Season 6 Episode 2: The Word on Coaching - Strengths

How are you using your strengths? During this episode,  our guest Carol deLaski shares her insights and experiences on how we can understand our strengths, own our strengths, and use them to move forward personally and professionally.   

Carol deLaski (PCC) is a professional certified coach, speaker, and author whose expertise is developing the strengths of businesses and individuals. In her private practice, Clear Choices Coaching, Carol provides strengths-based leadership training through workshops, group coaching, and 1-1 sessions. 

Carol gives us insight into leveraging strengths and shares practical tips and strategies on how to focus on our strengths, how to partner with others and their strengths, and how to be a strengths-focused leader.  

We hope you enjoy this episode 

Contact Information:
 
Carol deLaski
Carol deLaski | LinkedIn

Carol DeLaski – Professional Certified Coach (delaskicoaching.com)

Recommended Books in this Podcast Episode:

Lost and Found: Discovering Strength in Love and Faith: deLaski, Carol, Dow, Kim, Brennan, Linda, Berry, Susan, deLaski, Jess: 9780991119608: Amazon.com: Books 

StrengthsFinder 2.0: Gallup: 0074994540415: Amazon.com: Books 

 
Check out our best-selling book The Word on Coaching.  Buy a copy for yourself and copies to share with others. It is a great resource for one-on-one and group discussions. 

Amazon.com: The Word on Coaching: 9781737643807: Neely, Debby, Auger, Joann, Fuselier, Kevin: Books

Also, please check out quick guide about powerful questions: "Embrace the Power of Questions!"   A Quick Reference Guide to Getting the Answers You Need.  

Transcript

Debby 0:05

So welcome to the World on Coaching podcast. I am Debbie, and I'm here with Joanne and Kevin. Hey guys.

Kevin 0:12

Hello.

Debby 0:12

Hey everybody. We are coaches three. Three friends with years of leadership and coaching experience. You wanna share our passion with others. Because we believe in the power of coaching, so our podcasts are for leaders. Whether you have the formal title or not, we know a lot of you are out there leading without that title, and we focus on one word that relates to leadership and coaching. We, along with our guests, we like to give you tips, information, maybe a, a different or fresh perspective on things, but always a lot of support because we know leadership can be hard and we've got. Today I am really excited to welcome our guest, Carol de Laski. Let me tell you a little bit about Carol. Now, this is what's gonna tell you on paper about Carol. It's gonna say she's a professional certified coach, a speaker, a fabulous facilitator, and a faith-based author that her expertise is developing the strengths of businesses and individuals. But lemme tell you a little bit about Carol from my personal experie. I first met Carol when I was going through a mentoring program and she came in to do a strengths workshop for us. And as she will tell you, I think Carol, you had maybe an hour, maybe hour and a half, which was not enough time at all for us to do what we needed to do. And then I found out she was a coach and then she was never able to get rid of me. I attached myself to her after that So what you'll learn about Carol very quickly is that she has a very generous and nurturing spirit that is very empowering. It really makes you feel like you can just go out there and accomplish things, do what, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, that she's able to instill that confidence in you. Carol, I could probably spend the whole podcast is talking about you, but I know we wanna get to our topic. But before we do that, I, you have a business, you have a book out there. Tell, tell us a little bit about.

