Moving Toward Simplicity: CliftonStrengths Coaching Updates

Austin Suellentrop, CliftonStrengths Portfolio Manager for Gallup, was our guest on a recent Called to Coach. Austin shared how Gallup is listening to your feedback in seeking to make it easier for you to access the tools and information you need in your coaching. He talked about the importance of keeping up to date on the changes to the CliftonStrengths landscape, including a number of coach-centric improvements, as 2020 approaches and arrives.

Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including time stamps. Full audio and video are posted above.

Jim Collison 0:00

I am Jim Collison and live from The Shard here in London -- I haven't -- don't get to say that very often -- this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on December 6, 2019.

Jim Collison 0:22

Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. Literally. If you have any questions, we'd love to have you join us in our chat room. If you're watching live, that link to that right above the main video window. Join us in YouTube and then jump in the chat room. Love to have those questions. We have a little AMA today with Austin and so we'd love those questions live. If you're listening after the fact and you want to send us an email: coaching@gallup.com Austin Suellentrop is our host today Austin's CliftonStrengths Portfolio Manager for Gallup, and Austin, it is great to have you on Called to Coach. Welcome back.

Austin Suellentrop 1:04

I appreciate it. Always happy to be here, man.

Jim Collison 1:06

It is -- oh, go ahead.

Austin Suellentrop 1:08

No, no, I was just ready, like, I'm so excited that you've been in London all week. I am remarkably jealous. I've been following along with like all the posts on LinkedIn and like seeing people just like over the moon because they get to meet the Jim Collison.

Jim Collison 1:22

Let's not get carried away.

Austin Suellentrop 1:23

Well, I'm curious. I'm really curious, like, of all the things you've experienced this week in London, right, like, what stood out to you the most -- like what's what's resonated with you?

Jim Collison 1:33

Yeah, that's I think that's a super good question. Just the diversity of London, like it has been awesome to walk the streets. Well, I mean, the diversity in our office is, first of all, incredible, all the different languages represented just here in the office. This week, we did 13 recordings of coaches coming in and doing these Ignite Session-style presentations. And we did one in French, which was super cool and and the different accents, the different locations, the different ages. But walking the streets of London and hearing the various, you know, the various languages, all in the same town, all doing the same things, all kind of in harmony. It's been super cool. I just -- I kind of fell in love with one and I can see why people want to live here. Terribly expensive and lots of people here. It didn't hurt that it was super sunny every day except today, although I did wake up, it was raining and I kind of did a little happy dance because I was like, That's London weather I expect kind of dreary and drizzly.

Jim Collison 2:45

But Austin, it reminds me of the diversity that we have kind of in this -- in the greater strengths community, right, we get a chance to talk to these people around the world all the time. And it's our coaches that represent this diversity. And so as I got a chance to talk to these coaches, it was just a great reminder of the, of all the places on the planet that CliftonStrengths has and will go. And so kind of London is a great representation of that. It's a little little microcosm, or maybe a big microcosm of that diversity. So it just reinforced for me that the message that we have here and the need that we have as our coaches take this to the world. It really reinforced that to me, so it's a privilege -- I, you know, I fly tomorrow, kind of back to the U.S. with just a healthy kind of reminder what a privilege it is to serve and to work and to, to help and to coach our coaches in some of these spaces and just be a part of a really diverse community, and so it's just yeah, it was super cool. It's been a great trip.

Austin Suellentrop 3:49

I'm really glad to hear that and I want to, I want to make sure that that everybody who's live and listening to the recorded version of this -- there's not a single person I could think better to represent us in London, sort of bringing that message over there, than you. So, I'm really glad you were able to make it and be and be a part of that event this week and sort of represent the CliftonStrengths mission and the brand. So great job. I know, I know it landed well, so awesome.

Jim Collison 4:13

Yeah, we had a good time, for sure.

Austin Suellentrop 4:14

It's funny because as I was getting ready to join this morning, and I was thinking through, like, what are the things I want to share? What are the thoughts I have? I'm a -- I've got a terrible memory. Like it's just not something it's part of my lack of detail orientation. I'm high Futuristic; I'm always thinking down the road. I don't do a great job of thinking about the past. So I have an app on my phone, Timehop, which is like my, my personal memory. Right. So every -- everything I posted, or a picture I took or thing I posted on social media, every morning I check Timehop to sort of remind, What was going on a year ago or 3 years ago?

