique strengths within the context of others
• Provide managers with techniques for using strengths-based development to address specific team-related issues and challenges
• Teach teams to discover, develop, and use their unique talents for greater team engagement and productivity

Now is the time to learn the strategies and solutions to help you maximize your coaching potential. Registration for each class is limited to just 25 seats, so sign up today!

For more information about each course, including dates and prices, please visit Gallup Strengths Center. For additional questions, please send a request to coaching@gallup.com.

Fireworks and Moon Rockets

By Dries Lombaard, Strengths Coach

I love fireworks. Spectacular!! The best display I ever saw was in California, at Disneyland, about two years ago. Incredible -- the combination of light and explosive energy is just exhilarating, to say the least.

Another awesome display was last December, back home in South Africa on New Year’s Eve. We were on vacation at the sea, and at this specific little seaside town, a New Year’s Eve fireworks display has been tradition for decades. The kids loved it and so did everyone else. The sounds, color, and bursting energy are something to behold.

The next morning, I walked on the beach and it was littered with burned out fireworks casings that fell to the ground after they did their job. That made me think…

Very often we approach new knowledge or new growth just like a firework display. We love the explosive energy behind it. The exciting array of colors and shapes keeps us fascinated. We cheer and "Ahhh!" at every explosion.

Then it ends. The casings fall down to earth. Darkness takes over again. And we go home. We've got memories, but we remain unchanged in every other aspect. We wait for the next display of fireworks to "wow" us and make us feel good for a moment in time.

On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of a rocket launch. It could be a mission to the moon or sending a new satellite into orbit. This also provides for an amazing display, one with explosive energy. But there is a difference: Once the launch is over, the real mission starts. The rocket has a destination, and the launch is only the start. The success of the mission depends on a lot more than the powerful rockets that launched it through the atmosphere.

We can approach tools of development like the amazing Clifton StrengthsFinder in exactly the same way. I meet many people who use it simply as a fireworks display, something they talk a lot about for a while, but there is no real mission in it, and no destination…ask them about it later, and they can barely remember their own top five strengths definitions.

In my experience as a strengths coach in South Africa over the past seven years, I have come to the conclusion that most people will naturally default toward the short-term excitement of a "fireworks display." It seems as if the mission behind changing yourself is simply too much work for them. That, in my view, is extremely unfortunate -- especially with a dynamic, powerful, and accurate assessment like the Clifton StrengthsFinder.

Turning talents into strengths involves a mission and a destination. So, when we know that, we realize the countdown is merely the beginning of something and much more than a burst of explosive energy. Strengths coaching is all about leading someone toward discovering their own potential and opportunities. Then we guide them toward developing those strengths into practical change and implementing them. This takes time, effort, and intentional focus.

So, next time you talk to someone about their talents (or coach them on their strengths), make sure you help guide them toward a destination. Yes, celebrate the feeling of excitement with them as they discover their uniqueness, but always remember that building a strengths-based life, career, or team involves an intentional journey -- a journey toward becoming so much more than you are. Shooting off fireworks will always only be temporary in its effect. Building on your strengths and reaping the benefits will last a lifetime!

As the founder and owner of African Mosaic, a driving force for the strengths movement, Dries Lombaard is one of the premiere coaches in South Africa. Lombaard also has a keen interest in leadership development and has been actively involved in leadership development and corporate training for various organizations over the past 20 years. Lombaard lives with his wife, also a strengths coach, and their four daughters in Pretoria, South Africa.

What the K-State Student Body Election Can Teach U.S. Politicians

By Tom Matson, Senior Director of Executive Leadership: Gallup

Last fall, I had the chance to watch the presidential debates with my two teenagers. The debates started cordially, but of course shifted very quickly to the negative. My son picked up on this and asked me, “Why are they only focused on what’s wrong rather than what’s right?” It was a great question and one we should all be asking.

Imagine what it would be like if our politicians focused more on their strengths rather than on attacking their opponents’ weaknesses.

Kansas State University recently put this concept into action in its own campus political debates. The university asked student body candidates to focus on their strengths -- not harp on each other’s weaknesses.

And by strengths, Kansas State means the specific unique talents each student possesses based on the Clifton StrengthsFinder. K-State is a strengths-based campus, meaning it partners with Gallup to give freshmen students the StrengthsFinder assessment, which identifies their top five talents and provides suggestions for how to capitalize on those talents to achieve personal, academic, and career improvement.

