Will My CliftonStrengths Change

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Will my cliftonstrengths changePeople are always asking us:

“Will my CliftonStrengths change?”

and

“Should I retake the assessment?”

 

Since these questions are really two sides of the same coin, the short answer to both is the same: probably not.

For the longer answer, be sure to listen in as we explore if/when to retake, and how to get the most from your results – whether or not you’ve seen your CliftonStrengths change.

 

Get Coached on Your CliftonStrengths Change

Brea Roper – Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness

If you need a Strengths Hype Girl, for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She’s ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop.

 

Lisa Cummings – Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo

For independent coaches, trainers, and speakers, get business tools support with our Tools for Coaches membership.

 

Takeaways on CliftonStrengths Changes and Whether to Retake

  1. Retaking the assessment is rarely necessary. With a few exceptions, you’ll most likely gain more from investing your time and energy in developing your existing talents instead of seeking validation through a different set of results.
  2. Don’t let labels limit you. Getting caught up in the labels of the strengths themselves can be more harmful than helpful. You can achieve your goals by using your existing strengths, even if they don’t perfectly align with specific labels or expectations. For example, someone with low “Achiever” can still be highly successful by leveraging their “Competition” to move projects or people across the finish line.
  3. Work with a coach to maximize your strengths. A coach can help you understand your results, develop your talents, overcome perceived limitations, and apply your strengths to achieve your goals. Coaching offers a more effective path to personal growth and success than simply focusing on changing your assessment results.

 

Take Action After Your CliftonStrengths Change

  • Shift your focus from rankings to actionable outcomes: Remember, the assessment is merely a tool for self-discovery. True growth comes from taking action based on your strengths. So, instead of seeking validation through changes in rankings, focus on identifying your desired outcomes, and then explore how to utilize your strengths to achieve those outcomes.
  • Work with a CliftonStrengths coach: A coach can provide personalized guidance on applying strengths to specific goals, overcoming perceived limitations, and navigating potential confusion or frustration related to strength rankings. Lisa and Brea are both accepting new clients. Reach out today!

AI-Generated Transcript on CliftonStrengths Changes and Whether to Retake The Assessment

Lisa:
I’m Lisa.

Brea:

And I’m Brea.

Lisa:
And today’s episode is about the question, do my Clifton Strengths results change over time?

Brea:
Oh my gosh, I get this question all the time.

Lisa:
Yes. Every single workshop, without exaggeration, this is asked every event.

Brea:
Everyone. Everyone. And this is a real, like, a real juicy topic because—well, because different people say different things.

Lisa:
Hot takes.

Brea:
So, let’s dive in. Do our results change?

Lisa:
So, Gallup releases the actual numbers occasionally. The latest release said 73% of the top 10 stays consistent over decades. The things that are contained in the top 10, they can change order. And there are only a few things that tend to make the swings.

And they’re not the things we would think because people are always asking me,

  • I just changed jobs, is that going to change it?
  • I was in a bad mood when I took the assessment, is that going to change the results?

Nope, nope. And surprisingly, the things that move it are things like:

  • You took it when you were 18 years old, and now you’re 29 and your frontal lobe is fully developed. So, this very young age change into mature adult does give people some shifts.
  • They see it when people experience major life traumas, and
  • They see it when people change the language they take it in. So, if you’re a native Spanish speaker, you took it in Spanish the first time, the second time you took it in English, and you changed the language of the assessment you took, they really see shifts when you do the language change.

And those are the surprising few things that tend to give the big swings.

Brea:
Which makes total sense because of what it’s assessing, right? It’s looking at your brain and the patterns in your brain. So, when there’s a traumatic brain injury… Well, of course, that’s going to change your results. You know, if you’re taking it in a language that’s not your own—you have to think and process more, so you’re using a different part of your brain.

Or when you move from being 18 and only ever living in your parents’ house and not really ever having a chance to think for yourself, and the fact that your prefrontal cortex is still forming, of course, there’s going to be a big difference, you know, between when you’re 18 and 29. Like, yeah, that all makes sense.

And I can say, from my own experience, I have seen dramatic shifts in some, moving from the top to the bottom, and the bottom to the top—

Lisa
Really?

Brea:
Yeah! Yes. But here’s—without going into all of that, if you want—if you want to talk more about that, if your ears are, you know, like, really perked up right now, then go to my website, hop on my calendar. I’d love to talk to you about it. Um, but here’s my—my overall take is that when that happens, your talent is not changing. Your nature is not changing.