Austin Suellentrop 4:16

And yesterday morning, my Timehop -- I had a tweet about my excitement to join Called to Coach with with Jim Collison. Cause 5 years ago yesterday, I joined Called to Coach as a client of Gallup's for the first time, sort of talking about my experience in my organization rolling strengths out. And really the what was fascinating was I got that, I clicked the link, and I went to read the summary. And I was talking about the importance of leading with and starting with simplicity, and making things simple to start off with, right. And so as we as we sort of kick off our our conversation today, I think that's where we're, that's still at the heart of a lot of what we're driving at Gallup -- is how do we make it easier for our coaches to access the information they need, the tools they need, the resources you need to go and spread the good news of strengths, right? How do we make it easier on all of our customers to interact with us, to get what they want, in the same way? And how do we make it easier on our larger organizations that we work with to roll this out across their organization, right?

Austin Suellentrop 5:58

So simplicity is at the heart of a lot of what we're doing. Unfortunately, where we are right now is we're in that sort of chaotic state of having to change things to get to simplicity. So we're, it's interesting because my Futuristic and Strategic, which are both Top 5 for me, see exactly where we're taking this. And that everything we're doing is driving us to a point of, it will be simpler and easier to do what we love to do, which is help people and talk strengths and coach people and lead workshops and all that kind of stuff that that this community loves and is so great at. And we're in that that interim stage of sort of, you know, chaos to get to that simplicity of as we go through all this change.

Austin Suellentrop 6:40

So I just thought was really ironic that I got that Timehop notification yesterday morning. So I think that's going to be really what what I sort of -- the theme I bring in throughout our conversation today, is this path toward simplicity. And this path towards streamlining things and making things easier for us. If you, if you -- I know the people that are on this, this webcast right now, we're, I'm preaching to the choir with the importance of keeping up with our Certified Coaches Newsletter. Right? Because in that newsletter, we're sharing a tremendous amount of information every month.

Austin Suellentrop 7:13

And we just we just published sort of the the December edition yesterday. Right? So if you haven't read that yet, check your Inbox. Because in that there's there's a lot of information about what's coming. So I want to start off sort of making sure you're sort of hearing and seeing the highlights from that. The big thing is that that newsletter, we're revamping and enhancing it in 2020. You'll still get a lot of the same sort of updates and technical sort of updates like we provide now of what we're trying to provide you more in-depth content. And one of the big things we're going to be creating and launching in January is tailored video content for you. So that in that newsletter, you can click a button and watch a couple minute video from one of our Gallup experts on some sort of aspect of strengths and how, how you can use CliftonStrengths in working with individuals or teams, or maybe the tool itself; some sort of neat value-add that's only going to be distributed to our certified coaches.

Austin Suellentrop 8:11

So a sort of exclusive piece of content. We're really excited. We're filming our first video for that next week; that'll be in our January edition. So I will make sure you all are hearing that that's one of the things we're doing to try to provide you with additional resources and additional tools as our certified coaches. And it all comes via that that newsletter.

Austin Suellentrop 8:32

The second sort of big, big cool thing in that newsletter this this month, is breaking out sort of the content in our Learning Series, our 2020 Learning Series, right. So that's another exclusive thing for our certified coaches. We offer that every year sometime in January, where it's a series of learning events exclusively for us certified coaches, at no cost. It's part of you sort of going through the investment in the effort of being a Certified Coach. This year, we've got 7 episodes or 7, you know, sessions, if you will. Yeah, episode's the wrong word.

Austin Suellentrop 9:08

This is an episode. This is an episode. That works. So those are going to happen the week of January the 27th, right? And we've got -- we've taken your feedback over the years on what's worked and what hasn't, what do you want to see more of or less of. And one of the big hits last year, we did some live coaching, where we got people that -- we got some of our people to actually coach somebody live and let our coaches listen in. And this year -- that was received with such positive feedback, we're going to do 2 of those.

Jim Collison 9:08

No, that's good. Good enough.

Austin Suellentrop 9:12

So we're going to offer 2 live coaching sessions where you as our Certified Coaches can listen in on a live coaching session, and then get get a sort of debrief on how it went. What did you like; what did you not like? And so I'm really excited about that as a neat sort of new addition to it. We're also going to have -- one of the ones I'm personally excited about because I'm going to be a part of it -- sort of our take on a on an AMA, right, an Ask Me Anything with myself and Jim Asplund, our chief strengths researcher, right? So the two of us are going to host a session where we answer your questions, right? Where we are there to answer questions on on the research, on the assessment itself, on the tools, on where we're taking research, maybe the practical application of some things. Whatever you would want to know from Jim Asplund or me, this is your chance to ask it right?