Carol 1:56

Well, Debbie, thank you first of all for having me on the program. I'm really delighted to be here with you, and I am, I always enjoy my time with you, and I'm, I'm enjoying getting to know Joanne and Kevin as well. So thank you for the opportunity. What I wanna just add to what you said already is that I've been coaching for over 15 years, and as a coach, I use a variety of tools and assessments and, you. techniques, right, with my clients, but I am absolutely most passionate about the strengths and the reason I have dived deep into this particular tool is that it's fundamentally positive. It builds people up in a, a really nurturing way, as you said. I'm excited to tell people about strengths tonight. I myself find that I use my top strengths when I'm coaching, and that leads to great career fulfillment and. the guests will learn tonight. Why that, why there's a link there. I do also have a coaching book and it is called Lost and Found Discovering Strength and Love and Faith. And that book is based on the premise that we all get off track sometimes we all have our valleys in life and. They can be disorienting and confusing, sometimes even frightening. But there is great wisdom to be learned in those valleys. And so what I personally have discovered is that powerful life lessons occur when we're off track and lost. My book is about my life lessons that I learned when I got lost. And it can be read as a story. It's entertaining as some romance and humor in it. Or it can be read as a personal developments holder, coaching questions at the end of each chapter to spur the reader onto self-inquiry and to develop their own insights and wisdom. So that's more, that's about my book and people can learn more about that on my.

Debby 3:46

Great. Thanks Carol. We, we know how hard it is to write a book, so kudos to you for doing it by yourself. Yes. And getting it out there

Carol 3:54

and to you as well.

Debby 3:57

So when I think of Carol, three words pop into my head, faith, family, and of course, strength. So tonight's word, which will be no surprise to anybody for our episode tonight, is gonna be, And Carol, I think when we met, we didn't even discuss other options. We pretty much zeroed right in on, okay, the word is gonna be strengths. You did. Carol's passion for strengths is obvious when you talked to her. You started alluding to this and talking about this a little bit, Carol, but let's, let's start with the why. Why should we focus on strengths?

Carol 4:27

I love starting with why, because the reality is when I ask people, what are your strengths? What I often am met with, and maybe you guys have noticed this too, is a blank stare. A lot of times people don't know what their strengths are, and I've been paying attention to this and what I've realized is a lot of people don't recognize what their strengths are, and that might be that there's a blind spot. They don't see it. But it also might be that they are uncomfortable talking about it. Like, I'm not, I don't have the language for it, or I don't wanna seem like I'm tooting my own horn, or I, I just don't, I don't even know what to say. So what I've noticed is that people can be assumptive or dismissive or minimizing of their strengths. And what that comes out as is, isn't everybody like this? Doesn't everybody have this strength? It's no big deal. you know, I've always been that way. Like people just sort of wanna sh slough it off and focus on. Wrong or what needs fixing. The reason we focus on strengths is to give people language and to give people that affirmation that you have strengths. The other thing that I've noticed, another reason to do it is that many of us are trying to be good at everything. And this gives us permission to say, okay, there are some things I'm wired for and there's some things I am not wired for, and it's. Permission to just focus on what your natural talent is, your God-given talent is. But what that also does is it then tells us who to partner with, right? What are we not good at? Well, who is good at that and who can I partner with to compliment that, that area of weakness of mine. Strengths are positive, they're energizing. I love them. And the last reason that we focus on strength is self-management. So in order to. Get the best out of myself. Each of us needs to know what do I bring to the table? What can I deliver consistently? And who, you know, how do I, how do I turn that up when I need more of it? How do I turn it down when I need less of it? That's the self-management piece, and I'll tell you more about that as we go along. Oh, I love a tease.

Debby 6:41

And I would encourage people to tooth their horn because I love that you said that. Cause I find that too, and I'm all about tooting your horn. Right. It can be

Carol 6:48

hard though, right? Right. Like it can look a little self-centered or it can, you know, we we're taught to be humble. We're taught to lift others up. And so actually from a leader's point of view, This is another I could add to the list is as a leader, it helps us to know how to lift up the people around us, how to affirm them in a way that really identifies that we understand them, that we understand the gifts they're bringing to us.

