Strengths finder (personal capabilities, part 5)¶

The StrengthsFinder 2.0 is basically an online test for which you get an access code by buying the accompanying book. It is an improved version of a quite old method by Gallup.

Basic premise: you only look at your strengths and focus on them. There's a big list of various strengths and the online test selects 5 of them and follows up with a few extra tips.

Here's my list, partially for my own reference, partially because it can perhaps help others to use that to both their and my advantage.

Input

One word: INFORMATION. I want more. Random reading on wikipedia. Targeted reading on wikipedia. Around Christmas, I read a book about Sherman's march to Atlanta. This made it obvious I didn't know a lot about the USA civil war. One week and some regular wikipedia reading later, this was rectified.

Faced with a new technology, I want input. Information. A good book to read about it. Reading a bunch of blogs about it. Getting a feel. New stuff also gets compared to the existing available knowledge, so also without reading a lot about something new I can often extract a quick intuitive smell.

Intellection

A busy brain. And introspective (like you see in this article...). And I like intellectual discussions. Above-mentioned input strength makes sure I gather a lot, intellection makes sure I mill it around in my brain.

Trying to understand/introspect myself in this case (coupled with input and context) also flows over into wanting to understand historical figures. I've got three biographies of Montgomery, two of Erwin Rommel, stuff about Napoleon. I've read about Scipio and Caesar. Etc.

Learner

I want to learn and improve. Yeah. New ideas, new knowledge.

Context

Historical data. Whether about the history of Zope and Plone or about Scipio's tactics to bash the hell out of Carthage. More. More. I do also like websites like John Robb's global guerrillas that combine historical insight with modern insights to show how terrorists and others operate now.

Responsibility

According to the book: People who are especially talented in the Responsibility theme take psychological ownership of what they say they will do. They are committed to stable values such as honesty and loyalty.

There's one other part I want to cite: Chances are good that you are occasionally willing to be vulnerable. Perhaps you claim your talents or admit your weaknesses. Your openness may help some people know you better as a person.

Responsibility sounds very very good, but remember that this is a book about strong points. I do have a small weakness here and there :-)

In total, I quite enjoyed doing the test. And I got a bit more insight out of it. So well worth the 15 Euro or so that went into it.