But often what happens is you’ve learned to use your talents, you’ve invested in your talents, you’ve nurtured your talents in a way that ends up creating a strength, right? You’ve followed the formula. You know, you’ve nurtured your nature, and now you have this strength that behaves like a talent theme is defined. So, for example, empathy is, I think, number six right now in my most recent assessment. But originally, I mean, it was very low, like, I’m going to say low 20s.

Lisa:
Was your connectedness really high simultaneously with empathy being low?

Brea:
Yeah, yeah. Connectedness has always been in my top five. Um, and so I think connectedness, individualization, you know, several of my—my relationship-building themes have really matured over the years. I’ve, you know, been able to refine them and use them. And I’ve learned the skill of empathy. I’ve studied it. I’ve read about it. I’ve taken classes. I’ve learned how to use my communication, how to use words to show empathy, or things like this.

So, I’ve—I’ve acquired the skill of empathy, knowledge around how to show empathy to others. And I’ve learned how to align my natural talent so that it does show up. People often are surprised when I tell them that empathy is really low for me. I don’t claim it as a talent. If we went through the clues to talent, it’s not easy for me, it’s not enjoyable for me, it’s not an area where I thrive from a natural place. So, anyway, it’s a whole another conversation, but, you know, a whole another way to kind of look at this.

Lisa:
Yeah. Yes, because I have all these questions and thoughts around you, the you, because you have—with connectedness and individualization, you have a couple of themes that would easily be in a zone of high intuition. And that does feel a lot like empathy, and I could see the translation of using those couple to really make it easy to—to leap over to empathy.

Brea:
Yeah, totally. So, if you’ve seen some dramatic shifting in your report, or if you see that with a client, that’s where I would encourage you to—to start digging. Do these themes feel like talent, or is it a pattern of behavior that you frequently show, but maybe it’s coming from other talents, and other places of investment, and nurture?

Lisa:
Yes.

Brea:
Very cool.

Lisa:
I know. I know. So, for me, the only other thing that I would talk about is authenticity because you—if you were not authentic in your results because you were trying to be someone, like you were saying, “what would they want me to say at work?” Of course, you’re—or you were only trying to show a work version of you—how you want them to think of you.

You will also see a CliftonStrengths results change if you had someone else entirely take the assessment for you. Yes, I’ve had that happen. I had an executive get the results, and say, “This doesn’t sound like me at all.” Well, it’s because they had their assist—didn’t fill it out.

Brea:
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Lisa:
And it just goes to show, you know, you can see a lot of behaviors, but the drive behind them is for lots of different reasons. So, you really would not be able to have someone else answer the questions for you, and have it show up, right?

Brea:
Oh my gosh.

Lisa:
And I know it’s kind of funny, right?

Brea:
Assistants can do a lot of things, but that’s probably something you should do on your own.

Lisa:
So, right, in that case, I am so pro-retake. If you had your VA, your assistant, your sister, if you had someone else take the assessment for you, then, yes, you should retake it and do it yourself.

Brea:
Agreed. Agreed. I think a really important question when it comes to retaking the assessment is to think about why. Why do you want to retake it? If this is a question you’re asking yourself, like, “Should I retake the assessment?” Why? What are you hoping—hoping to learn? What are you hoping to gain?

Is it just because you’re curious, you know, is it just because, um, you wonder, you know, if things have shifted, or is there—is there something specific that you’re hoping that a new profile, or a new set of results, might give you? And that’s, I think, a really good question to talk to a coach about. Um, because what I see a lot of times is people retake the assessment, and then, if things have shifted, if things have changed, it can lead to more confusion.

Sometimes even a little identity crisis, like, “Oh my gosh, I used to have this high, and now it’s not as high, and who am I, and what happened?” And so, it’s important, um, if you do decide to retake the assessment, to understand why things are shifting, how things are shifting, what’s—what might be causing that. Um, and a coach is a really good, you know, a really good person to go on that journey with so that you aren’t confused, it actually brings more clarity. But most of the time, I find if people are curious, it’s just because of that. They’re just curious.

And remember, the assessment is just the beginning. The assessment is not the end-all, be-all. So, if we can, it’s really, I think, a better use of your time, and your energy, and your money to work with a coach to figure out how to use the profile that you have, to invest in it intentionally, to, you know, to make those talents work for you. Um, don’t let the assessment define you, don’t let it label you, don’t let it put you in a box. Use it as a tool to move forward, to grow, to develop, to—to improve.