Kevin 7:15

Well, all those whys are wonderful. So you've convinced me and you've convinced us. So where would you recommend a person to start? How do we know? Understand what our strengths

Carol 7:27

really are. Well, there's plenty of tools out there, Kevin, to learn or assessments online to learn our, what our strengths are. My favorite is the Clifton Strengths tool, which used to be called Strengths Finder to point out people. It's been around. Over 50 years. So it's very well known and recognized. I often ask people, have you already taken this assessment? It's put out by Gallup. I like this particular tool because Gallup is always doing research on it, and so it's alive, right? They're digging into what does a strengths culture look like? What are the benefits of it, you know, pros, cons. I prefer the Clifton Strengths tool. It's online. It is used by around the world, by many, many organizations, by universities, nonprofits, government agencies. Like it's, it's really well, well received globally. And this particular tool, Gallup has identified 34 strengths. That people have. And when you take the assessment it online, it's just an hour. Yeah. Not even an hour. It will rank those 34 based on how you've responded. And then we focus, there's a variety of reports that you can purchase off their website, and so you can get a a leader's report or a manager's report or a salesperson's report, or you can get the whole full 34 if you'd like. It's one assessment, but multiple report options to identify, depending on what your needs are, you know, how to how to identify what they are. And then it's really your top 10 that we're looking at.

Kevin 9:02

That's great. You know, I'd love to hear that. there's continual research on it. It's used broadly across different industries, organizations, probably even countries, and that we can have a language to articulate what those strengths are. Cause I think sometimes when you ask people what are your strengths, they don't know what words to use to articulate what they're, what I'm good at or what they're good at. So that, that tool seems

Carol 9:30

very. In fact, I, one of my favorite organizations that has done something clever, I mean, there's, there's lots of them out there doing wonderful things with strengths, but George Mason University, right here in Northern Virginia uses it as a for the freshman seminar for the freshman coming into the college, they take their top five strengths, and then they had, you know, there's always clever ways to keep it fresh for people. They put all 34 strengths on the back of a t. and each freshman got a t-shirt customed to themselves with their five checked off on the boxes. So they were to win these two different events and that got a conversation starter going about, you know, well, tell me about yours. Tell me about yours. We gotta match. We, you know but there's so many fun ways to incorporate this in, make it alive for people. That's

Debby 10:18

clever. Yeah. I think the very first time that I did this was with the Gallup StrengthFinder. and it was years and years and years ago with my team at the time, and Joanne, you'll probably remember this cuz you were one of my team members, at the time. But I can remember getting my top five and looking at it and saying really, like, that's my strengths, you know? But couple of'em, I was like, those are kind of boring, right? Yes. I was like, I'm not even sure. Is that really me? And then coming to a team meeting and we were all sharing our strengths and me saying, these are my top five strengths, but I don't think these two are really me and my teammates were. Oh yeah, those are 100% you. And we need those strengths on our team. We need you to bring those. And it was, it was affirming and it was also very uplifting to be like, okay, so this is the value that I'm bringing to this group. and it felt really good, but it was funny that my first reaction was, that's not me. Right?

Carol 11:14

Yeah. I, I am so glad you brought that up, Debbie, because it, you're not alone in that. Like people sometimes don't agree right away, and that's why it's so important to get some coaching or to do some team development around it, to dig into it, because that reflection, right, you got it from your teammates. That issue, I'm sure that led you back to like, well, let me think about this some more. Let me really listen to what the feedback they're giving me. I had one woman take the assessment over and over again because she didn't agree, well, this can't be right, this can't be right. Finally, she scheduled a coaching session and we dug into it and, and so what we do in the coaching is, well, what does this mean to you? You know, the report is really just a springboard for a conversation as all assessments are, right? The work is, what does this mean to you? How do you see this in your life? Where does it serve you? Well, where does it trip you up? Right? So I love that, that, that your story. Thank you. You

JoAnn 12:07

know, this leads me to the next question because I remember that meeting and one of the reasons that Debbie and I are, whether she likes or not, that we're good friends, and I hang on to her, is because I am terrible in the areas that she's great at

Carol 12:24

and so into

JoAnn 12:26

my projects, you know, and so it, to me, I, that meeting. Yeah, that's the person I'm gonna attach myself to cuz I know what I'm not good at doing. Which brings me, I think for years, cuz we all worked for a very large organization, it seemed like what we focused on was what we weren't good at. We was al always trying to fix ourselves and fix other people. So should we pay attention to what are not our strengths? Should we focus on that? And if so,