To that end, Kansas State incorporated strengths into its recent student body presidential and vice presidential debates. The debates were “a chance to give people an opportunity to look at the candidates through their strengths and help the candidates see their own strengths,” said K-State student Kristen Burton in The Collegian, K-State’s student newspaper.

The moderators asked questions that focused on the candidate’s strengths and how he or she would use the strength, if elected.

Here’s how The Collegian reported on what happened at the debate:

For presidential candidate Kyle Nuss, senior in architectural engineering, his strengths of achiever, competition, learner, focus and positivity were important.

“Achievers” are those who work hard to achieve a goal while “Focus” refers to the ability to keep a goal on task and follow through. Finally, those with “Positivity” are all about being upbeat and positive. 

Nuss’ vice presidential running mate Ariel Mendiola, junior in sociology, cites Nuss’ “Positivity” strength as his most important. “His positivity kept us going and would always keep us going,” Mendiola said. “He kept our eyes on the prize.”

Read what else candidates had to say about their strengths here.

The student body reacted very positively to the debates. “I think strengths are good indicators of people’s qualities, and students can see what they bring to the positions,” one student told The Collegian.

Focusing on candidates’ strengths shifts the political discourse from a negative battle over who is worse to a positive conversation about what each individual can achieve. Imagine how inspirational it would be if the next time you heard a local or federal politician talking about how he or she would use his or her strengths to grow the economy or increase productivity. This is the type of political conversation or debate I would be proud to watch with my children. One that would create a vision for what kind of leader they can be in the future.

Tom Matson is the Senior Director of Executive Leadership for the Gallup Education Practice. With a focus on executive coaching and more than 10 years of consulting experience, he is committed to challenging leaders to become authentic and fully live out their strengths each day in a healthy and productive way. Matson earned his bachelor’s degree in communications and master’s degree in organizational leadership.

Ready, Fire, Aim: The Reformation of an Activator

By Brandon Miller, Avaunt Advantage Business Coach

I love motion and movement. To me, there is no learning without doing, and once a decision to act has been made, there must be action. As an adolescent, this impulse led me to do some things that I am not prepared to write about, except to say that I’m glad I am still here and able to write this blog post. In the young adult years of my life, I was the guy who could turn thought into action. Give me the signal that we need to complete a project, move product, or get a group that was stuck in the planning process to produce results, and I was your guy. In this process I learned that, although I could make things happen, you could usually find some carnage left behind in my wake of motion. Yet, to my way of thinking, this was necessary collateral damage to accomplish a goal or complete a task.

When presented with the opportunity to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF), I was elated to find the theme Activator in my Signature Themes. Armed with this new term to describe my strength, I continued to push hard to be the person who could get things done. Over the course of time, the carnage caught up with me. My working relationships deteriorated as people began to lose confidence in my leadership abilities. Instead of being known as the hero who could produce the results, I was known as an impetuous person who was often impatient and hard to deal with. How could this be? Wasn’t I simply working out of my strength?

I’ve heard it said that most men get their brains when they turn 30. Apparently, I resemble this comment, as it took me about that long to come to the realization that I needed to reconsider my definition of the Activator theme and how it worked in my life. Perhaps if I had read the application section of the theme report provided by Gallup for each person who participates in the CSF, I would have learned this sooner. In this section, a person especially talented in the Activator theme is encouraged to partner with people who are strong in themes such as Analytical, so as to gain a different perspective before taking action on an initiative. As I grew older and wiser, thank God, this was the approach I took for my life and career. Instead of rushing into action, I learned to seek counsel from those who would take a different approach to the plan and actually listen to their advice before moving forward.

Each of us has within ourselves amazing talents that can be cultivated into strengths. The cultivation process requires training, knowledge, and intentional effort to transform latent or misused talent into strengths. In order to achieve success, tools such as the CSF can aid us in gaining greater self-awareness and increased knowledge on how to grow in our strengths. I still love motion. Action is my first thought when a decision has been made, and I can still be found to be impatient. Yet, armed with a new understanding of strengths, this Activator has gone through a reformation and now sees greater results, and much less carnage, as the strength is developed.

Brandon Miller is the Managing Partner and Business and Strengths Coach for Avaunt Advantage, LLC. With over 15 years of experience in business development and ownership, Miller is an advocate for the strengths-based revolution as he works to help others discover their innate talents and develop them into strengths. Miller resides in Elk Grove, California, with his wife and their seven children.