Re-Air: Transforming Your Core Talents Into a Competitive Advantage

STOP! Don’t fix your weaknesses! Focus on your strengths…

Have you ever tried to “fix” anyone? Have you focused on what doesn’t work, what you or they do wrong? Has it worked?

In 1998- Tom Rath, author of STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0, worked with a team of Gallup scientists with a goal of starting a conversation about what’s right with people. “We were tired of living in a world that revolved around fixing our weaknesses”. In their pursuit they discovered “that people have three times more potential for growth when they invest energy into developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.”

Left to Right: Gary Rifkin and Candace Fitzpatrick

The team created an assessment to help people discover their talents, based on the 34 most common talents they found. In 2001 this assessment was unveiled in the best seller; Now Discover Your Strengths. Their goal of starting a global conversation was met.

The team found that people who have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged in their jobs and three times more likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general.

Over the last 13 years I have used their work extensively- in working with my clients in corporate culture change and engaging employees for better results. It works. Now the team of Candace Fitzpatrick, Founder and CEO of CoreClarity and Gary Rifkin, CoreClarity’s Director of Strategic Communications and Training, have taken these concepts to an even more exciting and innovative level and created a series of training and discovery around them.

Joining us to talk about how to turn talents into strengths are:

• Candace Fitzpatrick: Founder and CEO of CoreClarity and
• Gary Rifkin: CoreClarity’s Director of Strategic Communications and Training.

Candace, not happy with the direction her then career was going, went back to school for her MBA and discovered the Gallup StrengthsFinder, which changed her life and led to the founding of CoreClarity in 2004.

She wanted to figure out the so what; “what can we do with these talents and information? How can we teach people how to use them and make them more accessible?” She adds, “This process points out the ingredients we already have in our DNA; those recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied.” The firm “works with individuals to discover their talents so they can intentionally build on those talents to create strengths, which in turn enhances personal productivity and improves interpersonal effectiveness.

As Gary says, “I’ve taken a lot of assessments, but this one takes it deeper, to a whole new level. There are 34 different talents, and when you take this assessment you get your top 5 talents from Gallup. It’s then important to know what to do with them.” And that’s where CoreClarity comes in. CoreClarity puts the 34 STRENGTHSFINDER talents into 4 separate categories. One in 5 individuals has talents in each of the 4 categories.

The CoreClarity team says, “Contrary to old-school management philosophies, individuals, teams and organizations excel by managing their strengths, not by fixing their weaknesses. Yet society is fixated on ‘fixing’ people, trying to make them well-rounded so that they fit in anywhere.” They emphasize, “The truth is we are all gifted in different ways and trying to mold us into cookie cutter shapes is contrary to our very nature”.

If you want to learn how to revolutionize your life- join us. And as a special bonus- you’ll get to know more about Host Dennis McCuistion, and myself as CoreClarity unveils our talents.

Management guru, Peter Drucker, said, “Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer.”

PS: Host Dennis McCuistion is a Guru- one who spends a great deal of time thinking and reflecting before arriving at a conclusion or decision. A Guru’s mind does not turn off- it is always thinking. Producer, Niki McCuistion, is a Trail Blazer, one who combines the intellectual thinking talents with the drive to achieve something unique, like the McCuistion program she co-founded.

Thanks for joining us in our 25th year of talking about things that matter with people who really care.