Only one spot left in our next small-group coaching cohort for content leaders. Meets every other Wednesday at 3pm ET, starting October 4.
October 12 at 12pm ET
Hey there,
The first time I took the StrengthsFinder assessment, my colleagues and I were instructed to print out our results and post them to our office doors. So we did. And that was it. Management never planned part two, where we do something with the results. Those lists came down from our doors one by one over the months to come.
I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d known Rachel de Jong back then.
Rachel is a senior content designer at Instacart—and a Gallup StrengthsFinder coach. She got certified back in 2018, after her bosses noticed that her internal workshops were wildly popular and tapped her to help roll out a StrengthsFinder program to the whole company.
Since then, she’s helped hundreds of colleagues across racial, cultural, gender, neurological, and socioeconomic identities find themselves in this very traditional and well-known tool.
So when Rachel proposed doing a workshop with Active Voice, I was pumped. FINALLY—a chance to do something meaningful with that list on my office door!
That workshop is Own Your Impact with StrengthsFinder, coming up on October 12.
I’ll be honest, I’m personally excited to attend this workshop and breathe new life into my dusty old results. So much of what Rachel has shared about her approach already has me rethinking my view of talents and strengths.
In particular: the idea that we need to look at our StrengthFinder results through an intersectional, lived experience-informed lens—because “sometimes our superpowers are coping mechanisms.”
When Rachel shared that nugget of wisdom, my jaw dropped—we’d never seen such an inclusive, curious approach to using an assessment like this. Then she told me:
I know I have some strengths I rely on so much they’re giving me repetitive motion injury—let’s take “harmony” for one. But I hadn’t thought about which strengths I might call upon instead.
Another a-ha moment came when Rachel pointed out a sneaky way to help identify your strengths: look at what irritates you about other people. Too slow? Too random? Those concerns likely point to your strengths—not other people’s weaknesses. So instead of being annoyed with what other people lack, use those feelings to understand where your unique contributions lie.
And then take action.
Rachel’s goal for this workshop isn’t just for you to learn about yourself—it’s to use that knowledge to own your power, a concept that she understands might make some folks squirm.
What Rachel wants to know is: What is it that you’re uniquely able to do? What are you capable of that’s beyond what you can imagine from here?
Those are big questions—and ones I can’t wait to answer with Rachel’s expert support. How about you?
—Jen
Your ticket to this workshop includes:
Access to the official CliftonStrengths assessment—normally $59 all by itself!
A deeply personal introduction to your assessment results.
A guided interpretation of your unique talent combination—including your core talent formulas and your underused areas of potential.
Facilitated practice in identifying strengths in your life—and recognizing when strengths become “weakness.”
Templates for continued self-led growth.
What if our skills aren’t our jobs?
“I had built my career around the margins that I was pushed to, so what if I made the margins into a cozy home?” Jane Ruffino writes about seeing the value of our skills—whether or not our institutions value them.
Women are always the wrong age
“Women who were up for jobs, promotions, or bonuses were told they either lacked experience or had too much of the wrong kind.” A new study looks at ageism for younger women, older women, and just...women. Because in a biased world, we’re never the right age to be taken seriously.
Surviving Change at Work is out now—plus free paperbacks from A Book Apart
Our pal Vanessa Gennarelli has a new book out this month that’s definitely relevant here in 2023: Surviving Change at Work. Grab a copy now—and while you’re at it, check out A Book Apart’s massive warehouse sale, where they’re offering a free paperback copy of any of their older titles when you buy a copy of the corresponding ebook.
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