Lisa:
Yes. I am with you on all of those. So, you just prompted for me this concept of labels. And I think for a closing thought, it’s worth saying, look, if you got one like competition, and your CEO keeps saying, “Hey, sales team, we need to stop being competitive against each other,” and now you think you need to push your competition down.

That isn’t where you should retake. That’s where you should work with a coach to figure out how to bring out the really good side of competition, like how you like to help everyone win, like how you’re really focused on key performance indicators, and like, all of these elements of competition that would be really good, and not get caught up in how your corporate team uses a word that matches Gallup’s labels.

This whole thing with labels, if the word gets taken out of context, or isn’t the one that Gallup means, sometimes people get really wrapped up in that. And they’re trying to pull one up, or trying to push one down. And just like what Brea said, it’s going to be a lot more effective for you to work with a coach on bringing out all the good stuff that is natural in you, rather than trying to stuff down these natural elements of you, because that isn’t going to go that well over the long term.

And this retake, sometimes it’s just curiosity. And if it is, I get it. And if it’s not just curiosity, it’s one of those other things. Pull one up, push one down. Call Brea Roper instead, and work on bringing out the good side, and really maturing the ones that you have. That—that’s going to be a much bigger return on your effort, and time, and money.

Brea:
Yeah. And if it is just curiosity, again, ask yourself, what am I going to do with this information? Okay, so you take it again, you know, you invest the money, you invest the time, you get the new data. Then what—what is that going to do for you? You know, what—what do you hope that that—that brings? And most of the time, people are like, “Well, I don’t know. I’m just curious.” And if you’re not going to do anything with the new data, then why?

Lisa:
Yeah. You’re making me think of a lot of customers over the years. Let’s say their team charts come out, and it shows Achiever in the top five of a team, which is a very common thing to see. And now you’re someone on the team, and your achiever is number 20, and you have some sort of shame about not being achiever enough, and you want to retake because you want to see if you can get it—either you can get it to show up higher, or if it has shown up higher, and then what—what if you retake it, and it’s still a 20, then what?

Are you just going to go off in a corner, and feel bad about yourself, or just hide it? I mean, instead, the real thing to do would be to work with a coach, and figure out how to get the behavior you want to get out of the natural talents you already have.

And it’s not an obvious thing. It’s obvious to all of us who are coaches, because we’re like, “Oh, you can do any work through the ones you have.” But people will often first take the assessment and think it’s going to fortune tell whether or not they can be valued on a team or not based on the team’s lineup. And that’s just not true. If you’ll work with a coach, and use it in a great way to develop yourself.

Brea:
That’s a great example that you work at your best. That’s the best answer for you. So, invest in that. You know, get more of what works.

Lisa:
Yes. I love it. Notice what works about you to get more of what works. And if that label doesn’t match up in the perfect way that your company says it, it’s totally fine. Yeah, there might be a little bit of political work—work, or, yes, you might decide to call it something else.

With all of these examples, we’re just winding around semantics. It’s all just the labels, but getting the outcome focus is really what matters. And I think that is the crux of this retake conversation is what outcome are you trying to get? And you can surely get the—the outcomes you want with the things that are already on the assessment that you have.

Brea:
Agreed. Agreed.

Lisa:
Okay. So, Brea, if someone wants to work with you on their results, they’ve taken it, or they’ve retaken it, and they want to work with you to use these strengths, talk to us about how to get in touch with you and explore these further.

Brea:
Yeah. Come to my website, brearoper.com, and let’s schedule a call. We can talk about some of these things that—that we’ve talked about in this conversation, and discuss, you know, should I retake, should I not? Um, and then, we can coach you through it. How about you, Lisa?

Lisa:
Yes. Go to leadthroughstrengths.com. And if you’re curious, like, you’ve taken this through your workplace, and it was when you were 21 years old, and now you’re 45 years old, and it—a lot of time has passed, and you were in your early—early developmental years, like, a little before the frontal lobe was complete, maybe a retake is in order.

If you need to do that, just go to the buy codes link at the top navigation on the website. That’s an—if you do find that retaking the assessment, or needing to buy it in the first place, is where you are right now, you can just grab one on the website, leadthroughstrengths.com. Look in the top navigation under buy codes.

Brea:
Awesome. Love it. Grow the good.

Lisa:
Yes. Grow the good. Go call Brea, and get this thing going, instead of circling around, reassessing. Let’s get the action going in your real life, not just getting a new piece of paper, getting a new report.

Brea:
I love it. Lisa Cummings, Brea Roper, here to save the world, one coaching conversation at a time. That’s it. And that’s all. See y’all next time.

Lisa:
See you next time.

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