Carol 12:59

Yeah. I thank you, Joanne, for bringing up the topic of weaknesses, right. What I'm not mm-hmm. and, and what do I do with that? You're absolutely right that people tend to focus on the negative. Even when they get what their report, if they get the full 34, many people will look at what's at the bottom of the report before they look at what's at the top It's just human nature, I guess, right? To, to try to, you know, Fill all the gaps, be everything to all people. Right? So it takes some, some permission and some guidance to really know how to look at, at both the strengths and the weaknesses. And so it's sort of like yin, yin and yang or light and dark. You can't know one without knowing the other. They go together. Absolutely. when I think about weaknesses, It comes back to that idea that we're not meant to be good at everything. We are meant to work in community, in partnership with other people in our public and private lives. And so this tool helps us to understand who to partner with. So to your example, Debbie and Joanne, right? You already have identified we compliment each other and that's great to know. if you had your full 34 report, you might look at the bottom and say, okay, I'm not. I'm able to do all 34 of these strengths, absolutely. But the ones at the bottom of the list are gonna be draining. That's the, those are the ones we'll procrastinate, we'll put off doing it, and when we do it, We're gonna be drained and we're gonna need some recovery time afterwards. The best example I have of this is a vice president that I worked with doing some executive coaching, a woman for, worked for a timber company. And as part of her work, she had to give annual presentations to the board about the work that they were doing and communication way low on her list down at the bottom. And yet she reported to me that she actually was getting a lot of positive feedback about her presentations. And so I asked her questions, well, you know, how long does it take to prepare? And she's like, oh, I have to, I have to prepare weeks in advance for this thing, and I have to rehearse it over and over again, and afterwards I have to allow like a week of downtime after I do this presentation. So it's a perfect example, right, of somebody who had learned like, okay, I gotta ramp myself up because the job requires this and I would do it, but I'm gonna have. allow for some downtime afterwards, right? So that's one reason that we think about weaknesses. Okay? If I'm looking at the things at the bottom of my, my list, who in my circles can do those things or do those things naturally what comes easily to them, right? That's one reason, way we look at the, the weaknesses. The other way I look at weaknesses is in terms. Our top strengths actually can become weaknesses if we don't manage them efficient effectively. And what I mean by that is they can be too much of a good thing, right? We can overpower people with our strengths or ourselves with our strengths by if we don't manage them effectively. That's the self-management piece that I mentioned to you. So I think of it like. Pots on a stove. Each of your strengths are, have their own burner on the stove, and they each have their own dial, you know, one to 10. And it's not a switch, right? It's not that the strength is on or off. You can turn it up. You can turn it down, you can mix it with another strength. You can separate it from another strength. You can put a strength on the back burner. Like, I'm not a big chef, but this cooking analogy works for me. Just this idea of. I can make a secret sauce, a special sauce every day for the experiences that I'm in, using the combination of my 10 strengths. And it takes practice, right? It doesn't just come naturally. But I'll give you some tips on how to, how to learn how to do that in a few minutes. And then the last point that I wanna make about weaknesses is really from a faith perspec perspective as a spiritual person. You know, I noticed that our weaknesses are key to developing our faith, right? Because our weaknesses often come when we're at the end of ourselves when we don't, we don't know what to do next, or we know we're not gonna be able to do it, or we're gonna do it poorly or not up the par. And so, This is the point where many of us will pray or reach out for help to, to other people or to the God of our understanding just to say, you know, help me. Right? I don't have this and I need some help. So just like I wrote about in my book, you know, when we seek, we find, and it's often we go seeking because we're in a place of feeling not enough or not. So weaknesses are awesome, right? They really serve a purpose in this whole conversation of strengths. Does that make sense? Yeah, it

Debby 18:01

does. Yeah. And so I'd like to continue that, that piece of the, too much of a good thing, I never thought that, that, like, when I learned about strengths, I thought, well, I just. Should use my strength as much as I can. And that's a great thing. And my, my top strength is empathy. And I have to tell you, empathy has gotten me in trouble. Several times, So talk to us a little bit about, cause I'll have people ask me this, like, can I overuse the strength and how do I know if I'm doing that and what do I do about it if, if I am.

