Six Proven Strategies to Introduce CliftonStrengths to Your Organization

Jim Collison:
[0:00] I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on April 22, 2025.

Jim Collison:
[0:06] Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and Gallup-Certified Strengths Coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, love to have your questions in chat. If you're listening to the podcast audio or YouTube video after the fact, you can always email us your questions: coaching@gallup.com. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube, so you never miss an episode. Dean Jones is our host today. Dean is the Global Talent Development Architect and Senior Learning Expert for Gallup. Dean, it's always a great Tuesday — or any day of the week — that I get to spend with you. Welcome!

Dean Jones:
[0:45] Yeah, thanks, Jim. I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about our topic for today. This is sort of a continuation of the last session that we had, so excited about that.

Jim Collison:
[0:59] Yeah, I'll take a second. And for those listening live, we'll put that link in chat. You can also find that on gallup.com. If you want to come back over listening on the podcast side of things, we'll put that in there. Dean, we're going to spend some time, it's a follow-up to a discussion you and I had had a couple months ago about introducing CliftonStrengths to your organization. And we went through some of the pieces. You'll do a little review for us, then we'll dive into some strategies. Why don't you get us started here with a little bit of a review of that last session we had together?

Dean Jones:
[1:30] Yeah, so we were talking about, What are the phases of introducing CliftonStrengths into your organization? In other words, how do you start to build a strengths-based organization? What are those phases that it looks like? And I think it's useful — and let me give you kind of the "why" behind this — I think it's useful to know where you are in your strengths journey as an organization. So whether you are working in an organization that is adopting CliftonStrengths as part of your culture, whether you are a coach who is working with an organization and helping them, helping lead the charge around that, I think, regardless, I think it's useful to know, What are kind of the phases that you go through around this? So how do you, and how do you know where you are in that journey? Right.

Dean Jones:
[2:14] So one of the things we talked about was we talked about that there were three phases. And, again, these are three sort of broad phases, but I think it's useful to be able to have a sense of that. The first phase we talked about was introducing CliftonStrengths to the organization, right? That first phase was introducing CliftonStrengths. Sometimes we talk about this. If you saw Jillian's presentation at the Coaches Learning Series this year, she talks about it as creating strengths experiences.

Dean Jones:
[2:46] So that first phase of introducing CliftonStrengths is where you're introducing the language of CliftonStrengths to people in the organization. You're building awareness and appreciation of your own and others' talents and strengths for each person in the organization. You see that people are starting to point their talents and strengths at things like goals, outcomes and objectives. During this phase, there's lots of needs assessment, looking at where people are and what they need and how they can use CliftonStrengths. There tends to be in this first phase kind of a focus on formal learning opportunities. So this is the first phase where you're kind of bringing, you know, it's kind of like bringing fire to the village, you know. And, you know, you're kind of, you're talking about, OK, what is CliftonStrengths? How are we teaching people the language to get people kind of the world of CliftonStrengths? So that's the first phase.

Jim Collison:
[3:33] Perfect.

Dean Jones:
[3:34] Second phase is where you're building capability. And this is where, after everybody's kind of embedded in the language of CliftonStrengths, they're starting to have some awareness of it and focus on it, the second phase is where you're building capability. So you're building that strengths capability within the organization. And this is where you're doing things like you're expanding the experts and advocates in the organization. Strengths moves from sort of being a thing to do in the organization to the context for how people are working in the organization. So it starts to get, it starts to be, you know, all of a sudden people remember, Hey, maybe we should look at our talents and strengths around this, or maybe we should start to get organized around that.

Dean Jones:
[4:14] I always say there's two things that happen during the second phase: We're building individual capability, and we're building organizational capability. So there's two kind of directions. Individually, people are starting to develop strategies for leveraging their talents and strengths to be successful. So they're starting to think about, Hey, what are the strategies I can use? As their awareness grows, they start to see ways they can use their talents and strengths that help them to succeed. And then, as an organization, we start to be — as an organization, we start to look at how, it moves really from experts or other people generating strengths for us to it being part of the culture of the organization, where strengths is kind of embedded in our organization. We know it. And so it's not like, OK, every time I want to know about strengths, I have to go to Jim, and Jim's going to tell me about strengths. It's that, no, we all — we now all own strengths as part of the organization, and we can bring it to each other, right? That's the second phase.

Dean Jones:
[5:13] A third phase is where it starts to really get embedded in the organization. And where we see that is it starts to get embedded in organizational structures and programs. So it feels like it's part of kind of the scaffolding or the, you know, the architecture of the organization. We see that it's part of the way, it's part of our onboarding program. It's part of the way we develop leaders. It's managers are all fluent in strengths and using that as part of how they manage and develop people. We use it as a catalyst for engagement in our organization. As part of that, we start to systematically measure the impact of CliftonStrengths in the organization and doing that. So — and it also becomes something that transcends any one person or team or division. It's kind of everywhere in the organization. So it's part of who we are. So if so-and-so leaves the organization or if we stop doing this program, it's not like strengths stops in the organization, because it's embedded in everything that we're doing, right?

Dean Jones:
[6:09] So those are the three phases that we talked about last time: Introducing CliftonStrengths to the organization, that first phase, where we're bringing, as I said, bringing fire to the village. The second, where we're building capability, both individual capability and organizational capability. And the third is where it starts to get really embedded in the organization, where we're making it part of kind of the architecture of the organization. We're also measuring the impact of it. So that's kind of what we talked about last time. As Jim said, you know, if you, if you missed that conversation, it's a good conversation. And, and, and Jim, I think you put the podcast link in here, right?

Jim Collison:
[6:47] I did, yeah. Dean, it reminds me of the Name it, Claim it, and Aim it philosophy, as you think about, you know, that, in that first phase, a lot of naming going on. The second phase — claiming it as our own, training people, building them up, getting infrastructure in place, right? And then the aiming of that from an organizational standpoint. Who are we as an organization? How are we going to move this thing forward? I love your point about it gets, it grows beyond an individual. So if that individual leaves, it's not like the whole system flushes out, and no one is there and available for it anymore. So for me, as I think about those three phases, I kind of see how it — now, it's not perfect, but I see how it mirrors that in some way. It gives me a good, like, where are we at? You know, thinking, like, where would we be at in that process from an organizational standpoint, if you're just thinking of doing like a brain audit of your own organization?