Austin Suellentrop 10:30

So in the coming weeks, probably right after the New Year, be on the lookout for us to reach out and solicit some of those questions, right, so we can make sure we're prepared to answer the things that you're interested in learning about. So that's what I'm really excited about. And having the chance to have Dr. Asplund on is a real pleasure. If you've ever interacted with him, he's an absolute treat. And he knows he knows so much about CliftonStrengths; it's kind of frightening how one human being can can understand so much of it. So he'll be on.

Austin Suellentrop 11:02

And then of course, you know, this whole sort of series is going to be hosted. you know, you'll see Jim -- Jim will be there. You'll also see Maika, right, Maika will be sort of running the show, sort of corralling all of us crazy kids throughout the whole experience. So you'll, you'll see a lot of familiar faces. We'll be bringing in some of our partners and peers. So we're really excited about that.

Austin Suellentrop 11:21

So I want to make sure you have that on your radar, January 27. That week, we'll be offering them, again, as we've learned and adapted over time, it's not going to be a noon Central every session, right? We're going to have some in the morning of Central Time, some midday and some in the evening. So that we're trying to reach multiple time zones so that we can make our our partners and our friends in Europe and in Asia, and Australia a little bit more accessible to join live. So we're really excited about some of the things we're doing there. So I wanna make sure I touched on those two things first, that you know they're coming, and that you know they're out there. Jim, any questions there?

Jim Collison 11:59

So the, In the invite, or in the newsletter, there's an invite for that. The links to the videos are not out yet. So we'll be publishing those in January when it gets, Can you register not confuse you with a bunch of links at this point. And then as January comes around, we'll be sending a note with the links to each of the sessions. So don't worry, those are coming. I've already gotten a couple questions on that. And we'll be providing those for you later in January.

Austin Suellentrop 12:23

Yeah, awesome. And then I'd say the the third big thing in that newsletter, sort of this month, is more conversation and we sort of unveiled our new CliftonStrengths domain colors, right. And so we told you last month, and we've been sort of giving you a heads up that we are planning to change our domain colors, and that you would first see them in the digital kits that go live next week, a week from today, the new digital kits go live. Right.

Austin Suellentrop 12:54

So in an effort of just full transparency, we wanted to make sure you had the chance to see and react to those colors before you ran into a tool or ran into a picture that had those colors on them. So if you were to log into your digital kits next week, the only place you're going to see those domain colors are going to be in some of the little thumbnail pictures that may be popping up throughout the digital kits. All of the interactive tools and the downloadable resources are still in our traditional sort of current domain colors. Right?

Austin Suellentrop 13:26

We did that because we wanted to give you a chance to see these and react to them before we just made a blanket widespread change. As we said in previous communications, and in previous Called to Coaches, right, we have a whole plan in place for how we're going to roll these colors out and introduce them into various platforms throughout 2020. So it's going to take us several months, if not the whole year, to get all of the places where these colors show up converted into our new new domain colors, right.

Austin Suellentrop 13:54

So if you were to log into Gallup Access on January 1, the new colors will not be there. They are still going to be our current colors. We're trying to give you, our coaches, as much lead time as possible to see these, react to them, get comfortable with them. So that as we do introduce them in various places throughout the year, you're not caught off guard. Right? So the current kit that you will that you will see next week, so the new kits that you will see on December 13, they will have a new design, a new feel, a new sort of layout, if you will, and then we will communicate with you when we're going to flip the switch and turn the new colors on. Because that will be sort of the last big change, right?

Austin Suellentrop 14:38

So I wanted to make sure you knew why we're telling you this far in advance. We're telling you this far in advance so that -- so we're going to be transparent with you that this is coming is that you have a chance to react to it and see them, right. We are we're at the point now with these colors where we have tested them. We have vetted them through multiple channels. So we've done user testing, we've done client testing. They've passed through our standards for our ADA compliance, which is one of the big drivers for us -- was that our previous color, domain colors were not visible and distinguishable in grayscale. So our users who are colorblind could not distinguish the difference between the 4 domain colors. And now, in the new color scheme, they're easily distinguishable in grayscale.

Austin Suellentrop 15:25

So that was one of the main drivers for us. And when we made the change, we wanted to keep them as similar as we could to the current colors. We didn't want to just start jumbling the color scheme around and create any more confusion. So we were looking to keep them as close to the current colors as possible, while making them ADA compliant. Right. So I want to make sure you're hearing from me, sort of crystal clear, these are coming in 2020. We wanted to give you as much lead time as possible to see them, react to them and grow comfortable with them. And we will be sharing a more detailed plan as to when you will see them on Gallup Access; when will you see them in the reporting; when will you see them on gallup.com; when will you see them on all of the other places where you will see them -- our social media presence, all that stuff. And we'll be sharing that in the early part of 2020 as we finalize that rollout plan. So this is sort of my PSA on that. Any thoughts or comments there, Jim?