Carol 18:30

Yeah, it's a great question. And we share empathy is my top strength too. So we do have that in common. I had forgotten that. The first thing we need to do is to spend some time understanding what overwhelm feels like to ourselves and to other people because we have to notice overwhelm before we can sort of work backwards to say what strength might be. too much. And so I'm gonna ask you guys, you three, you know what, when you're overwhelmed, what do you tend to do? How do you know you're overwhelmed?

JoAnn 19:01

I can answer that cuz I have been overwhelmed for the last three months.

Carol 19:06

Okay, great. Tell me, Joanne how do you know you're overwhelmed? What, what are the indicators or representations of it? Yeah.

JoAnn 19:15

I, I use a phrase and it, when I'm overwhelmed, I call it hitting a wall where I am just, I have to withdraw and I'm very social and very much out there, but then I have to pull back and I'll get really quiet and distant from people because I have nothing left to give. It's

Carol 19:38

what I'm feeling. Yeah, I totally get that. I totally get that. So, withdraw. Anything Debbie or Kevin, would you add to that? What is it for you?

Kevin 19:49

For me, and it's the, the strangest thing when you're sitting there asking that question, I thought about when I get overwhelmed, it's, I'm just gonna say it. I start focusing on things that I'm not good at. Like I'll start trying to make a list or I'll try to organize something. It's like I can't do the thing I should be doing, so I go over and I'm trying to do something that I'm not even good at because I, I don't know. It's like I get focused on obsessed with like details and that's usually not me at.

Carol 20:23

Okay. Okay. So great self-awareness there, right? Because when you notice you're doing it, then you're like, oh, I'm overwhelmed.

Kevin 20:30

Yeah. It's time to clean out my closet. It's time to organize my sock drawer. It's time to do What? What am I doing?

Carol 20:38

So, so Joanne disconnects, you distract it sounds like, right? Or get distracted. Focus on something else. Debbie, would you add anything else? What do you tend to do?

Debby 20:49

I over. So I'll just get, so I'll just overthink. I won't be able to move to action or make a decision because I'm overthinking it it way too much.

Carol 21:00

Yeah. Yeah. When I ask groups and audiences this question, I, I often hear this disconnect a lot, right? And I also hear maybe some drifting into a numbing behavior, whether that's, I go for the ice cream, I go for the chips, I go for the binge watching tv. I go for some alcohol. I go for. Maybe even positive things. Like I go for exercise, I go, I have a good cry. I vent. Right? I rant. So there's just so many responses to that question. And what's most important is that we know ourselves to say, oh, this is what my overwhelm. It just happened to me the other day and I, I described it to people as I felt like a deer in the headlights. I felt like my eyes were bugged out and I'm walking around like, I don't know, like I had bugeye, it's just the self-awareness is the first piece. So I need to know my own overwhelm. And then we also need to be able to spot overwhelm in other people, and that often looks similar, particularly the disconnect. Right, that people will glaze over. You'll see that you've lost them in some way, right when they're overwhelmed. They might look at the phone, they might get up and walk away. They might just turn away from us. We've lost their attention because they need to disconnect because there's something that's overwhelming them, so that's step one is to notice overwhelm when it happens to self or to others. Step two is to ask yourself. you know, to what extent am I part of this overwhelm? Am I part of this overwhelm? It might have nothing to do with you. Right? So that's, this is an important step, right? Is this, is there anything I'm doing that's contributing to this overwhelm? And then to go into, if so, if I think that might be me, what strength do I think that is? you know, am I overthinking like Debbie just said, right? Is my thinking strength turned up too high? And what would counterbalance that? And, and so then the third step is what can I do to reduce the overwhelm and how can I turn down the strength that's overdoing it? And look at the other nine in that top 10 to say. what balance is it? So my top strength is empathy, but my second strength is strategic thinking. So if I'm all in my heart, then I know I can, I need to turn that down. I need to turn up my thinking and I need to turn if I'm vice versa, right? If I'm too much in my head, I can turn my heart up. And that's just a quick, you know, quick little hack. I've learned for myself outta my 10. So that, that's how we can work with it. May, does that make. Oh yeah, yeah,

Debby 23:46

yeah. Those are great.