Dean Jones:
[7:39] Yeah. And I think, we just want to remember, Name it, Claim it, Aim it is designed to be kind of an individual construct, right?

Jim Collison:
[7:45] For sure.

Dean Jones:
[7:45] It's what I'm doing as an individual to be able to identify and understand my strengths, claim them as my own and then point them at success. Right. The dynamics of an organization are a little different. Right. So to your point, at a broad level, it kind of has the same kind of progression, to your point. Right. But I think it's the, sometimes I think we, if, if, if we try to, if we try to make that kind of a perfect analogy, we miss some of the nuance around, Hey, what does it take to really have this inside of an organization? And part of it is, you know, with organizations, you know, that in the dynamics of organizations, we want to make sure it's embedded in kind of our programs, our rituals, our culture, the way that we do everything in the organization. So part of it is, is How do we start to bring it in that way? How do we start to make sure that it gets embedded in that way? And it takes something.

Jim Collison:
[8:36] I love that idea of an organizational audit. I think we talked about this the last time we were together — just getting together and thinking about, Where are we at in this space? And doing some audits in this kind of thinking through. How far have we gone? What are we doing? Who's there and who's where?

Dean Jones:
[8:53] Yeah. And, you know, it's funny, when I've talked to people about this before, sometimes it's surprising, those results are surprising. So sometimes people will say, "Gosh, you know, I thought we were further along. And I realize, we still have a lot of work to do to introduce the language of CliftonStrengths here. Or sometimes, well, people say, "Hey, I feel like we're in different places. Sometimes, it's like, in some parts of the organization, we're still, you know, sort of getting them introduced to CliftonStrengths; in other parts of the organization, we've got it embedded in programs." And that's not uncommon as well. I will tell you, I think sometimes one of the things you see is a big challenge for an organization is building internal capability. So that a lot of times, CliftonStrengths sort of starts, and people get really fired up about it, but there's not a sufficient internal capability to keep the momentum going. So, and by "building internal capability," I don't mean just having enough coaches in the organization. I also mean, Hey, are leaders incorporating that in their thinking about how they're shaping the culture? Are managers incorporating CliftonStrengths in the way that they manage? So building that piece about building internal capability is really important. So —

Jim Collison:
[10:02] Let's, let's dig in and talk about those strategies for introducing CliftonStrengths in the organization then.

Dean Jones:
[10:08] So sometimes when you're, so I want to kind of take a step back. So we talked about those three phases. I want to take a step back. And oftentimes people, as, as you think about, OK, how, how can we bring CliftonStrengths to, to the, organization? A lot of times, there's the question about, What's the right first place to start? Where do we start with CliftonStrengths? What's the first step to take? And different people have different opinions, and we've seen different things work. But what I wanted to share today is I think there's 6 common strategies that you see for introducing CliftonStrengths to an organization. And there's strengths of each one of these strategies. There's pitfalls or risks associated with each one of them. So I want to kind of talk about these 6 strategies. I don't think I've ever talked about this on an episode of Called to Coach. I know that I talked about this a number of years ago, I think — a few years ago at the Summit. And so, I thought it'd be a useful topic to just kind of talk about today. So, I'm going to go through each one of these strategies and talk about each one of these strategies as we go through that, through them. And then at the end, I thought, Jim, we could maybe take some questions if we've got some time here. Right.

Jim Collison:
[11:16] That'd be great. That'd be great.

Dean Jones:
[11:17] So the first strategy is to begin with leaders. And this is the way — it's sort of been the time-honored strategy. If you look at some of the material on our website, we say, Hey, start with the CEO, or start with leaders in the organization. So one of the opportunities is, if you can, is to be able to begin with leaders in the organization. And what does that typically look like? First of all, it typically looks like that, well, you've got an executive sponsor; you've got somebody who's a senior leader in the organization who is aware of CliftonStrengths, aware of the impact of CliftonStrengths and wants to sponsor that in the organization. Sometimes that's the CEO. Sometimes that's the CHRO. Sometimes that's a senior leader in a business division. So it varies, depending on the organization. And typically, when you're starting with leaders, a lot of it is starting to, as you start to work with the leadership team, is you're working with them to get them sort of indoctrinated into CliftonStrengths, so that then they will start to cascade that in the organization.

Dean Jones:
[12:18] So what does that look like? Typically, it looks like we begin with some executive coaching sessions, where we have leaders who've done CliftonStrengths. We do one-on-one, typically, coaching sessions with them to help them understand their own CliftonStrengths and the language of CliftonStrengths so they start to get kind of used to that. We may then follow that with some leadership team sessions to be able to help them to, as a team, to start to look at the dynamics of the team and how their strengths kind of play out with each other.

Dean Jones:
[12:46] Part of this strategy really is predicated on having leadership buy-in. So part of it is, in some cases, you've got, you know, there's one organization that I worked with some time ago where the CFO, the CFO was, had a, really a mentor in the industry who was passionate about CliftonStrengths. He became a CliftonStrengths coach, brought it to all the partners in this particular organization. And they were all really bought in, started that way, and then cascaded it to the organization. So you've really got to have that leadership buy-in in the beginning. And one of the cool parts of this is, when you start with leaders, one is, right away, you're getting strengths connected to the purpose of the organization, the mission of the organization and the strategy of the organization. So when you have leaders that can say, Hey, this is what we're doing; this is how it connects to our purpose, our mission, our strategy as an organization, it helps really to be able to make sure everybody's on board. It also, you know, we know that one of the big roles of a leader is answering the question, "Why?" "Why are we doing this?" "Why is this important?" — like that. And so, having leaders on board and having leaders answering that question goes a long way, in terms of being able to cascade strengths in the organization.

Dean Jones:
[14:08] Here's the challenge with this one. So one of the risks around this is, one is, is you got to make sure that you've got, you've got an executive sponsor and you really got buy-in; you've got clear buy-in around this. If you don't, this can be a challenging strategy. And in fact, sometimes what happens, sometimes what we've seen, as we've said, "Hey, start with the CEO." Sometimes, coaches have come to us and said, "Hey, my CEO is not bought in. What do I do? Does the whole thing just stop here?" And the answer is, no, it doesn't necessarily stop there. But it is important at that point, if you're going to start with leaders, and you're going to try to employ this strategy, you've got to make sure that there's good buy-in around that. If leaders don't see value in it, if they don't, for them, they don't see how it's going to advance the organization, the initiative might stall.