Jim Collison 16:25

Yeah, just a reminder, back to the kits. We did a video 2 weeks ago, I think now, with Patrick, that if you haven't watched it yet, you want to go back. We just released it in the channel -- I believe we have; maybe it's still sitting there. But we did a video -- it's definitely on the live page. So Gallup Live Webcasts on YouTube, and you can kind of get a view or a look at the new kits before they get here. Super exciting. I'm excited to get those in the hands. I'm, Austin, kind of excited to use it myself, just to be honest. And so that will be coming up. If you have missed that video, go back and watch it.

Austin Suellentrop 17:00

For sure, for sure. And I think one of the things I'm going to try and do right now, if I can get my technology to work really well, one of the things that is coming to this new digital kit that I've heard a lot of requests about was that PowerPoint deck. Everybody loves that PowerPoint deck. And when Patrick did the demo 2 weeks ago, right, we didn't have that deck loaded in the digital kit. We were showing the LHPT Kit; we were not showing the Strengths Coaching Kit. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go off script, Jim.

Jim Collison 17:30

Ooh, I like it. Let's do this.

Austin Suellentrop 17:31

Right, so I want to show you something really quick. And I'm going to share with you. This is a sneak peek at what the new kit -- the new PowerPoint deck in that kit looks like, right. So you'll see, even though -- if you were to right now go out and download and access the kit on December 13 and get the PowerPoint deck downloaded -- even though the color scheme hasn't changed, right, even though it's still got our current domain colors in it, what this does is it has sort of been refreshed, right? It has been sort of updated with a new look and feel. And so I'm going to sort of show you this is sort of how it interacts, right?

Austin Suellentrop 18:15

So it's a refreshed version of the content. It's going to be a more polished look, a more modernized look to the feel of things, right. So it's a lot of the same sort of approach; it's the same underlying drivers of what our current presentation and deck look like. But you'll see it's, it's gotten a refresh, right? It's a it's a new deck designed to help empower you to take this and run with it with with your teams and your clients. Right. So I'm just sort of giving you a sneak peek into this; you'll have this available to you one week from today. Right?

Austin Suellentrop 18:49

So I just sort of wanted to give, without, you know, taking us through the whole thing, give you an idea of what you can expect. The beautiful thing about this is (I'm going to stop sharing my screen now) again, when we are ready to launch the new colors in everything, we can flip a switch, and that deck will be available with the new color scheme in it. Right? So that's going to be what we're communicating early in January or early in 2020. hopefully sometime in January, will be sort of when can you expect that to come? And we'll make sure it's in alignment with all of our other rollout and release there. So I just wanted to give you a sneak peek into that.

Austin Suellentrop 19:25

And then the last couple things, it's it is sort of as we draw, sort of to a close of 2019, here, December 6, right? I could, I would be irresponsible if I didn't mention 2 things to each of you. 1. Make sure you're taking advantage of your promo code, your discounts as Certified Coaches, right. This year, right, you got 350 discounted codes from January through September, or the end of September. Then we migrated, you got 350 more. So those are available to you through December 31. On January 1, your promo code will reset, meaning you will get 350 new discounted codes available for purchase starting January 1.

Austin Suellentrop 20:11

The promo code you use, what you actually enter at checkout, will not change. It will be the same promo code you currently have, right? We just reset them on January 1. So you don't have to, you don't have to get a new code from Jim. You don't have to email certification@gallup.com to get a new code. It's the same promo code, right? So I'm gonna make sure we sort of get that out there. It stays the same. And you just, sort of the uses reset. So make sure you know that.

Austin Suellentrop 20:39

And many of you have taken advantage of another sort of discount offering we had, which, if you remember back right at the the sort of height of the migration, at the peak, maybe early October, we send out an email blast to all of our users with a promo code for Take 20 -- a one-time online digital discount for 20% off your purchase. That expires at the end of the year. Right? So so if you haven't utilized that, make sure you -- in the next couple weeks, if you're looking to buy a batch of codes, maybe you've already exhausted your discount -- that's a great opportunity for you there. So you get 2 chances in the next couple weeks to utilize discounts that are going to be going away at the end of the year, if you don't you -- if you don't use them.