Kevin 23:47

Self-awareness is always a, a good thing. And then strategies to manage yourself in those places, and I'll have to, I'll remember that to drop down to my next strength to see how I can leverage that to get myself out of overwhelm. Yeah. One of the things I was thinking about is once you identify your strengths and. we're being mindful of how we leverage them for good and we're moving forward. How do we keep our momentum, the strengths, momentum going? How do we keep it going once we've kind of identified it and learned how to use them?

Carol 24:22

I love that question, Kevin. Thank you. Because so many times people will say, oh yeah, I took that assessment once. Yeah. And I'll say, you know, do you know what they are? And they'll be like, no, I don't know where the report is. I set it aside. I had to do it for a class, or I had to do it for a work training. People like so many assessments, right? Just kind of read the report and then don't incorporate it. So, so I do have some suggestions on how to do that. The reports are wonderful. They're customized based on how you're 34. Show up. So for example, with Debbie and I having the same number one strength, if you put our reports side by side, they would be different. They would be written differently because of the way the other 33 strengths line up. And I love that about the customization of these reports. My suggestion is if you go take the Clifton strengths, read your report, share your report at home, and at work with other people that you trust to so that they can reflect back to you like Debbie said, like, oh yeah, that is you. Or, I don't really see it and, and have a conversation about it. Right? Just. Use it as a springboard to talk about it. When I was first learning my strengths, I posted them the 10 words on a post-it note, and I put them all over the place, the refrigerator, the bathroom mirror, you know, dashboard of my car, my computer I, I needed them as visual reminders to say, oh yeah, I need to look for these. I need to pay attention to them. And I often tell my. Keep a notebook or a journal, and here's the hack for how to find them because you just follow the energy, right? So if you have a, a day where you say, oh, it's a great day, it's awesome day. You know, dig in a bit and ask, well, what was awesome about today? It might've just been one experience, one conversation but focus on, oh, it was that moment that felt. energizing. Powerful to me. And then ask yourself, which of my strengths were optimizing at that time? Right. I was able to use then just Right. They were dialed just right. and, and just start noticing that. Notice the highs and the same with the lows so if you have a day where you're like, this sucked. It was a terrible day. I just, I'm like, I'm, I'm in the pits. I need to go eat ice cream, whatever. It's then, then ask yourself again. What was it about today that was so hard for me? And which of my strengths either was too much of a good thing I was overpowering. or maybe a strength was missing. If you're a communicator and there was lack of communication, that's gonna really bother you, if you are a strategic person and the people around you just trot all over your thinking that's gonna bother you. And so sometimes it's the absence of the strength or the unappreciation of the strength by others. that can also cause us to feel bad. So by keeping a journal and tracking the highs and lows, you can start to see patterns, right? You can start to see like, oh, these strengths tend to always show up when I'm working or when I'm at home, or when I'm with these people, or those people. And, and again, you can notice like, oh, what, what might I do differently if I'm always feeling in the depths when I'm with a certain group or doing a certain task? Notice the patterns. Look for pairings, combinations of your strengths. I teach a whole course on patterns and pairings of strengths. Basically it's keep speaking the language. If we think of it like a language, then it becomes a culture. It can be a culture in our families. It can be a culture in our workplaces. It can be a culture in your team, right? Like it can, it can go far. If we continue to use that. Yeah, I, I

