As promised, today we will look at the ways we can capture, clarify, and confirm our strengths. This will be the final part of the second of six steps we are looking at as we go through Marcus Buckingham’s new book Go Put Your Strengths To Work. In case you have lost track, the first of the six steps was all about identifying the myths that may be stopping us putting our strengths to work. And the second step which we are currently looking at is all about truly getting clear about what our strengths actually are.
So, how do we capture, clarify, and confirm our strengths? Here’s how Buckingham introduces this process: “Learning how to capture, clarify, and confirm your strengths is your goal for this step. You’ll learn how to examine the actual activities that fill up your week, look for the telltale signs that point to your strengths and identify them.” The process is all about getting specific. It is about zooming in beyond our generic talent labels to the specific activities that we are uniquely strong in.
Capture
To start capturing our strengths, Buckingham encourages us to carry round a pad with us through the week and simply jot down exactly whatever we were doing (i.e. specific activities) that make us feel one of the following: Powerful, confident, natural, smooth, on fire, high, “I’ve got this wired”, great, authentic, “that was easy”, awesome, “when can I do this again”. The moment we have a significantly positive feeling doing a particular activity, we need to note that down.
As well as this, on a different page on our pad, Buckingham says we need to note down everything that makes us feel any of the following: Drained, “Times going by so slowly”, “I can’t concentrate”, frustrated, wiped out, forced, “I’m getting a migraine”, “How much longer?!”, irritated, bored, “Why can’t the new guy do this?”
From these two lists we are simply capturing the activities that strengthen us and the activities that weaken us.
Clarify
The activities that we captured will and should have been very specific. However, to identify a strength that is applicable week in and week out, we need to clarify on a more generic level what the strength is. Buckingham says that we need to ask ourselves four questions to identify the exact aspects of the activities we captured that need to be preserved if the activity is to generate in us the same positive emotions in the future.
- Does it matter why I do this activity?
- Does it matter who I do this activity with/to/for?
- Does it matter when I’m doing this activity?
- Does it matter what this activity is about?
Buckingham then says: “Using these four questions, you’ll quickly discover which aspects of the activity really matter and therefore which must be present if they are to make you feel strong week after week; and conversely, which aspects of the activity are largely irrelevant and can be ignored.”
Confirm
Having captured and clarified the activities that strengthen us and moved towards really identifying our strengths, Buckingham then says it’s vital we confirm these strengths. To do this he offers 12 questions built around SIGN (Success, Instinct, Growth, Needs). There isn’t space to reproduce these here, but really this is about going back through the strengths we have captured and clarified and checking that they all tick the boxes in terms of what Buckingham talks about in terms of the SIGN’s of a strength (see previous post for more on this).
There is a lot of material that I’m unable to cover here linked with all this and this is a very brief overview of how to come to the place of having several definite strengths statements. To really get to grips with this, I’d strongly suggest getting the book.
