The Effect of CliftonStrengths 34 Feedback on Employee Engagement and Sales

Executive Summary

In prior research studies, Gallup researchers have shown that strengths-based employee development leads to more engaging and productive workplaces. The purpose of this study is to refine those findings by examining the variability in the organizational benefits that may be attributable to the type of feedback that employees receive. Specifically, this study examines the incremental benefits of receiving feedback on all 34 CliftonStrengths themes, compared with feedback on one's top five themes.

This follow-up to Gallup's 2016 strengths meta-analysis further examines the relationship between strengths-based development and business performance outcomes, comparing the relative merits of two different types of feedback.

We accumulated 34 research studies across 30 organizations in 13 industries and 37 countries. Within each study, we statistically calculated the relationships between strengths-based interventions and performance outcomes that the organizations supplied. In total, we were able to study 187,291 individuals. We collected data on six outcomes: sales, employee engagement, customer engagement, turnover, performance ratings and safety (accidents). The engagement and sales data are reported in detail because we had ample data to examine them thoroughly. The data provided for the other performance outcomes were more limited, so they are discussed briefly and should be considered preliminary.

The employee engagement data used in this study were pulled from our client database and constitute one large sample that was analyzed directly. The data for all other outcomes are from multiple studies; accordingly, meta-analytic techniques were applied to these data to produce generalizable results.

Individual studies often contain small sample sizes and idiosyncrasies that distort the interpretation of results. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that is useful in combining results of studies with seemingly disparate findings. This technique corrects for sampling error, measurement error and other study artifacts to determine the true relationship with greater precision. We applied Hunter-Schmidt meta-analysis methods to 34 research studies to estimate the true relationship between strengths-based interventions and each performance measure, and to test for generalizability. For each of the meta-analytic results, we then examined the practical meaning of the relationships by conducting a utility analysis.

As shown in previous studies (Asplund, Harter, Agrawal, & Plowman, 2016), strengths-based development is related to each performance outcome we examined. For all outcomes, these relationships are stronger for employees or work units who received more extensive feedback — feedback on all 34 CliftonStrengths themes rather than just their top five themes.

Results indicate high generalizability, which means the direction of the effects of the strengths-based development interventions were consistent across different organizations.

The following are the mean observed net effects of 34-theme feedback above the effects observed with five-theme feedback:

• Sales: 7.8%

• Employee Engagement: +0.08 basis points on GrandMean (the equally weighted mean of all Q¹² items)

The relationship between strengths-based employee development and performance at the individual and work-unit levels is substantial and generalizable across organizations. This means that practitioners can apply strengths-based employee development in a variety of situations with confidence that these interventions capture important performance-related information. This study also shows that those practitioners will have a substantially greater likelihood of success when they provide feedback on all 34 CliftonStrengths themes.

Introduction

Gallup has investigated the nature of human talents and strengths for more than 50 years. These investigations resulted in the CliftonStrengths assessment, an online evaluation that identifies individual areas of talent in which a person has the greatest potential for building strengths. The assessment's supporting materials help people discover how to develop their talents into strengths.

Strengths development proceeds from the "identification of positive personal and interpersonal traits (talents) in order to position and develop individuals to increase the frequency of positive subjective experience" (Clifton & Harter, 2003). The approach suggests that people can develop most efficiently through their natural talents by integrating knowledge and skills with natural talents, rather than attempting to fix weak or missing traits.

Gallup defines strengths as activities for which one can provide consistent, near-perfect performance. Skills, knowledge and talents — along with the time spent (i.e., investment) practicing, developing skills and building a knowledge base — combine to create strengths.

• Skills represent the ability to perform the fundamental steps of specific tasks, such as driving a forklift. Skills are not naturally recurring; one must acquire them through formal or informal training and practice.

• Knowledge is an acquaintance with, and understanding of, facts and principles accumulated through education or experience.

• Talents are natural ways of thinking, feeling and behaving, such as an inner drive to compete, sensitivity to the needs of others or the tendency to be outgoing at social gatherings. Talents come into existence naturally and are less likely to be acquired like skills and knowledge are.