Dean Jones:
[14:55] And so it's really important for you — one of the things we see is really important, one is, leaders to, in order for this to be successful, oftentimes we see, leaders need to have a personal experience of strengths. So that's oftentimes why we start with individual one-on-one coaching sessions, is so leaders have an initial experience of strengths. They can see it for themselves. They understand it. Oftentimes, they have insights and kind of Aha! moments that then they get, that have them be passionate about bringing strengths to the organization.

Dean Jones:
[15:27] The other thing you've got to be good at at this is to be able to make the business case for strengths. And I will tell you that making the business case for strengths is different than being a great strengths practitioner. So as a coach, you know, your job is to know all 34 themes and to be able to work with an individual or a group, to be able to really think about, as a practitioner, How do people use their talents and strengths in order to be successful? Being able to make the business case for strengths is a different thing than that. It's thinking about, OK, given that we're going to employ CliftonStrengths, how does this advance the performance of the organization? How does this help us to be successful as an organization? How does this increase the viability of the organization?

Dean Jones:
[16:15] Sometimes I think people get those two things confused. We see it inside our organization, where sometimes — we have consultants who think, I've got to be a great strengths coach before I can talk about the impact of strengths in an organization. And they're two different things. Oftentimes, what I see with strengths coaches, they think that if people just have a great experience of strengths, then they'll want to cascade it through their organization. And that's not necessarily true. You've got, so making a business case is a different thing than being a great strengths practitioner. And you want to start to be able to, this is where you want to use tools like our technical report and our meta-analysis and the case studies we've done that, you know, our, both our website and Gallup Access is just rife with great examples of where people are using CliftonStrengths to be able to increase the performance of the organization, advance employee engagement, and really increase people's productivity and effectiveness and so on. Right. So, but that's, again, that's a different thing, making the business case, than being a good practitioner as a coach. Right. So Jim, I think you were going to say something here.

Jim Collison:
[17:26] Yeah. Dean, as we think about this, for the other 5 steps we're going through, Do you think this is, like, start here and move our way down? Or is this more like this is an entry point? This is a spot you need to think of. These other ones, you're going to have to do as well. Just some clarification on that.

Dean Jones:
[17:42] Great question.

Jim Collison:
[17:42] Lots of folks like a step-by-step, like, just tell me the steps, right? Can you, can you address that a little bit before we move on?

Dean Jones:
[17:49] Yeah, great. This is not a process. OK. This is not, I'm not, what I'm not giving you is 6 steps to — or 6 — these are 6 alternates, alternatives, right? These are 6 different ways you might enter the organization with strengths and start to, start to introduce CliftonStrengths to the organization. Now, it doesn't mean, sometimes what you see is you see people using more than one. And that's perfectly great, right? And oftentimes, they work in tandem with each other. But these are different ways that you, and you want to think about your own organization or the organizations that maybe your clients that you're working with, you want to be thinking about those organizations and thinking about, What's going to be the right approach for this particular organization? Sometimes the right approach in the organization is you start with leaders; sometimes the right approach is not to start with leaders. Right? So like that. So the, again, the first one was, Begin with leaders.

Jim Collison:
[18:43] Let's look at No. 2.

Dean Jones:
[18:44] Yeah. So the second one is to Start with managers. And I think we, you know, at Gallup, one of the greatest discoveries we've had in recent history is, is to really to be able to identify and then to be able to measure the impact that managers have on the organization. We know that managers have a disproportionate impact on organizations. We say that 70% of the variance in employee engagement can be directly attributed back to the manager. So we know they have a strong influence on organizational culture.

Dean Jones:
[19:19] Years ago, when I joined Gallup almost 20 years ago, one of the things that we said is, People join companies, and they leave managers, right? It's another way of saying, Hey, people get attracted by the culture of a company or the brand of a company. But then what really connects them to the organization, what creates the culture that people work in every day is their manager. And, again, we're going through, you know, in the economic times that we're into, I've been reading again that, you know, lots of organizations are questioning, Hey, do we have the right number of managers? Do we have too many managers? It's an easy thing to cut costs by cutting managers, but we know that there's a cost — not just a financial cost to the organization, but there's a cost to the culture and effectiveness of an organization when you cut managers.

Dean Jones:
[20:04] So this strategy of using strengths to be able to start with managers, one of the, part of the value of that is, when you work with managers, when you give managers the language of CliftonStrengths, it immediately makes managers more effective. So one of the cool things, and we've seen this over and over and over again with organizations, is when you introduce CliftonStrengths to managers, and they get fluent in CliftonStrengths, immediately they become better managers. Why is that? OK? We know that, first of all, with managers, there's a range of talent. Right? So we know that some managers are better managers than other managers. Some managers are more intuitive about working with people than other managers. But immediately with CliftonStrengths, it becomes kind of like the "cheat sheet" for how to work with human beings. So managers immediately become much more effective in working with the individuals, with their team members, and with their team as a whole, because they've got insight. Nobody has to say, Hey, this person leads with a lot of Competition, right? Or this person, you know, leads with a huge achievement driver. This person's got a lot of Significance. When you read that person's CliftonStrengths report, immediately it starts to click, and a manager can be much more individualized, much more effective in working with the people on their team, because they've got a clue to how they're wired. So we know immediately that happens.

Dean Jones:
[21:33] On top of that, managers, as they incorporate CliftonStrengths, their conversations with people just get better. The more they start to use CliftonStrengths, the more effective they are in the conversations that they have with people. So the conversations get better. People feel, first of all, people feel understood. They feel heard. They experience that, my manager knows me as a person. They feel like that I'm not just like everybody else, that my manager really sees me. And those have the impact of building strong bonds between employees and their managers.

Dean Jones:
[22:08] So it also helps managers avoid some of the faux pas that they may have. So sometimes managers, when they're talking about individual differences, can use ways of expressing that or language that can be insulting or offensive for people, right? And CliftonStrengths gives people a shared language that's positive and inclusive for discussing individual differences. And that, again, makes managers much more effective at talking about individual differences, providing feedback on individual differences, without doing something that feels offensive to people, right, or undermines that kind of relationship.