Austin Suellentrop 21:26

So want to make sure I remind you about those things. In the meantime, I am incredibly excited about where we're going with with everything. I am excited to bring these digital kits into Access, making it one fewer place you have to go to get the resources you need; a big step towards simplicity, right. I am excited to get us in a position where we continue to have all of our disparate platforms running through Access, which is a big focus and initiative of ours at Gallup into 2020 and beyond, to be streamlining all of our systems, right.

Austin Suellentrop 22:03

So as part of that effort, we've been doing a lot of things behind the scenes to try and make the process of interacting with us easier. So the commitment you have from me and from Jim and from our team at Gallup is to continue to do that. And to continue to take your feedback, your perspective into account as we build out what that looks like. So you can continue to expect us to be looking to you for guidance, for feedback, for perspective. Don't be surprised if we are reaching out with questions and reaching out with the chance for you to to give us some insight.

Austin Suellentrop 22:39

So things like pulse surveying of this community, things like Jim running Facebook polls and different ways of getting sort of quick, in-the-moment feedback on certain things. Those are the kinds of things we're looking to do more of in 2020 so that we can make sure we're capturing this community's voice in the decisions we're making, in the directions we're going. I think I speak on behalf of the organization when I say that 2019 has been a year of of incredible change, incredible progress in a lot of spaces.

Austin Suellentrop 23:09

We have learned an awful lot this year. And Jim and I were just talking in the preshow, before we jumped on, as we're getting ready, I think back to 5 years ago, when I was on as a client. And 5 years ago, when I was a client, Gallup Access didn't exist. It just didn't, it wasn't a platform yet. The reporting we were using -- the 34 report was a list of 34 themes. In fact, we were really kind of concerned and, and a little bit apprehensive to go to 34 with people, because we didn't have tools and resources to really empower them to learn about all 34 themes easily. Right?

Austin Suellentrop 23:55

And then in the last couple years alone, if you think about the All 34 report and the launch of that, and how it can empower and embolden a conversation to go deeper with individuals than ever before. We think about the the research that's gone into It's the Manager, and how that's informed conversations at the workplace about the importance of managers in their relationships with their, with their associates, and how they talk to each other. We talk, we think about our research from the State of the American Workplace. And the things that have gone into our Millennials report, our Women in the Workplace report. These have all come out in the last 5 years. And these are just versions of things that we're continuing to learn more and more about.

Austin Suellentrop 24:37

I've said this a couple times: We've grown our data points on human beings so much. We've gone from a couple million people in our dataset to now over 22 million people that have taken this assessment, and it's growing at an exponential rate. What that means is that we are going to learn more and more about how people are using our tools; how they're developing their strengths; how they're applying them; what's working and what's not. So we're going to continue to refine our approaches; we're going to continue to refine the tools we provide, as we learn more about what works and what doesn't with people.

Austin Suellentrop 25:12

So I'm really excited about where we're going because, whereas in the past, we may have aimed to provide every tool in the world we could think of. "Oh, this would be helpful; that would be helpful" -- we sort of scattershot. We have a much better understanding of what's making an impact and what's not. So you, the coaching community, provide us great insight there because you're the ones out there doing a lot of the groundwork. You're out there having the conversations and leading the workshops, and making the proposals to companies that are or are not landing well, based upon things that we are providing.

Austin Suellentrop 25:41

We need that feedback. We value it, and we appreciate so much the work that you are doing. But more than just the work, it's the stuff that Jim was talking about earlier. It's being a representative for what we stand for. It's out there in the -- in your communities, with your customers, with your families, with your with the organizations you do work with. It's representing the CliftonStrengths brand, and representing the mission of what Don started about studying what's right with people, and helping to build up what people do well. And that's the kind of stuff that, if we continue this partnership and continue this work together, I cannot express enough how excited I am for where we can be 5 years from now. And that's that's really what gets me jazzed. And that's what gets me excited to come to work every day is thinking about the progress we've made and how much more we can make. So that's that's my, my, my spiel for the day, Jim.

Jim Collison 26:37

Nice job, Austin, get us, get us pumped up.

Austin Suellentrop 26:40

I like it.

Jim Collison 26:41

Getting some good comments in the chat room. Couple, we'll open this up for a few questions, if you have it. Ralph had asked a little bit earlier, back to the PowerPoint deck, which, that one document just has got a ton of legs. I get so many questions on that thing. Do you know? Can you run that? Will that automatically, if -- so, say I don't have PowerPoint -- can I pull that into Keynote? Or do you know -- we'll have to do some checking on that?