Our most powerful talents represent our best opportunities to perform at levels of excellence. Dominant talents naturally appear frequently and powerfully in a variety of situations. They can take the form of yearnings or areas of rapid learning. They can be areas of great personal satisfaction or areas in which one experiences a sense of timelessness.

• A yearning can be described as an internal force that leads one to a particular activity or environment time and again.

• Rapid learning reveals talent through the speed at which one anticipates the steps of a new activity, acquires a new skill or gains new knowledge.

• Satisfaction is a positive emotional response to successfully meeting challenges that engage one's greatest talents. These energizing experiences are often evidence of a dominant talent at work.

• Timelessness also can serve as a clue to talent. Being engaged in an activity at a deep, natural level can result in a lack of the sense of time passing. This indicates a level of engrossment in that activity that is consistent with a deep natural talent (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

Dominant talents naturally appear frequently and powerfully in a variety of situations. Individuals can develop a heightened self-awareness or add knowledge and skills to develop those talents into strengths. The more an individual exercises a talent and refines it through added knowledge and skills, the more integrated and stronger it becomes. Then they can consider it a strength. Individuals who can identify and develop a heightened self-awareness of their strengths will be more likely to leverage their positive attributes and achieve higher success than will those who do not have a self-awareness of what they do well or those who focus on improving areas of lesser aptitude (Hodges & Asplund, 2009).

Following the identification of strengths is the integration of the strengths into one's self-view. Changes in one's perceived sense of self have been found to be enduring turning points in one's life (Avolio & Luthans, 2006). Ultimately, the change in an individual's perceived sense of self helps the person interpret the situation and context around them through a different lens and, thus, leads toward changed behaviors and improved performance at work (Clifton & Harter, 2003).

In programs designed to promote strengths-based development, feedback is often accompanied by instruction, experiential learning and mentoring activities designed to help people develop strengths associated with occupational or educational roles. The intended use of CliftonStrengths is to facilitate the personal development and growth of an individual, specifically self-discovery (Asplund, Agrawal, Hodges, Harter, & Lopez, 2014; Hodges & Asplund, 2009). The results are a preliminary hypothesis of that individual's strengths and should be verified and confirmed based on the individual's understanding of self.

The CliftonStrengths assessment identifies an individual's most- and least-natural talent themes, or categories of talents, which are recurring and consistent patterns of thought, feeling or behavior. Assessment results provide a list of 34 distinct themes, placing the most dominant themes at the top. Respondents also receive detailed information about each theme and developmental suggestions to help the individual turn their talents into strengths. For more information on the development of the CliftonStrengths assessment, please see The Clifton StrengthsFinder^® 2.0 Technical Report: Development and Validation.

Historically, most respondents have received feedback on only their top five themes, rather than the full set of 34 themes. Gallup focused on the top five themes for several reasons:

• CliftonStrengths was designed explicitly to help people develop dominant talents into strengths.

• As an initial hypothesis, Gallup researchers believed that most individuals could work on developing five talent themes. This format was well-received, and people made great progress in developing their top talents into strengths, so Gallup continued to research the effectiveness of that format in most cases.

• Gallup researchers and leaders believed that respondents would need coaches to help them assimilate the large quantity of information in a full profile of 34 themes and that most respondents would not have access to coaches.

• Employees and students already received significant feedback on their nontalents and weaknesses from other sources.

• People were reporting meaningful improvements in their lives as a result of the feedback they received on their top five themes.

Although the majority of individuals who have taken the assessment have received feedback on their top five, a sizable minority population has chosen to receive feedback on all 34 of their talent themes. Recipients of the full list of 34 themes often have been executives — people with significant leadership responsibilities and relatively little time to manage their own strengths development — at Gallup client organizations, and with few exceptions, these individuals review the additional feedback with a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach. Nonexecutives and other individuals interested in their personal and professional development also have received coaching on their full theme profile.

