Learn to motivate and encourage your team using their strengths from the CliftonStrengths Assessment. Catch up on part 1 highlighting traction and driving strengths, part 2 to read about seeing strengths, part 3 to learn about interpersonal strengths, and part 4 to learn about lifestyle and wild card strengths.

Problem Identification strengths – easily seeing the difference between the core problem and a symptom of another problem

The seventh category of strengths that Partner2Learn teaches is Problem Identification. Individuals with Problem Identification strengths have the innate ability to clearly identify the core issue that needs to be addressed. They can identify if it is a true issue or simply a symptom of the issue.

Strategic* strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They are quick at spotting patterns and issues and identifying the best option, along with creative alternatives. They easily see out six months to three years and can identify problems that may arise. Tap into this strength to review and adjust your strategic plan with the latest data. Strategic can help realign the direction of your team.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What is the most important step to take at this point? How can we adjust our plans to meet our goals?
  • Where this strength might struggle: Strategic is so fast at seeing all the options and knowing the best one. It may require some additional explanation to get the team up to speed. Great partner-up opportunities are with Futuristic, Analytical, and Restorative. Futuristic helps to see the long-term vision. Analytical handles the daily tasks and details to begin momentum. Restorative quickly puts together the solution to bring the team back to its original or healthy state.

Ideation* strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They love to brainstorm ideas and are able to find connection between all the ideas to provide sight and identify problems. In chaos, they are energized by thinking of and sharing ideas that lead to identifying the root issue versus a symptom.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What ideas do you have based on the latest information? What do you see as the primary problem we need to address?
  • Where this strength might struggle: They may overwhelm individuals with Responsibility and Achiever who are concerned they may have to implement every idea they share. It is important to communicate they are simply ideas and not everything must be completed. Great partner-up opportunities are with Focus, Strategic, and Restorative. Focus will help the team to concentrate on just one or two ideas and get those started. Strategic will help evaluate and prioritize all options. Restorative will help provide solutions to the identified solutions.

Intellection strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They are excellent at processing information in order to determine the true issue. These individuals process deeply and keep much of their information very internal. Therefore, this strength is best utilized by being invited out and encouraged into action.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: As you have processed this information, what do you see as the real issue we need to address as a team? After you have some time to process the information we shared today, please let us know what you see as the real issue we are facing.
  • Where this strength might struggle: This strength will struggle when immediate decisions are needed with new information. They will work best when given time to process and consider the information shared. Great partner-up opportunities are with Traction and Driving strengths to help take their information into action and to the finish line.

Problem Solving – efficiently identifying the best solutions

The eighth and final category of strengths that Partner2Learn teaches is Problem Solving. Individuals with Problem Solving strengths have the innate ability to provide real solutions to be carried out in efficient ways.

Restorative strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They are extremely quick at seeing a solution to an identified issue. They see steps for the solutions and enjoy getting them in front of people in order to act immediately. They want to solve problems now.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What do you see as the solution for this work team struggling to work together? How can we fix this issue with our policies concerning onboarding new employees?
  • Where this strength might struggle: This strength will struggle when individuals, teams, and organizations do not act on the solutions provided in an immediate fashion. They want the issues solved now. Great partner-up opportunities are with Strategic to identify real issues, Activator to get solutions moving, and Achiever to help take everything to the finish line.

Input strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: This strength is best utilized when encouraged to be shared. Input people are great at gathering information across many areas for themselves. They are great at giving solutions based upon the factual information they have gathered and have at their fingertips.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What have you seen or read that might help us solve this current issue? Do you have any information to help us with this current situation and issue?
  • Where this strength might struggle: This strength will struggle if it is not encouraged to be shared. They will tend to be much more internal with the information. Input is about gathering and collecting and not always sharing. Great partner-up opportunities are with Learners who go deep with one area, as Input goes wide. Also, a great partner would be Communication to assist in sharing the valuable, factual information they have at their fingertips.

Arranger strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: People with this strength work best in flexible environments allowing for movement from one task to another and back around. These individuals are great at organizing functions, solving problems by putting the right pieces into the right places, and helping to balance all of the activities taking place in their department, area, and beyond.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: How do you see our end of year corporate event working best to accomplish our goals? How do we best balance the 5 projects coming due this month to ensure quality and productive results?
  • Where this strength might struggle: This strength will struggle in a very rigid environment not allowing for some flexibility in approach to tasks. Arrangers like to put things into piles, knowing where everything is, but seeing these piles as tasks, steps, and ways to solve problems and put everything where it needs to go; therefore, if they are not able to have some space to operate and flexibility, they will struggle. Great partner-up opportunities for them would be Discipline to help navigate and implement more structure where needed.

Analytical* strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They enjoy analyzing the data and searching for reasons and causes to provide sight and solve problems in any situation. With so much new information to constantly review, they can help weed through all the disparate data and make sense of it for the team. They enjoy the day-to-day details that lead to long term goals.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What trends are you uncovering from the data? Do we have enough data to support our decisions? What decision is the data suggesting we implement?
  • Where this strength might struggle: They need to understand why. If they do not see the value initially in a new project or initiative, they need their questions answers for understanding. A great partner for them is Strategic, who can quickly see the why and communicate that with them and the team.

Deliberative* strength on your team

  • How to leverage this strength: They take great care in decision making. They enjoy collecting 99% of the information before making an informed decision. This helps the team avoid the potholes and the cliffs when moving forward. If you have a lot of traction on your team, it is imperative that you check in with Deliberative strengths to ensure you have considered all the information. This strength provides both sight and problem-solving capabilities to the team.
  • Questions to ask to keep them engaged: What details do we need to consider before moving forward? What else do we need to do to ensure this project avoids calamity or failure?
  • Where this strength might struggle: Especially when events are critical, Deliberative may not have the time or resources to get 99% of the information and can become bogged down on data collection and analysis over action. A great partner for them is someone with traction strengths, like Focus, Command, or Activator, to help them get started and gain momentum.

Engage with Partner2Learn for team building support

A high-performing team needs to have all strengths, all categories, all people engaged for maximum results. Are you doing any of this right now? What new ideas are you going to implement today? How can we help you be more successful? We’re here to guide you, help elevate your performance, resulting in a transformation you never imagined.

*Asterisk means that this strength is in more than one of the eight categories.

Original research on the 8 categories conducted by Dr. Mark McKloskey and Jim Louwsma.