Our Top 10 Posts from 2014 (and what we learned)
The end of the year is always a great time to reflect. As we move into 2015, the LVC team is excited about where we are going. 2014 was a year of tremendous growth. We grew as individuals, as a team, and significantly as a company. We have become more intentional about modelling what we teach.
One focus area for us was on content creation. From teaching material, video scripts and especially our blog. Writing for our blog was a goal we set at the beginning of the year. We have been making a very intentional effort to share what we are learning as we help our clients build strengths based organizational culture.
Below is a list of our 10 most popular posts from 2014. As you can see, there is quite a variety. As you set your goals for 2015, think of ways you will engage your strengths this year.
1. Using StrengthsFinder for Team Building That’s Actually Fun
It’s not surprising that this was our most popular post. How many lame team building activities have you been part of? We have found a way to do team building that’s not only rooted in the strengths philosophy, but have a ton of fun while doing it.
2. Exploring the StrengthsFinder Theme of Achiever
Achiever is one of the more common themes of strength. Achievers are the ones who tend to get a lot done. It seems fitting that a strengths theme that likes to use lists to help them get things done, is on a list themselves.
3. What is the Clifton StrengthsFinder?
This posts is simply an explanation about what the StrengthsFinder tool is all about. If you’re not familiar with it, or need help explaining it to a friend or co-worker, send them this post.
4. How to Understand the Four Domains of Strength
Long ago, Gallup tried to categorize the 34 themes into four domains of strength. It was an attempt to help explain them. It can also be used to point out an area that might be missing from a team.
5. Exploring the Strength of Ideation
As someone with the strength of Ideation, I enjoyed seeing that this was a popular post. If you have Ideation, or know someone who does, this will help explain how they use their incredible ability to create and refine ideas to help move your team or organization forward.
6. A Simple Strengths Activity
We often get questions from people asking, “I just took the StrengthsFinder… now what do I do?” I found myself answering this question so often, that I decided to just write it down and put it on the blog.
If you have another activity that you do as a first step after taking StrengthsFinder, we would love to hear about it!
7. Exploring the StrengthsFinder Theme of Arranger
While not one of the most common themes, Arranger is present in many groups. Their ability to see the big picture of a situation is something I truly admire. If you are looking to put together a high capacity team, you can’t go wrong with someone who is using their Arranger theme generatively.
8. What you Can do with StrengthsFinder in 60 – 90 Minutes
This post came as a result of trying to meet another need. We will often get asked to come in and lead a short session on Strengths. We have found that these short engagements don’t tend to have the best long term results. That being said, it’s better than nothing.
Use this as an introduction to the strengths philosophy with your family, team or any group you are part of.
9. Exploring the StrengthsFinder theme of Activator
Activators like to take action! As someone who is more likely to continue brainstorming ideas instead of making them happen, I appreciate whenever I can work with an Activator. It’s really a great combination.
10. A Tool to Capture and Categorize StrengthsFinder Results
We built this very simple tool for capturing StrengthsFinder results because we were tired copy and pasting from various emails. When we work with groups of any size, we’ll send them this simple Google form that takes their results and plops them into a Google spreadsheet that we can share with our team and the client.
It makes it a lot easier, and automatically calculators frequency of the strengths.
Your Posts
Were there other posts from this year that you particularly enjoyed? What are a few topics you’d like to see us write about that would help you better understand working and leading with your strengths? Contact us, or share ideas in the comments below.