Debby 27:59

do believe that consistency, that mindfulness is really important. And the workshop, when I had said the very first time I met you, Carol was at a workshop as part of a mentoring program, I can remember being like, oh, I know the strengths thing. I did that at my old job. I was going through a life transition career-wise and. And then you came in, but your thing was, okay, you guys already know your strengths, let's evaluate where you are right now with your top five. And we looked at each one and we kind of said, where am I with it? On a scale of one to 10, where do I want it to be so that we can look at where am I maybe using one too much or maybe I'm not even tapping into one That would be helpful. That was so eye-opening to me of, why don't I do that more often? Because what I realized was, one of my top five strengths. That would've been very helpful to me during that time in my life I was not using. And then I was like, okay, like why aren't I using this? I need to start using this. Right? So it's this. It was this big aha. And then I think the other aha was this, why don't I use this resource more often? Make it more of a mindful, consistent practice to come back and revisit that, that information about myself that could be so helpful.

Carol 29:08

That's wonderful, Debbie. Yeah. Those aha moments are so powerful, right? You still remember it? That was a long time ago, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You still remember? Oh yeah. I'm not using, I'm not using one of Myst. Un

Debby 29:22

wonder is so hard, right? I'm making it harder than has to be. Yeah,

Carol 29:27

yeah,

JoAnn 29:27

yeah. We're one thing that you, that caught my ear, that I've has been really something I've been trying to. Practice more. I, I certainly ask those that I coached to practice this. And then I realized a few days ago I wasn't even practicing it. So, and that is taking time to reflect to really like, why, why was today so tough? You know, or why was today great? And what helped you get through that and, really reflect on. What created the good day, the bad day, or the outcome that you were hoping for that you didn't get. And we, we, instead of reflecting and looking at our strengths and looking inward, oftentimes we just try to go at it in a different direction or we try, try to problem solve. And when lots of times if we'd just take the time to reflect and be more mindful, we'd figure it out a lot sooner. I think so. Uh, Thanks for that reminder. We worked with leaders and we helped leaders define their strengths and they were pretty good about using it. What, what I found oftentimes is that they weren't really good at identifying it in the folks that they led, how could a leader spot some strengths in folks? You know, the obvious, I'm sure is, you know, the assessment, but just by watching and observing, what are some tips you would give leaders so they can identify strengths in others?

Carol 30:58

Thank you, so I Joanne, I love that you asked that question because I work with team building a lot. I do facil facilitation of team building with this particular tool. And in that case I have them all take the assessment and first read and understand the report themselves. Maybe even get some coaching on debriefing the tool themselves. But then we come together as a team and seek to understand how. The team compliments each other, right? Who's really good at thinking and who's really good at executing and who's really good at relationship building. Like we learn all that about one another. Probably the biggest advantage, I think, to using this strengths spotting tool is feedback, right? It helps a manager. Know how to give positive feedback to their team members. With the common language, everybody knows, okay somebody has responsibility as a strength, for example. And then we can say, okay Joe, you know, I really see your responsibility coming out right now that you got that done. Thank you so much. And by using the language of strengths, it almost lands like, Like a positive stroke, right? Like, like, oh, he gets me. He knows what, he knows who I am, right? He knows, he knows what I bring to the table. He appreciates it, or or it gives us the opportunity to give that feedback that something's too much right now, that it needs. Differently. And so for say like that with the strategic strength, someone might say to me, you know, Carol, you're so great at thinking about all the options that are there on the table. You're super good at that, but right now it's too much. I'm overwhelmed by how many options you're laying out. I'm overwhelmed by how fast you're laying them out. Because when we're using our strengths, we're fast, we're energized, we're going a hundred miles an hour. So it lets people use the language of the strength to say, slow down, come on back. Right, right. Take a b pause. Let's go over this. I love that you're good at this and I need you to pace yourself with the rest of us. Does, does that make sense? Yeah. Turn the woo down. Right. Turn it down.