Dean Jones:
[22:48] The other part about starting with managers that's so effective with CliftonStrengths is we know that managers are the closest to performance. So managers are the ones that are tied to performance in the organization. So when you want to impact performance, if you impact managers, you impact performance. Again, I'm going to say it again: If you impact managers, you impact performance, right? So applying CliftonStrengths, which is this very useful tool for making managers effective, helps directly have an impact on performance. We also know that there's also great side benefits of this, right? It fosters team collaboration, you know, team cohesion. It improves retention, we know. So there's lots of great benefits around this.

Dean Jones:
[23:32] The other thing that happens that is a benefit with managers is we all know as managers, when they know their own CliftonStrengths and they're aware of them, just having your manager improve their own self-awareness enhances team engagement and effectiveness. So self-aware managers are better managers, right? So that's the impact around it. The challenge with this is, as you start to think about working with managers is, you've got to decide, Hey, is this going to be an experience that people are going to have, or is this going to be part of our culture? So one is helping managers to understand their own strengths and their own talents and strengths and start to develop them. You also then want to make sure that you're developing managers to then use them with other people. So it's not just enough to have managers know their own talents and strengths. You really have to train them how to use it with other people. Jim, were you going to jump in here?

Jim Collison:
[24:31] From an organizational standpoint, does it matter if it's one manager or a bunch? I think sometimes, we step in, thinking, I've got to do all the managers. Can we start with a team that, a team of managers, so to speak, or individual managers, depending on the organizational size? Any thoughts around that?

Dean Jones:
[24:47] Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it's it, CliftonStrengths has a has a funny way of going viral in organizations. And so, you know, so, yes, certainly you can. If you, if you want, again, the broader the scope, the broader the impact. So the more managers that are on board, the more likely, the more likely you're going to have impact around that. But certainly, you can start with a, you can start with a single group of managers, start to, start to do that. Part of what you want to do, again, is decide right up front, Hey, are they, is this just for their own benefit, or are they going to adopt this as a way of working together? Because you want to make sure that as managers start to use, as managers start to use strengths in the organizations, that it becomes kind of part of the model of the way that people get managed in the organization. You know. I do know that, it's funny. I hear this time and time again from people in organizations is they'll, you know, they'll, they'll talk to a manager and it's like, Oh, you know, this manager, their secret weapon is CliftonStrengths, you know, around that. And it's great, it's great, because it does equip managers to be effective. But it's even more powerful when managers are using it together, is my point, right?

Jim Collison:
[26:00] Kat asks a good question. I think sometimes, when we think about working with managers, we think about the discovery process, right, which may or may not be different. How would you, any quick thoughts before we move on, on working with a group of managers?

Dean Jones:
[26:12] I think, yeah, great question. One of the things we have to remember when we're working with managers and leaders is, the higher, you know, the higher up you are in an organization, the more self-awareness is important. So if you're an individual contributor, having good self-awareness makes you more effective. But when you're responsible, the more people you're responsible for, the more self-awareness is a critical part of your success. So in the beginning, when we're working with managers, it's helping them to have really good self-awareness around their strengths, but also their weaknesses. And that they're super aware of those. They understand their own talents, and they're working on translating their talents into strengths. So that awareness piece is a really important piece, that they really understand that.

Dean Jones:
[26:58] You also want managers, as you're starting to work with them, you want them to become fluent in the language of CliftonStrengths. Sometimes, when you're an individual contributor, you're really just focused on your Top 5, your Top 10, and really mastering those. With managers, we really want them to know all 34 themes at some point, right? So in the beginning, it's understanding my own themes and what I lead with, and I've got good awareness around it. But we also want them to understand all 34 themes, so as they start to work with people, and particularly as they work with people that may have different themes than they do, that becomes really important for them.

Dean Jones:
[27:34] The first phase, I think, Kat, to your question is, the first phase for managers is understanding my own talents and strengths, understanding how I'm developing them, understanding also the blind spots that I might have or the nontalents that I possess around that. The second phase, then, is How do I start to use this as a management tool? How do I start to use this with the individuals on my team and with my team as a whole? So I think that's sort of the cadence around that.

Jim Collison:
[28:02] I think we'll take some more questions on that at the end. Let's move on to No. 3.

Dean Jones:
[28:06] Yeah, No. 3 is to focus on a business division. So sometimes what you see is you'll talk to somebody who's a real advocate for CliftonStrengths in the organization or a leader who says, "Hey, I'm trying to figure out what's the right way to be able to do this," right? And Jim, to your point, you don't want to jump into the organization as a whole. You may say, Hey, we're not going to do the organization as a whole; we want to figure out some way to kind of bite off a chunk of the organization. So you may say, you may take a team or a business unit and say, Hey, we're going to focus on this team or business unit, and we're going to do strengths implementation with them — almost like a proof of concept for the organization.

Dean Jones:
[28:41] Now, one of the things that we're always kind of careful about is, is you don't, we always tell people, you don't pilot strengths to see if strengths work. We know that CliftonStrengths, when you adopt CliftonStrengths in an organization, we know — we've done tons of studies on it; we know there's going to be meaningful impact around this. Just people doing the CliftonStrengths assessment improves engagement, right? So we know it's not a question of, Hey, does strengths work or not, right? We got case studies all over the world around this, right?

Dean Jones:
[29:12] The piece to really, as you're thinking about it, is to think about, What's the best adoption strategy for our organization? So as you take a team or a business unit and say, Hey, we're going to start with this team or business unit. We're going to have them adopt strengths. And we're going to learn, we're going to learn and be able to say, Hey, what are the best practices in our organization around that? What did we discover? What were the questions that we had? What are the things we need to equip managers and leaders with? What are some of the pitfalls in our organization? And you do that as a strategy to be able to say, Hey, let's adopt it in one team or one division of the organization. We'll learn from this, and then we'll apply that in a broader rollout.

Dean Jones:
[29:50] Now, the secret to success on that is making sure that you've already committed to the broader rollout. Part of it is making sure, hey, you're using this team or this division to learn from and adapt your launch plan, right? You're not using this to decide, Hey, are we going to do this or not, right? So you've got to really, because here's the thing: You want to go into it saying, Hey, we're going to adopt this in our organization, right? One of the things that you have to be prepared for is, even when it's wildly successful, there may be people that are skeptical in the organization, right? So — because they haven't had a first experience of it or they'll say, Hey, for this reason or that reason, that division was well-suited or that's why it worked, but that won't work in my division, like that.