Over time, the coaches have observed great improvement in these individuals' abilities to capitalize on the additional feedback. When comparing coaching clients who received feedback on their top five themes with those receiving feedback on all 34 themes, the coaches discovered that "full-profile" clients excelled not only at developing their top talents into strengths, but also at managing the talents that are not dominant for them. It is important to note that these two types of feedback represent no difference in philosophy in terms of how to approach one's development. For decades, Gallup has postulated that people should focus on their strengths first and then learn to manage the areas that are not as likely to develop into strengths. Both approaches start with this same overarching approach to development. The 34-theme approach creates awareness for tendencies that are less likely to become strengths.

Just as our top CliftonStrengths describe who we are, those at the bottom often reveal considerations about who we are not. They are not necessarily weaknesses, but they are our least-powerful themes. If they are not managed properly, they can prevent us from maximizing our potential and then become weaknesses. In the opinions of our most experienced coaches, accessing and examining the bottom themes were worthwhile and beneficial actions for their clients.

We have received similar feedback from those who invested in their development by exploring their full profile of 34 themes without the assistance of a coach. Although we still believe that a coach is required to fully capitalize on the information contained in a full strengths profile, we have come to understand that many individuals can extract significant value from their list of 34 themes and the related feedback on their own.

Knowing that many have experienced great benefits from receiving feedback beyond their top five, this study is an attempt to estimate the added value of knowing and applying information from one's full profile of 34 themes.

Expectations, Hypotheses and Results

In practice, organizations have used strengths interventions to overcome an array of specific organizational challenges or as part of a much larger transformation of workplace culture (Hodges & Asplund, 2009). These applications generally have been motivated by the idea that learning and developing our greatest strengths will help us work more productively. Previous studies have provided evidence of increases in employee effectiveness due to strengths interventions.

This study is an attempt to determine whether the greater investment of time and resources involved in receiving feedback on all 34 talent themes provides commensurate increases in benefits to the respondent. More than just an increase in information, the additional feedback on all 34 themes is qualitatively different in that lower-ranked themes are generally not as relevant in our daily lives, nor are they aspects of our lives that are likely to improve significantly if we invest in improving them.

Sales

The results of the sales meta-analysis support both research hypotheses. Meta-analytic and validity generalization statistics for these relationships are below.

Mean observed correlations and standard deviations are shown, followed by estimated true validities, after correcting for dependent variable measurement error and within-organization range restriction. The range-restriction correction places all organizations on the same basis in terms of variability in the independent variable. One can review these results as estimating the relationships across individuals or work units within the average organization.

The findings show generalizability across organizations, as indicated by the 90% credibility values, all of which match the direction of the hypothesized relationships. That is, receiving feedback on all 34 talent themes provides greater benefits to the individual or work unit regardless of organization, industry and country. Study artifacts explain most of the variance in correlations among the sales studies — 67.9% of the variance in correlations is attributable to sampling error, range variation or measurement error.

Employee Engagement

The results of the engagement study also support both research hypotheses. Compared with employees and work units who received details about their top five talent themes, employees and work units who received details on all 34 themes improved more on all but one engagement item (Q10: having a best friend at work). Of note, Q10 realized the largest overall gain (0.50 with top-five feedback and 0.49 with 34-theme feedback) regardless of the type of strengths intervention.

How Do I Grow?

• Q12. Opportunities at work to learn and grow
• Q11. Talked about progress in last six months

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Do I Belong?

• Q10. Best friend at work
• Q09. Associates/fellow employees committed to quality
• Q08. Mission/purpose of company
• Q07. At work, my opinions seem to count

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What Do I Give?

• Q06. Someone at work encourages my development
• Q05. Supervisor/someone at work cares
• Q04. Recognition last seven days
• Q03. Do what I do best every day

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What Do I Get?

• Q02. Materials and equipment I need
• Q01. I know what is expected of me at work

References & Acknowledgements

To date, the evidence from numerous organizational studies suggests that strengths-based employee development leads to more engaging and productive workplaces. The purpose of this study was to apply meta-analysis to a collection of research studies on strengths-based development and examine evidence of generalizability.

• Jim Asplund, M.A.
• James K. Harter, Ph.D.
• Sangeeta Agrawal, M.S.
• Stephanie K. Plowman, M.A.

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The authors thank Jim Harter, Daniela Yu, Stephanie Plowman and Lisa Brehm for contributing important research studies, performance data and database information.