Strengths Coaching with Taina Nicolicin: How Character Strengths transform Coaching Sessions
with Taina Nicolicin, Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Transcript
Automatic transcript, not yet edited. It may contain errors.
I ntro take 3Introduction to The Making of a Coaching Tool
Tobi
Hi, I'm Tobi from metaFox, and on The Making of a Coach, I usually unpack how coaches and facilitators build their practice and run demos on their methods and tools. Today we'll also run a coaching demo, but before, instead of The Making of a Coach, we unpack the making of a coaching tool. The metaFox Strength Explorer and as a guest and sparring partner in this, I have Taina Nicolicin with me who shared her work in Strengths Coaching already on last week's episode. she'll be quizzing me today on how we have developed the Strength Explorer, a web app for strength assessment and feedback built for coaches and facilitators. We'll open the curtains behind the building of psychometric assessments and In the second half of the episode, Taina will take her coach hat on and run a small coaching demo with me as a client using my strengths report from the app. So we can see how this could look in
the coaching practice. You can simply listen and maybe occasionally have a look on your screen. We'll be showing some elements from the app and also the report. Let's go.
Guest Introduction and Strengths Coaching Overview
Tobi
Hi again, Taina. I'm glad to have you as a sparring partner on the show.
Taina N
Oh, thank you Tobi. And I'm super excited to really see the metaFox Strengths Tool. And just hear more about how it's been developed and et cetera. I feel grateful that, you know, I can be like, I guess have an insight into how something was made,
Tobi
Yeah. we already had a longer conversation about your work with strengths. so there's this other episode that I would like to point people to, but to just get us into the flow. Could you give us a brief overview
of why do you work with strengths as a coach?
Taina N
I think the main reason is because I see it as, the most. potent, tool for bringing out the potential of someone if you want. So I think we all obviously naturally have so many strengths, but we are not aware of them. Bringing them into our awareness, helps us develop this inner confidence about ourselves. Like we know who we are, we know how we wanna show up in the world, we know what we wanna, play up or dial up, some of the strengths. We know what we wanna dial down because, we may have our own reasons. So this is more sort of about the person. in practice there's almost like two strands. One is. I choose to use strengths in individual coaching. Sometimes when people are looking to change careers and sort of coming at it from a professional, reason, let's say, they wanna know, what their next role, could be like, et cetera. Or they could be individuals who are just, as I said, coming to coaching with completely
different, things. And then, I introduced strengths as, a tool for more self-awareness. I guess, so that's sort of the individual practice. And then of course you have organizations, where strengths or another, psychometric assessments are being used, extensively as we know, to sort of, create twin profiles, improve collaboration between team members, et cetera. So that's sort of more the corporate side.
Tobi
Yeah.
Taina N
That's it. in a nutshell as I can put it.
Tobi
Thanks. And that also reflects quite a bit my own experience.
Personal Journey with Strengths Assessment
Tobi
I would say my structured learning journey in the area of strengths started, during the Pandemic 2020 21, when I was doing a course in MBSP, Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice, at the VIA Institute on character, with Ryan Mik. And they have a model called the Via Strengths, I think it's like 24, different strengths
that they into a set of virtues
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
And for me, I think it helped me exactly in the way you were saying, like with these questions of identity even, who do I want to be? How do I wanna show up?
Taina N
What do we wanna be known for?
Tobi
What do I want to be known for? these were also the things where I actually kept coming back throughout the years, to that model. they have a set of tests, partly free, partly paid versions online. as part of the, program, I was doing a, a assessment for myself. And
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
I think it's like, easily four or five years ago now. This is, what has been coming out. Curiosity, love of learning zest, forgiveness, leadership, et cetera. These were, my self assessment back at that time.