Dean Jones:
[30:39] So you have to make sure that you address those kind of leadership concerns at the beginning, rather than relying on the individual team or division as sort of proof to be able to convince people. So it never really works is — just the honest truth is, if you're doing this in order to prove something, it never really works to convince people. You want to start in the beginning and make sure that leaders are bought off on this, that you've got a strategy, that you've committed to this, and then you're using this as a way of being able to figure out, Hey, what's the right strategy for being able to roll this out to the organization? Does that make sense? Am I communicating clearly, Jim, there?

Jim Collison:
[31:23] Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Dean Jones:
[31:24] OK, great. So another strategy, again, is focusing on a particular team or a business division and introducing it that way, right?

Jim Collison:
[31:33] Let's look at No. 4.

Dean Jones:
[31:34] Yeah. So No. 4 and No. 5, I'm going to kind of do these two together, because there are different ways of being able to insert them into the structure of the organization. The fourth strategy is incorporating it into onboarding. So oftentimes, you get enthusiastic HR people, you get enthusiastic learning people who say, Hey, listen, I want, the place we want to put CliftonStrengths is we want to put it into onboarding. And it can be a really easy way to introduce CliftonStrengths to the organization is to make it part of the onboarding of the organization. One of the nice things about this is that people who are new employees, new hires, are often the most receptive to new tools and resources. So, you know, you're brand new to the organization. You're excited to be there. You know, you're at a point, you know, you're at one of those transition points where you're open to kind of learning and growing. And so it's a really, you know, it's a time when there's a lot of receptivity to something like CliftonStrengths. So onboarding can be a great place to be able to introduce CliftonStrengths.

Dean Jones:
[32:38] And eventually, as you become a strengths-based organization, of course, you want to include it as part of your onboarding program, so as people come into your organization, they're equipped to be able to do that. One of the things we've done at Gallup, for instance, is we have what we call five different touchpoints of CliftonStrengths inside the first 4 months that somebody is here at Gallup. You know, they do the CliftonStrengths assessment before they start their first day. And then, on a regular basis, there's education and other kinds of touchpoints that are designed to be able to help them to really understand their own talent makeup and then to be developing those into strengths. So, regardless, you'll want it to be part of onboarding sooner or later, right?

Dean Jones:
[33:20] The piece with this is that you have, there's a couple risks with this that you have to make sure, if this is your first entry point of CliftonStrengths into the organization. One risk associated with this is you want to make sure that, as you're introducing this to new employees, that their managers are also clear about CliftonStrengths. So you don't want to introduce it to new employees, they get all fired up about this and experience this during onboarding. Then they go, and they start talking to their manager about it, and their manager doesn't know their own strengths and, you know, and doesn't really support this. You want to make sure, there's always got to be this great kind of pitch-catch between new employees and their managers, right? So you've got to make sure, if you're introducing this in onboarding, that you've had, that managers have had some exposure to this, so as new hires are coming into the teams and like that, that the managers can support the insights that they've learned, support their development, their strengths development, on an ongoing basis. So you want to make sure you've socialized this with managers, you've trained managers to some extent around this, so that managers are equipped to be able to support this as new hires come into the organization.

Dean Jones:
[34:33] The other piece you just have to be aware of is, when this has happened, when we've seen this happen, pretty quickly, existing employees say, "Hey, I'd like to know that," or "I'd like to have the experience of that." So one of the things, when we work with client organizations around this, we will say to them, Hey, if you're going to start with onboarding and introduce it during onboarding, be prepared that pretty quickly you're going to want to do a rollout. So sometimes, people will say, Hey, we're going to introduce it in onboarding, and then a year later or something, we're going to do a rollout. It just — people don't want to wait that long. And you start to get existing employees who say, "Hey, I'd really like to, I'd like to have it. I'd like to take advantage of this." So — around this. So that's, again, two important things: Make sure that managers are equipped to be able to support people, and make sure that you plan for a broader rollout as existing employees say, "Hey, I'd like to take advantage of this," right?

Jim Collison:
[35:31] Yeah, after the pandemic, we talked a little bit about onboarding, and we kind of talked here on Called to Coach about the idea of re-onboarding, which is really just a rollout. But it was an easy way to think about, there are times, like, organizations, especially that have gone through a lot of change, they may need to think in terms of, we're going to onboard new employees, but we're going to re-onboard others to get everybody on the same page, whether you do that in mass or pull, you know, over, over weeks of time, to get, to get people involved. But, Dean, I really do appreciate that emphasis on making sure the rest of the team is up to speed as well, so they're not landing in, in the middle of a war zone, not equipped to, to be able to do what they need to do.

Dean Jones:
[36:14] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, Jim. I want to take Cody's question here in the chat. I thought it was really good. He said, What's the best way to explain the purpose of CliftonStrengths to a new hire? You know, Cody, I think that's such a great question. And I think it's, one of the things I love about that is, is when you say, when you say, you know, when you're talking about CliftonStrengths to somebody who's brand new to the organization, basically what you're saying is, Hey, we care about you. We recognize that you are an individual human being, right, that you're different than everybody else that we've hired here, that you've got a unique makeup and unique wiring. So we want to understand more about your unique wiring and your unique contribution here. We also care about your talent and want to make sure that your talent is developed into strengths that you can apply on the job. I think, you know, everybody who's new in an organization wants to be successful. Nobody joins the organization and says, "Hey, I want to be mediocre!" You know, people join an organization, and immediately they're looking for, How am I going to be successful here? How am I going to how am I going to win here?

Dean Jones:
[37:21] And letting people know, Hey, we're doing this as a way to get to know you better, but we're also doing this as a way to help you to be more successful. So you can tell us about who you are and that we can make sure that as your role evolves, we're making sure that we're capitalizing on your talent here in the organization. So I think that's, broadly, as the organization adopts CliftonStrengths, you can also then say, Hey, we're an organization that values people's talents, and that talent is important, and we've got an emphasis on talent in this organization. And I think that's really a strong message.