Austin Suellentrop 27:07

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Jim Collison 27:09

I think you can, like, I think the PowerPoint and Keynote formats are, I don't want to say interchangeable, but I think they are -- both sides have made it available so they can pull those in. We'll have to do some checking on it.

Austin Suellentrop 27:22

So I will -- when we hang up, I will get on the phone with with our partner Scot Caldwell, who built that presentation, right? Who built the deck? And I'll ask that exact question. So ...

Jim Collison 27:31

I do know, I do know in PowerPoint, you have about 17 different formats you can save it as. So once you pull it into PowerPoint, and you go Save As, like, if you wanted to save it as a JPEG set, it will actually save it into a folder that will have all the slides as JPEGs that are available to you there. That's just available as part of the format. I think it's 17, 18, something like that, formats in PowerPoint. We'll do some double-checking on that as well, Ralph. Great question, by the way, and its flexibility and extendibility. So we'll be checking on it.

Jim Collison 28:02

Any other Steve says, "Nice recap" -- [Jim shows chat on screen] just so you know I'm not making this up -- "Nice recap of all the Gallup content produces better." I think, Austin, I want to say just as we maybe wait for a question or two, we just continue to up the speed at which information comes out. I heard a lot from a lot of folks here that were -- that I got chance to talk to over the last couple days. There's just a lot of moving parts right now -- and there are. And we're doing everything we can to stay as relevant and keep you relevant in the conversation. So don't miss that. Don't -- Don't let your email go too far away from you. Don't -- certainly, encourage, encourage those coaches. I know many of you are also connected to many other coaches. So don't let those other coaches -- ask them, Hey, have you seen the updates? You get the email? Are you are you aware of what's going on? Have you listened to the latest Called to Coach? Are you subscribed on YouTube? Are you making sure you've got the podcast on your phone? We got a lot of different ways to do this. We're doing everything we can to keep you up to date.

Jim Collison 29:09

Austin, one of the things I learned here and we're going to do some work on is the importance of our LinkedIn groups. And so we have had LinkedIn groups for a couple years. They're available there. They're just not as active. But I think you and I'll probably have some conversations around making sure we're keeping the LinkedIn groups in the loop as well. And if you want to, you know, if you want to join both groups, it can get kind of noisy if you're in both groups, but if you want to do that FOMO maybe driving you, don't want to miss something. We're going to post the same things in both. But we're -- I think we're going to kind of take a look and see if we can't beef up our LinkedIn presence as well and make sure that we're putting that, getting all that information out there as well.

Austin Suellentrop 29:54

Well, and I think it's important for the coaching community to know where did the Facebook groups come from. Like, why did we create Facebook groups in the first place? So if you think about the the motivation, we wanted to create a forum for our advocates and our coaches to get together and collaborate, share ideas, share best practices, answer questions. And so it just -- so we started with multiple places where they were; Facebook just happened to be the one that took off. It just sort of happened to be the place where people sort of gravitated to fastest. And then it sort of grew from there. It wasn't as if we said, Oh, we're not going to do LinkedIn as much, we're going to do -- it was, Where are people going? And so that's where it happened. So we're always thinking about what's the best place, the best forum, the best tool to help us create that that place where our coaches and our advocates in our community can gather? That's the motivation. I don't think any of us are married to -- doesn't need to be Facebook or LinkedIn or or some other nonexistent place right now.

Jim Collison 31:02

Instagram, Twitter.

Austin Suellentrop 31:02

Instagram like, I mean, I for one follow Maika on Instagram because she motivates the heck out of me every day. She makes me like get up a little bit more excited.

Jim Collison 31:12

@strengthstalk, by the way.

Austin Suellentrop 31:14

Absolutely, and she actually -- final plug I'm going to say before I before I end -- she helped me leverage my strengths to figure out how I was going to get back to a sort of more routine, you know, exercise and health approach, right? And so I am now part of the Peloton cult.

Jim Collison 31:35

Yes!

Austin Suellentrop 31:36

OK. Why? I got high Communication, high Woo, high Positivity. I need people. Like I need to be working out with people, right? I need it. I need a tribe, right, I need to be able to interact with. And when you work from home, like I do, most days I don't get a lot of that right. So I'm now part of the Peloton crew to be able to have people to interact with right alongside every day. So anyways, a shout-out to Maika for helping me leverage my strengths to understand how I'm going to best do that. So, more to come there. But ...

Jim Collison 32:08

Let me, I do have a couple questions. Talk a little bit about translations. We've had our hands full just on platform stuff. But as we think about 2020 stuff coming out, digital stuff, translations, just give a minute on that.

