It’s 2016 and my team has some budget to spare.  At this point of my career, I am enjoying scheduling meetings, coordinating team buildings and ordering lunch.  The “Work life Balance” slogan was not our company’s top priority.  All business travel was approved with business class airplane tickets.  All conference fees were approved without business justification and staying in 5-star hotels was the norm.  Coming to work felt great.  Don’t get me wrong, I did hear about “the good times” 6-10 years prior to 2016.  That was before my time.  When department parties were held at hotels or when bonuses were bonuses.  We all like to reminisce on the good times.

I scheduled a CliftonStrengths® Assessment Workshop for my team.  It was the first time I took the assessment.  I was excited to learn about my strengths, signature themes, and how they could be utilized within my team.   According to Gallup “Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes.  By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.”  Great marketing right there, who doesn’t want to identify their talents and make them better?  Come on!

I took my first assessment, my top 5 came out to be: Restorative, Responsibility, Realtor, Strategic, and Individualization.  Boring!  There is a list of 34 CliftonStrengths® Themes, if I had gone through the list and highlighted what I thought I was I would have been completely wrong.  This is 2-3 years into my “office” career I came from a Parks and Rec where I was outside all day and moving around.  I thought my strengths are so boring, am I becoming a boring office person?

I scheduled the workshop with the team, and everyone was able to understand each other’s work styles.  For some team members their strengths were obvious and for others they came as a surprise.  In this workshop we all gathered a deep understanding of how we could work better, more efficiently, and in harmony with one another.  We also had an amazing lunch from an outside vendor.  Oh, the good times of when we would order an outside vendor catered lunch.

It’s 2023 and I had the opportunity to redeem myself, the assessment was offered once again.  I’m in a different team and have 1000 more responsibilities.  “Work life Balance” is the first thing on every agenda.  We are not traveling and there are no business class flights or 5-star hotels.  Coming to work feels like work.  With the assessment I felt hope.  I could have changed over the years.  Now that I know what to expect from the assessment, I could hopefully come out of it with a Woo or Harmony or Belief or Leaner.  I took the assessment, my top 5 came out to be: Deliberative, Strategic, Relator, Restorative and Analytical.