Debby 33:11

And it's, I used to work with someone who was so good at, and you how everybody wants a woo when they're top five. Yeah. This person, every once in a while we'd have to say, turn the woo down,

Carol 33:21

So it's like a positive way to say that, right? Because then you say like, oh yeah, that is my strength. Oh yeah. I'm doing it too much again. Right. most people know when they're doing it too much. Yeah. So I, I do think that it's a you know, it's just a wonderful way for management to spot the strengths and, and affirm the strengths, but also as a, group, you think about an organization while, while no individual is meant to be good at everything, a well run organization has people with strengths in all categories, and so what'll happen? There'll be sometimes frustration or miscommunication because people have different strengths and the way to optimize them working well together is to be able to call it out and say, okay, we need your executing now. We need your thinking. Now we, yeah. And so on. Yeah. I love

Debby 34:19

that. Yeah. So I, I think this is such a great topic, and if leader, if this is new to leaders, I don't know that strengths will be new to all leaders, but I think a lot of what you shared tonight will be Carol, just the, the consistency and the mindfulness and all the extra that they can do with this. So thank you so much for, for sharing this. But before we let you go though, we do have a few extra questions that we like to ask all of our guests. The first question that we would ask you, Carol, is what is a book that you think a leader coach should read? Well,

Carol 34:53

there's a lot of books. I, I'm a book collector, as you can see behind me. Oh, no, you can't see that. Sorry, I'm in a, I'm in a library right now, so so I just forgot. You can't see Anyway the book that I would recommend in keeping with this topic is Strengths Finder 2.0. And if you want to learn more about, it's a small little book, you can probably read it in 45 minutes. You only read, really need to read the first 30 pages to get the hang of it, the gist of it, and then the rest of it they have taken to describe the 34 strengths and how to work with people who have certain strengths. So if you're curious to know more about this, pick up that that little book, and that's a good place to start. There's a whole library of resources on Gallup's website as well about this.

Debby 35:37

Perfect. Yeah. And that's a nice little book to keep on your desk, right? And then you can pull it. Yeah. Yeah. So, Carol, what question have you been asked that gave you pause? Or maybe it allowed you to think a little deeper or maybe even a little differently.

Carol 35:51

This in and of itself is a great question. So, you know, as coaches, we love a good question one that makes people think I. I think one of the most powerful questions really self-reflective is what's my part, so when something is challenging me or, or you, is to ask yourself, what's my part of this? And I, I believe, you know, a lot of times the answer is it's not mine. That's somebody else's, right? And so that helps us to understand boundaries. It's not mine. I don't need to pick it up, but to the extent that it. Part of that, I'm part of at the challenging situation, then, then we can dig in using the different tools that are available to say, okay, what, what can I do about that? And that can be applied to positive things as well as difficult things, right? Like joyful things, celebrations, like what's my part? What did I, what part did I play?

Debby 36:47

Like that, spin on that. Right? So tonight our word was strengths, but give us, besides the word we talked about tonight, what is your word on.

Carol 36:57

My word on coaching would be, Right. I am like, that's my word, that's my word if I wanted to call it for my, my whole life. Right. I just think growth is fascinating, whether it's in people or plants or critters or whatever. I think the human world, the, the nature world that we're in is designed. to grow. And that fascinates me to be witness to it, to encourage it, to nurture it. I love both. So that would be my word.

Debby 37:30

Okay. We'll take it. Well, thank you so much, Carol. Thanks for being here and, and sharing your expertise and your insights with us. You Lost and Found is the book that Carol wrote. Yes. And Kevin and Joanna, always. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for being here. Thanks to our audience for listening. Check out more of our word on coaching podcasts. You'll find we're in season six, so there's lots more out there that you can go back and listen to or re-listen to. We've had some awesome guests. You can connect with us on the Coaches three Facebook page and our book, the word on coaching is available through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Buy copies for yourself and buy copies to give to other people. It's a great book to do little book clubs or, or to share with other people. and until next time everybody, that is the word on coaching. Thank you.