Dean Jones:
[37:53] One of the things to remember is that particularly, I would say, over the last 10 years, there's been a huge shift in the role of learning and development in organizations. Ten years ago, there wasn't the same emphasis there is now — for employees coming into an organization — on learning and development. Most employees join an organization in order to learn and grow. They're evaluating the company through the lens of, Is this a place I'm going to learn and grow? Is this a place I'm going to advance in my career? And particularly, that's particularly true the more talented a new employee is. The most talented people in the workforce really, they know they're going to get paid well, right? They know they're going to have, they're going to be attractive to organizations. So they're not worried about that piece.

Dean Jones:
[38:46] They're looking at the organization and say, Hey, is this a place I can be successful? Is this a place where I'm going to grow as a professional? Is this a place where I'm going to be able to advance and advance my skills, right? And develop. And so we know that's super important. So CliftonStrengths can play a role in that. It sends a message — Hey, we're interested in your development, and we want to help you to be successful here. So that's an important piece, and I think — that's why I love that question, Cody, because I think there's an opportunity there to send a really important message that helps attract and retain talented employees to your organization.

Dean Jones:
[39:23] The only risk I would say, or one of the risks associated with incorporating and onboarding is, the challenge sometimes is when you start with onboarding, CliftonStrengths can be kind of pigeonholed or dismissed as an onboarding activity. You know, "Wasn't that a fun activity to do during onboarding?" as opposed to something that's part of the organization's culture. So, again, as you're thinking about this, you've got to think about this in the context of, What's the broader strategy to introduce CliftonStrengths to your organization? You can start with onboarding, but you want to think about, OK, where are we going next, in terms of, in terms of making sure that there's broad adoption of CliftonStrengths to the organization? A natural place, by the way, to go next is managers. Right? Right? So you're introducing it in onboarding, but then you're training managers so they're ready to go. So that's that that would be a natural progression in terms of being able to do that.

Jim Collison:
[40:13] Ready for No. 5?

Dean Jones:
[40:15] Yeah, let's do No. 5. So the fifth strategy is to incorporate it in performance management in the organization. So make it part of your performance management. So one of the cool things about CliftonStrengths is, again, it makes managers more effective and makes managers particularly more effective at giving individualized feedback. So when I know my CliftonStrengths, when I know your CliftonStrengths, when I've seen your strengths in action, I understand your talent makeup, it helps me to be able to provide really great, individualized feedback to help you to be able to improve your performance. So there's a natural fit with talking about CliftonStrengths as a coaching conversation as part of your performance management process. So strengths can then become kind of the framework for coaching, for feedback, and for goal-setting as part of the performance management process.

Dean Jones:
[41:05] The challenge with this is, you have to make sure your performance management process is a developmental process, rather than what I would call an "evaluative process," right? A lot of performance management is oriented around — and I think this is a big missing, by the way — it's oriented around evaluation, rather than development. So we're assessing, How'd you do, right? Which is an important part of being able to develop, but it stops there in most organizations. It's like, oh, you met expectations, or you exceeded expectations, right? So all we're concerned about is just evaluating, How did it go? And we're less concerned about, What's the developmental part of this? What's the part of this that's going to help us grow? So if there isn't a strong developmental context around performance management in the company, this is probably not the strategy to use. Because you want to make sure that you're using CliftonStrengths in a way that's positive, that feels developmental, that feels supportive and encouraging, not something that where strengths can be seen as punitive, right?

Dean Jones:
[42:16] One of the things I think, when we've talked oftentimes with new coaches, sometimes new coaches, you know, they'll get in there, and they kind of use strengths like a club to beat people up, right? "You need to manage that Activator," right? Or, you know, "If you weren't so Deliberative, you'd have no problem here," right? So that's not coaching people on their strengths; that's using strengths as a club to beat people up, right? So we're not interested, we really want the language of CliftonStrengths, we want to use CliftonStrengths in a way that feels constructive and developmental around that, so, in order to be able to incorporate it in performance management, if you're going to do that, you've got to make sure that you've got a real positive, growth-oriented performance culture first. And then as part of putting it into the performance-management process, it's designed in such a way that's developmental for people. So it helps, it helps support the coaching conversations that managers are having with individuals in that process. Go ahead.

Jim Collison:
[43:19] Dean, I do see sometimes, in the community, folks new to CliftonStrengths, and they're trying to dial things back right off the bat. Like, and that's just a natural tendency, you know, "Oh, I need to dial my whatever down," or "I need to — " instead of, instead of, I love thinking through, like, How can I put myself in the right situation to turn that thing up and, and really use that? It's a, I think it's a human, it's a natural human thing for us to kind of focus on those, on those areas where we may be overdoing it. But, at least in my experience here, How do I put myself in a position where that's honored, where it's needed, and I can turn it up? I shouldn't, I shouldn't be asking myself sometimes, "How do you turn that down?" right? We want you to use those things. So, I don't know, thoughts on that, as we move on to the last one?

Dean Jones:
[44:06] Yeah, I think part of the benefit of CliftonStrengths, part of the benefit of this whole inside of this development is building self-awareness — that we all know ourselves better, that we know where we're contributing, and we know where we may be getting in our own way or getting in others' way. So part of it is we, and typically, as you coach people, typically, those are related to the top talent themes that we have. You know, very, you know, we talk a lot about weaknesses, we talk a lot about weaknesses, but typically, for the most part, weaknesses aren't tied to people's nontalents — you know, the talents at the bottom of their 34 themes. Mostly, the weaknesses that people struggle to be able to manage are tied to their most dominant themes, right? And it's good for us to know, Hey, I'm overdoing it with the Activator, right? Or I'm overdoing it with the Competition. And in fact, that's, that's creating stress, stress or, or problems for other folks or, or it's the thing that's getting in my way for, for being successful. Right. So, so yeah, so that self-awareness is super important.

Jim Collison:
[45:18] I love that. Let's, let's look, oh, go, go ahead.

