Luther College

Monday afternoon I will be at Luther College in Decorah Iowa to do a Strengths finder training for one of the departments there. Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, both researchers at the Gallup Organization. Developed The tool which the premise of the tool is to effectively manage personnel, the best approach is to focus on enhancing people's strengths rather that try and eliminate their weaknesses. The authors have analyzed results of interviews conducted by Gallup of over 1.7 million employees from 101 companies and representing 63 countries, resulting in the formulation of 34 positive personality traits. StrengthsFinder is a talent assessment instrument developed expressly for the Internet. It is built upon three primary discoveries that resulted from decades of research of successful human beings. Skills can be learned, and knowledge can be obtained. However, talent – the key to strength and peak performance – must exist naturally within a person. A talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. They are spontaneous, top-of-mind, perhaps even subconscious, reactions to situations. Talents are what one does well “without even thinking about it.” They are innate, non-teachable.