I’ve worked with hundreds of workplace teams around the topic of CliftonStrengths®. If you haven’t heard of CliftonStrengths, it’s a system for bringing out the best in people. The main application is in the workplace, but there are advantages to using it in your personal life as well. Throughout my career, I’ve seen three types of strengths work. Which are you best at?

Introducing Strengths

The first type of work is introducing strengths. Not everyone has heard of...

Employee engagement is the ability to be motivated, dedicated, and emotionally connected to your work and workplace so you give your best, discretionary effort. Engagement doesn't happen by chance - it takes intention and effort. But you can strengthen your workplace.

Here's an infographic on ten ways to engage employees:

Do you like this infographic? You can download the full size version.

Over the last five years, I’ve led hundreds of training events, mostly around CliftonStrengths®. Usually, the idea for an event begins with team leaders wanting to do something for their team.

Maybe there’s a team retreat coming up, or there’s a team problem to solve, or they want to offer professional development, or they’ve heard of the CliftonStrengths assessment (formerly StrengthsFinders®).

Different reasons have brought them to me, but most events end the...

You probably have heard the name Michael Phelps, but have you heard the name Bob Bowman? Phelps won the most Olympic medals of any athlete (28) and is most known for winning eight gold medals in a single Olympics. However, if not for Bowman, you may not have ever heard of Phelps.

Bowman was Phelps’ long-time coach and Phelps credits Bowman for much of his success. Together they built a partnership that achieved extraordinary results. What could a strengths-based partnership do for you?

Sometimes I get asked what happens in a Strengths coaching session (also known as a Strengths debrief). The short answer is it depends on what the client wants to get out of it. I don’t approach a session with my own agenda; as a coach, I want to follow the client’s agenda.

But if a client has never been to a coaching session, they may not know the possibilities. That’s when I like to offer options so the client can choose what will be most valuable. The subject is...

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I was speaking for a leadership group and asked, “How many of you know what you’re good at?” All of them raised their hands.

Then I followed, “How many of you think about using what you’re good at to do your work?” None of them raised their hands.

By not connecting their strengths with their work, they’re leaving so much value, efficiency, and power on the table.

I think this happens a lot in the workplace. We move...

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Over the past five years, I’ve worked with thousands of people to help them understand themselves better. This work is sacred because you’re dealing with people’s actual lives. The context may be a business workshop, academic setting, or corporate coaching series, but the topic is always personal—let’s talk about you.

When working with people, there are sometimes three big questions that come up: HOW, WHY, and...

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CliftonStrengths® isn’t supposed to be used for job selection, but what if you’re looking for that kind of direction? That’s where PathwayU comes in. CliftonStrengths can tell you what you’re good at, while PathwayU can predict possible pathways for fulfillment and impact. Together, CliftonStrengths and PathwayU are a winning combination.

What is CliftonStrengths?

CliftonStrengths is a talent...

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If you ask me who in history I would like to meet, Harriet Tubman is at the top of my list. I just finished a spectacular book on her called, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, by Catherine Clinton. What strikes me most from the book is how well-equipped in abilities, strengths, and qualities she was in order to become the person she became and do the things she did.

Unpredictable Outcomes

You may not predict...

Today we know William Wilberforce as the great British politician who led the movement to abolish the slave trade in British territories. But did you know that it almost didn’t happen?

It’s easy to look back on a well-lived life that has made a mark in a certain well-known way and think it must have been completely obvious to him or her which way to go. But at the time, it's not that simple.

Discovering life calling takes many things, among them a process, discernment,...