Dean Jones:
[45:20] I was just gonna do, yeah, let's do the last one. The last one is sort of like, I hate to say it, is, is sort of like potluck here. You know what I mean? The last one is, Create a grassroots movement. And in fact, this is the way that we see most, in most big organizations that CliftonStrengths starts, is it starts really as a grassroots movement in the organization. And it goes back to the thing, I think, Jim, you said a few minutes ago, where people will talk about, you know, like, one team will start to adopt it. We know, in one of the organizations we work with, how it started was there was a gal who got exposed to CliftonStrengths in her church, decided she wanted to be a CliftonStrengths coach. She got certified as a coach. She started bringing it to her organization. And it just took off from there. People got real interested. And at some point, the organization said, Hey, we want to make this an organizationwide initiative. And so that happens more times than it doesn't, right?

Dean Jones:
[46:22] So we know just that natural movement, and typically, the folks that are spreading that are coaches. So typically, it's coaches like you and me, coaches out there who are passionate about CliftonStrengths and bringing that to teams and groups throughout the organization. So with this kind of approach, strengths spreads naturally as teams adopt them. So it's one team after another, and it starts to be adopted broadly in the organization, typically through word of mouth. And we know that naturally, CliftonStrengths spreads naturally. It gains momentum relatively quickly, because it's positive, it's intuitive for people, it's engaging. People are left with a better sense of their own contribution and a better sense of their own talents as a result of that. So it is probably the most common strategy.

Dean Jones:
[47:14] There's — the thing that we have to be aware of is, there's always, in an organization, there's always an inflection point. So there's always a point where it goes from being an enthusiastic movement that people are adopting to a point where it has to become an organizational strategy. So it's always sort of gauging, Hey, has there been a sufficient amount of momentum that it's time to make this an organizational strategy? And that's where we start to think through those three phases we talked in the last time, where we've introduced it. There starts to be momentum in the organization. People get excited. Now, how do we start to formalize this and start to move down that road, right?

Dean Jones:
[47:51] The thing that I always want to make sure coaches know — and again, this goes back to our conversation about a business strategy — is as excited and passionate as we all get about CliftonStrengths, it has to be something that's tied to the success of the organization. So as much as we know it leaves people in a positive, great space, it also has to be something that improves the viability of the organization. So for all of us, whether we start with a grassroots movement or some other way, we've got to get good at being able to say, "What's the business case for CliftonStrengths?" So what is the business case? How do those adopting CliftonStrengths as part of our culture advance the success of the organization? So how is it something that makes us perform better, makes us a stronger organization, enables us to attract and retain talent better? How is this helping us succeed as an organization and improving our, in many cases, our financial viability as an organization, rather than just being something that makes people feel good?

Dean Jones:
[48:54] So, you have to really confront, I think, as coaches, we want to start to make sure that we're cognizant of that, and we want to get good at that, is to be able to say, Hey, here's what we do, and here's the work we do as coaches to help people with CliftonStrengths. But also, here's the business case for our organization or our campus or so on around that. So, I think that's super important, right?

Dean Jones:
[49:19] Risks associated with this. One of the challenges, oftentimes, and you see this, is CliftonStrengths kind of takes off, and the organization may struggle to keep up with the demand for strengths in the organization, right? And so people may, as the organization may say, Hey, we got to get our arms around this. And there may be such demand that they got to figure out, OK, how do we start to do this in a way that's scalable in the organization? That's one place where we can help as Gallup. We work with lots of organizations to be able to do that. That's where, where having coaches in the organization who can strategize around that. We know most of our coaches who work inside organizations work in HR or OD or learning and are great at being able to think about organizational strategy around that.

Dean Jones:
[50:04] Another risk associated with this kind of grassroots movement is employees may wonder if strengths has been kind of blessed or authorized by the organization. So they may be doing it. They may be excited about it. They may be sharing it inside the organization. They may say, "Hey, you know, does the organization, has the organization blessed this? Or is the organization authorized to be able to do this? Are we really committed to this as a culture?" And I think that's a good, that's a good conversation to be, to be elevating in the organization. Hey, do we want this to be part of our organization, part of our organization? So, so those are the 6 strategies, right?

Dean Jones:
[50:38] So let me just recap them just briefly. Again, these are 6 common strategies for introducing CliftonStrengths in the organization. So it answers the question, "Where do we start? Where do we start with CliftonStrengths in our organization?" One place to start might be with leaders, right? And getting leader buy-in, starting to make sure your leaders really are tuned in to CliftonStrengths. They have that personal experience of it. They're thinking about those dynamics as part of their leadership team, and they can start to model that and cascade that for the rest of the organization. Second strategy would be beginning with managers. And again, we know that disproportionate impact that managers have on the culture of an organization.

Dean Jones:
[51:15] The 3rd strategy is to focus on a team or a business division and say, Hey, we're going to take this business unit, and we're going to make this a strengths-based business unit. And as part of that, we're going to learn a lot about what we need to do in order to have a broader adoption of CliftonStrengths in our organization. We're going to capture those best practices, so that we can make sure that we've tailored the launch of CliftonStrengths to our organization. The 4th strategy is to incorporate it into onboarding, into your onboarding program. Again, a real common strategy around that. And so we want to make sure that we're setting up new hires to be successful. We also want to make sure that we've thought about how their managers are going to receive that.

Dean Jones:
[51:55] The 5h strategy is incorporating it into performance management in the organization and using it as a context for developmental coaching conversations. And the [6th] is to kind of create kind of a grassroots movement in the organization that's led by coaches and passionate advocates, champions in the organization around that. So those are the 6 different common strategies we see for introducing CliftonStrengths into the organization.

Jim Collison:
[52:17] Questions? Are you ready for a few questions?

Dean Jones:
[52:20] Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Jim Collison:
[52:21] I think this fits into what you just, as you wrapped it up there with grassroots movement, but Ken asks, People with their strengths are 7% more productive; people coached, 18%. Where does coaching fit best in these steps? I think you answered that, but talk a little bit more about it.

Dean Jones:
[52:36] Yeah, so I think, as part of this in every case, typically the model that we adopt — and I think I've talked about this before — is kind of the, I mean this in the most loving way possible, right, kind of the holy trinity of CliftonStrengths, right? Is people doing the assessment, people having some learning or education around CliftonStrengths, and then getting coached on CliftonStrengths. And typically we like to do it in that order, right? They've done the assessment first. That makes sense, obviously. They do the assessment. We, like, in our organization, you do that before your first day. It's part of our onboarding process, once somebody is hired; between the point that they accept their offer and they start on their first day, they've done CliftonStrengths, so they show up on their first day with CliftonStrengths.