Austin Suellentrop 32:21

Yep. So 2 weeks ago, when Patrick was on, he spoke a little bit about the efforts we're making to get our learn -- our resources content, sort of the learning content on Access, translated into our sort of our standard languages, right. So things like so, and oh my gosh, of course, I'm drawing a blank, Spanish, Spanish, English, Chinese.

Jim Collison 32:45

I think Portuguese is in there; we'll miss one of them. But there's, you can see them all on Access.

Austin Suellentrop 32:49

Our core languages are coming. And in the Learn content in early 2020, that's on, that's been on the roadmap; it's something we're working to; we know that's a need. That's an identified need we know of. And then so as we think about like digital kits, and tools and resources outside of that, we are working on the similar kind of path to get a digital support toolkit, right? It will not look and feel exactly the same. The effort to translate that entire interactive feel into all of our core languages, would not be something that you should expect in 2020. But a digital support toolkit in different languages is something we're working on. Right. So as we think about sort of that that plan I'll share early in 2020 about domain colors, we can, we can talk about translations at that point as well. So Ralph, to your to your question, sort of an idea of a roadmap of when it's coming, we are working on translating into our sort of standard languages on Access.

Jim Collison 33:52

Maika asks, Any big changes coming in 2020 that might directly impact our coaching clients? What do you think clients will notice or need to know more that might be different in the future? Any thoughts on that?

Austin Suellentrop 34:06

Well, I think, you know, when I think about -- everything we're talking about; anything that's going to be touching the customer experience, right? So if you think about all the places somebody could go right now to get strengths, right, so CliftonStrengths for Students, StrengthsExplorer, Gallup Access, all the places, all of those sites at some point are getting some sort of work being done to them, where they're, whether they'll be updated with new domain colors, so they'll look different, or things like courses.gallup.com, and where and where you used to go to get kits, all those kinds of things are getting streamlined.

Austin Suellentrop 34:45

So I would say all the changes that impact you as a coach are going to be primarily around sort of the interaction with us as an organization -- where do you go to get things, right? I would say the second -- that's, that, that's the probably the biggest one is thinking about how any change that impacts you, how it's going to impact your client. Right? That's one of the things we're always thinking about is not just how it impacts you, but how does it impact your your end-client as well? I would say frankly, right, probably the biggest thing you've that you've experienced the last couple months has been the client support, sort of volume, right? So if you've been having clients that have had issues, or they've had trouble on things, you know, the impact to them of wait times or things along those lines, we've done a -- I'm really proud of our client support team in some of the changes we've made to our process and to our approach on things and staff we've added and tools we've built. Where over the last several weeks, so I don't want to speak exactly with specifics on this, but I want to say over the last probably close to a month, we've got a wait time on phone calls during U.S. business down to down to about 1 minute on average. One to 2 minutes is the average wait time on phone calls from 9 to 5, Central over the last close to a month.

Austin Suellentrop 36:06

So new processes, new approaches put in place has really helped in that in that sense, right. So continuing to evolve and build out how we provide support, adding more to the chat functionality and things along those lines, which we know that from the feedback from, from this community and from our other clients as well, has been well received. So I would say the big change, we hope, is going to be continued effort to improve our support on that front. And then obviously, anytime you have a user go in and look at something and it looks different than what they're used to, which is where the colors will really come in, that will be a change that impacts you. So that's why we're trying our darndest to give you as much lead time as possible.

Jim Collison 36:48

And Austin, let me say, I've had a lot of coaches somehow land on our Store Help page. So if you go to shop. -- store.gallup.com or shop.gallup.com, and try to get support through that page, it's a different phone number and it's got a message there about email support. So that's, that's not the right page. So gallup.com/access or gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. Help link on the bottom, click through the FAQ and to get to chat or to get to phone or to get to email. By the way, the best email support is not sending us an email that way but sending us through the web contact form and somebody get right back to you. That's a lot -- that's a lot faster. Email is the slowest way. Chat's fastest, it's -- chat is open during those times, and we're working to expand those hours.

Jim Collison 37:33

And all the international phone numbers are also on the Access page. So a lot of confusion around that early on. Just don't use the store if your -- if your customers are having problems getting, you know, if they got some -- if they got to a page and it doesn't sound right, that's kind of how I know it's coming from the store. I'm like, ooh, that doesn't sound right. Make sure they're in the right support channel. So gallup.com/access is the easiest way to do that; click on the Help link. I field tons of questions around that and, and yes, while those store hours are different, our Access hours are 24/7. So we always have somebody there to to answer the phone.

