I was cleaning my office today and I came across my copy of Now, Discover Your Strengths. I have a love/hate relationship with this book. We had to read it for work and submit our strengths to our manager, and I remember being really frustrated that none of my strengths were based on communication. They all are a little crazy sounding. But I now have decided that I like them ... mostly because I laugh when I read the "How to manage a person strong in ____" section of the book.Without going into that section yet, here are my five strengths (according to the quiz I took in 2005).
1) Positivity - People strong in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
2) Ideation - People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
3) Adaptability - People strong in the Adaptability theme prefer to "go with the flow." They tend to be "now" people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.
4) Empathy - People strong in the Empathy theme can sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others' lives or others' situations.
5) Input - People strong in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.
As they're described right there, I think these sound okay. It's when you look at the manager's section (giving tips for how to deal with these traits) that they seem to be more, um, quirky.
Here's more of the description for Input ... "You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information -- words, facts, books and quotations -- or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs." It's this last part about collecting tangible objects that makes me laugh. Because my coworkers like to make fun of the idea that I might collect dolls -- which I don't -- and they like to list off other items I might collect ... like human hair, toenail clippings, receipts, etc. And how did they know that my loft is FILLED with sepia photographs? Amazing. They must be collecting information about ME.
This manager's tip for Ideation also makes me laugh ... "She enjoys the power of words. Whenever you come across a word combination that perfectly captures a concept, idea, or pattern, share it with her. It will stimulate her thinking." And I'm not sure if it makes me laugh because it sounds absolutely ridiculous or because I'm embarrassed to admit that I really do love words that much. But I'm not sure the tip is clear, and it makes me think up scenarios of how people might interpret the suggestion. Like just e-mailing me random words. "Laura, ran across these words today and thought you might like them ... voracious ... pow wow ... persnickety ... Kubla Khan!"
Here's a great tip for Input ... "Encourage her to make use of the Internet. She will use it to find information she thinks she needs. Not all of her fact-finding will be immediately useful, but it will be important for her self-esteem." Here's the beauty of this -- nobody needs to encourage me to make use of the Internet. I'm making use of it just fine. And I do use it to find information I think I need, frequently on people.com. But I promise my self-esteem will stay intact, regardless of how my Internet fact-finding missions end up.
My favorite, though, is the description for Empathy. It's also the one that would terrify me if I were my manager ... "Help this person to see her Empathy as a special gift. It may come so naturally to her that she now thinks everyone feels what she feels, or she may be embarrassed by her strength of feeling ... Pay attention but do not overreact when she cries. Tears are a part of her life. She may sense the joy or tragedy in another person's life more poignantly than even that person does."
My confession about this description is that it's actually pretty accurate. I think that trait is one of the key reasons that I wanted to somehow be involved with a nonprofit organization. I just can't stop thinking about people's stories and situations once I hear them. I think it's more of a "controlled" empathy now, though, since I read really emotional stories everyday as part of my job. They still stay with me, but I don't cry at work. (I'll cry anywhere else, though, because I cry if I'm happy or sad. I cry watching the Olympics, especially at ice skating, and I for some reason cry during slow motion scenes and montages.)
I think that all in all I like my strengths, though, even if some of them sound odd. But flipping through the book, I really wish that I had Competition in my top five. Because here are the manager's tips ... "Use competitive language with this person ... Measure him against other people, particularly other competitive people ... Set up contests for him ... When this person loses, he may need to mourn for a while. Let him." I love this. It basically sounds like every day would be Field Day at work -- and I sure did love Field Day. Maybe there's a chance Competition could be my sixth strength. Because my "Input" strength has already made me collect/save all of my Field Day ribbons. I'd like to be able to chalk that up to a competitive edge instead of the possibility that I'll soon start collecting other things like butterflies or porcelain dolls. Terrifying.