Dean Jones:
[53:24] We like to do the learning second. And what we find is the coaching conversations are more effective when people have been to a course about strengths first. What happens when you do the coaching second is the coach ends up spending a lot of time doing kind of a one-on-one CliftonStrengths Discovery session, as opposed to, so they're spending all their time teaching versus coaching, right? And what we find is, is, when you do the assessment, then you do the learning second, right, then, and people had an opportunity to be able to get their questions answered, discover a lot about the kind of the world of strengths, maybe talk to some of their peers around that. Then they go to that one-on-one coaching conversation with a coach, then that coaching conversation is much more productive.

Dean Jones:
[54:10] The other thing I'll say about this is, remember that, when we talk about the role of coaches in organizations, typically what we say is, for the most part, coaches are coaching leaders and managers. Where you deploy coaches in an organization is around leaders and managers. And so we know, for instance, that most coaches that are embedded in organizations are coaching mid-level leaders, directors, senior directors in the organization, and people managers. And that's the right place. You typically, the numbers just don't work if you're a coach, and you're trying to, in an organization, you're trying to coach a bunch of individual contributors. You just can't do that. The other time, the other thing that happens sometimes is coaches get tangled up by giving coaching and feedback to individual contributors that really should be coming from their managers. So typically what we say is, coaches, you should be working with managers and developing managers to be more effective and to be great strengths-based managers. Managers then would be coaching the individual contributors to their organizations.

Jim Collison:
[55:16] Another question coming in from earlier, when we were talking about managers: What are some ways managers can use strengths with their teams, thinking about what, what are our strategies around that to help managers have these conversations, so to speak?

Dean Jones:
[55:28] Yeah. So, I mean, just very simply, one of the great, one of the cool things that managers can do is, one is, as they're, as the people on their teams take CliftonStrengths is, first of all, to be having those one-on-one conversations with each person around their own strengths. One of the nice things that they can be doing, and this is in some of the learning that we provide, is helping managers with those questions that they can be asking people, as they're getting to know them, to really understand their talent makeup. So one is just managers just reading the report, understanding the report, and think, formulating, Hey, what questions are those that I want to ask this person, right? So it may be things like, "What's the kind of work you like to do?" And listening to that through the lens of their strengths. "When do you feel like you're at your best?" "What do you think is the, what do you have to contribute? What are the things that you are good at and the things that you like to contribute?" "What are your least favorite activities to be able to do?" Right? "What motivates you?" "How do you like to be recognized?" So there's lots of questions managers can be asking people that are directly tied to their strengths profile.

Dean Jones:
[56:35] Then as they start, as they start to understand the strengths of each individual on their team, you can start to look at strengths together. So using a Team Grid to be able to look at the dynamics — What are the dominant themes on our team? What are the things that are recessive for us or the nontalents for our team? What are some of the key partnerships in the team? And as you know, we've got lots of resources around that. So in Gallup Access, if you've got a Gallup Access subscription, you're able to take your team, produce a Team Grid. And there's lots of different ways you can produce that. You can use our Cascade material in order to be able to do that. We've got lots of cool partnership stuff now in Gallup Access that you can use. Now, and as people, even without a subscription, if you're connecting with other people in CliftonStrengths, you can look at your partnership together. We're about to launch some cool new stuff in the weeks ahead, where people will be able to put together small Team Grids to be able to look at teams of 5 or fewer people. So there's lots of cool stuff kind of coming around that that will help with that. So hopefully that answers that question.

Jim Collison:
[57:41] Yeah, and I think it ties into this question, too, about ongoing workshops that provide a framework to host successful workshops around strengths. And, you know, I'll put a plug in for our podcasts as well. We spend, you know, we have 9, and now in our 10th season of The CliftonStrengths Podcast, which we called "Theme Thursday" before. And you can use those as tools for awareness, for folks to listen to those. They can listen to them off-site or when they're, you know, taking a walk or working out or driving in or taking the train or on a plane, right? All those things. To continue that learning process, right? It doesn't always have to be on site. It doesn't always have to be in a classroom. It doesn't always have to be, you know, together. Those things can be done separately and then brought together for learning and development. Dean, your thoughts, additional thoughts on that? And we'll wrap it with that.

Dean Jones:
[58:30] Yeah, I think we've got, you know, we, Micaela, it's great. It's great. It's a great point. We got lots of resources. So there's tons of resources in Gallup Access. There's lots of resources online. And, you know, probably one of the most underutilized resources is the kits that we give Certified Coach or that we give coaches when they go through GGSC. So one of the things I always encourage people, we got lots of resources in there that are, that are, that are, that are underutilized. It's also something, I will tell you, that we are working on for the future. So as we think about the future and the resources we want to provide coaches, and particularly Certified Coaches, around this, we're thinking about one of, we're going through kind of a process right now. We're really listening to, Hey, what's next for coaches? We have a lot of coaches who say, Hey, I finished GGSC. I got certified. What's the, what is the next level of education for me? And we're really listening to what those needs are and starting, we're going down a road where we're starting to figure out, How do we provide, how do we help coaches to be able to do that, right?

Dean Jones:
[59:31] If you're not already certified, this is the one, this is, you know, I'm going to put my plug in. If you haven't done the Gallup Global Strengths Coaching course, 100% you should do it. It's a great course. We know that 92% of people who do the Global Strengths Coaching course would recommend it to a friend or colleague and felt like it was a worthwhile investment of their time and energy. So if you haven't done that already, we'd encourage you to do that and get certified, as we continue to kind of build out our resources for Certified Coaches.

Jim Collison:
[1:00:05] I think that's a great way to wrap it. With that, we'll remind everyone to take advantage of all those resources in Gallup Access. Head out to my.gallup.com. For coaching, master coaching, if you want to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, just send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Stay up to date on all future webcasts by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Love to have you out there for those. You can find those just by searching "CliftonStrengths." And if you enjoyed it, hit that Like and Subscribe button. Feel free to share this. We love it when you do that. Share it with others. It'll be available where you're listening to it now, as well as available in our podcasts on Called to Coach. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for coming out. Thanks for coming out live, if you joined us live. If you're listening on the podcast, thanks for doing that as well. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Dean Jones' Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Activator, Focus, Woo, Strategic and Relator.