Jim Collison 38:12

So sometimes it takes a little while -- actually the overnight hours right now are actually pretty good. So you might have some, might have some luck, it's slown down, and you might have some luck calling in if you're calling outside of the normal U.S. business hours. And that might work pretty well.

Jim Collison 38:26

We have -- let me just, let me just echo what Austin said, we have gone full-court press on on our customer support, and it's not going to change overnight and we're making some great changes going forward. So I'm kind of excited what will roll out in 2020 to continue. You talked, you gave us feedback. We are listening to everything you sent to us and really making some big, some big changes coming up to kind of help out so I'm excited to start rolling those out here later in the year. OK, let's see if there's any -- let's see, Ralph's got one more question: Will other tools, like StrengthsExplorer, be available in standard languages too when streamlined?

Austin Suellentrop 39:07

So StrengthsExplorer is not a priority right now, frankly. And it interacts significantly differently in terms of how it functions because it is aimed at minors. And so the idea of accounts and how we register and get people through that -- it's a -- it's handled separately for us. So it, I would say, is the -- of the additional tools -- would be the lowest priority for us right now.

Jim Collison 39:31

And the last update -- we probably will not see very many changes in 2020 with StrengthsExplorer.

Austin Suellentrop 39:35

Yeah, I would say on the priority list, StrengthsExplorer would be would be pretty far, far down the list. But we are looking at things -- we are looking sort of holistically at everything in the strengths toolkit.

Jim Collison 39:46

Yeah, good. I think, with that, anything else?

Austin Suellentrop 39:51

Thank you to all of you out there. You know, whatever, you know, whatever the holiday season means to you. I wish you the best of one if I don't see you before 2020. Hopefully I will, but maybe I will, maybe I won't. I know my children get out of school 2 weeks from today. And then it is, it's already, as you can see behind me, the Christmas decorations have already gone up in my house. This is one of my favorite times of year to talk strengths with people. Because if you watch how people wrap presents; if you watch how people unwrap presents -- you can learn an awful lot about their natural talents in that experience alone. So it's my favorite way to to diagnose and do some strengths spotting with the family is the wrapping and unwrapping of presents.

Jim Collison 40:39

Well, I like it. Making my way back to Omaha and excited to be back there as well. With that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantages of all the resources we do have available on Gallup Access. Go to gallup.com/access, or really for the -- for a lot of resources, if you haven't discovered them yet, go to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. That's kind of a all-in-one landing page: The history of CliftonStrengths is there; all our videos there; all our webcast content is there; all our articles are there. I mean, there's tons of material. If you haven't checked it out yet, you could spend a whole weekend (if you have Input, you might want to be careful and maybe set a clock or something like that, or Learner -- set a clock). There's lots of great information that is available there. Don't forget, we have a lot of podcast content available for you as well. If you're -- any podcast app on your phone, either Android or iPhone, just search Gallup Webcasts and we got a bunch there that are for you in Spanish; brand new one in Japanese. Excited to roll that one out there as well. And then don't forget, we're on YouTube. So go to youtube.com, search "CliftonStrengths." If you want to watch the live versions, you can go to Gallup Webcasts Live. Don't forget about the summit here in London. This one's gone. But you might want to come and join us. January [actually, June] 1, 2 and 3 in Omaha.

Austin Suellentrop 41:54

June. June.

Jim Collison 41:55

I'm sorry, did I say January?

Austin Suellentrop 41:56

You said January.

Jim Collison 41:57

Thank you. I'm sorry, I was thinking about next month. June 1 -- sorry -- June 1, 2 or [and] 3 of 2020. And registration is available now. The price the best price for everybody is right now: $795. You -- it will go up starting January 4. So certified coaches, you will be getting -- we didn't announce this in the newsletter, it'll come in the next one -- you'll be getting a special code to keep that price at $795. So you've got a little bit of extra time. But if you're coming, just lock it in and by the way, lock in your hotels! Because those are going to go pretty fast. June in Omaha is pretty great. gallupatwork.com will get you more information and allow you to register there as well. We'd love to see you. Austin mentioned the Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/calledtocoach is the way to get in there and to get -- join in that Facebook group. Want to thank you for joining us today. We'll be back next month with the update. Next Friday, Dean Jon, Dean Jones joins us -- it's hard to say -- for the last kind of, the last Gallup webcast. Then we have one more with John Sexton at the end. Vibrant Credit Union is going to come in, and we're going to do a special kind of Christmas edition. It's going to be a good one. You're going to want to join us for that as well. We want to thank you for joining us today. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Austin Suellentrop's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Communication, Activator, Futuristic, Belief and Positivity.