Taina N
It's really interesting to see that I'm already, I know we're we are gonna look at your metaFox profile I was already sort of looking
at how does this compare now with your metaFox profile. A strengths assessment will always be a snapshot in time, you know, of yourself. and things evolve and maybe we'll see this with your VR strengths and then how now your metaphor strengths look like. As you evolve as a person, your profile is also gonna, evolve. So I think it's really important to retain that. Because sometimes I see clients, almost like getting overly attached to a profile that they made at some point in time. I sometimes encourage them, well, did you try taking it again? You know, 'cause it may not come out the same, you know, six months have passed, a lot of things have happened.
Tobi
Yeah, indeed. and I think that's also one thing I really like about working with strengths. It's that it is fixed.
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
profiles they
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
is formed partly genetic part in early childhood, and it's sort of
Taina N
Yeah,
Tobi
Which
Taina N
yeah,
Tobi
I think, no matter if it's true or not, it certainly doesn't aid in a, developmental process. Right. and that's what I really love about strengths, that you can hold this a bit
more lightly in a way. Like we, and that's also what we are trying to,
Taina N
yeah,
Tobi
frame the language flexibly
Taina N
And you can coach strength, you know, like dialing up, dialing down, like these are things that can be coached actually and can be developed throughout our lives. Very interesting.
Development of the Strength Explorer Tool
Taina N
Okay, so this is where your journey is starting.
Tobi
Exactly. Yeah. and back then, it was, I think it was an eight week program or something. as part of that eight week program, one session a week, we were also asked to ask other people how do they perceive us, which strengths do they see in us? I guess the idea of our trainers, the program managers, was that we would go around and have conversations with this, sheet of paper and the tech and tool nerd. I am,I didn't just walk around, with this sheet of paper, but I actually built a simple Google survey back then. I send it to a bunch of friends and colleagues that I interact with at work on a daily base. I got 11 responses back then. I
had, included a, message saying, hi, I'm in this coaching experience. Would you like to give me some feedback on my character strengths? I had them select, from the list of the 24, character strengths and, got some feedback on the one hand, simply on, on the And here we can also maybe put it up next to each other and see how it compares. So in my self-assessment, curiosity and love of learning came up Zest, and these were also aspects that people actually ascribed to me in the feedback process.
Taina N
Interesting and kindness. I can see it's also like I'm looking at. The bottom ones as well. And you can see that it came out the same from both from the self-assessment and from others. Assessment. Leadership's an interesting one 'cause it's six in your self-assessment, but then others seem to have rated it second, Yeah. Strong.
Tobi
Yeah, so that's interesting. Anyway, let's not get ourselves, digressed into talking about your strengths now.
So you've done this exercise and then is this sort of, I guess the start of you thinking about developing a strengths tool or is there more to the story? I think back then, we already had, our first card set at metaFox, but I got quite
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
idea of, hmm, couldn't one build a, a digital tool to also collect feedback. back then I shared the template for this Google form also with my course members, but that's sort of where it stopped and meanwhile, we were of course, our tools at metaFox. So the stronger You Card set where we sort of combine pictures with strengths, which were loosely inspired by the, via character framework. We also were in conversations with them about partnering, but in the end they weren't very eager. and we also thought, maybe we can actually make the language. Of our strengths a bit more applied to everyday work related conversations so tune down the spirituality a little bit and make it more practical for daily use. that was our guiding principle, both for the, strengths cards
and the Strengths Compass, which is one of our, PayPal based tools. that is a simple cheat sheet where wetry to simplify the 60 strengths cards into a model where we just have, 22 strengths. to give it some order, we loosely clustered it into individual strengths. sort of character strengths that you show when being by yourself into relationship strengths. How do you relate to others and practical strengths, how do you interact with the world? How do you with tasks? that is how we framed it here and also took this notion, of meaningful use on the one hand and then over and under use. so which strengths do we really manage to realize in daily life and potentially overusing, right? Like any strengths can also
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
weakness. If you're very self-confident, that's a great strength.
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
then are perceived as arrogant, that's obviously not a strength anymore.
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
of overuse and on the other hand also underused, unrealized
strengths that. would give us energy, would fulfill us, but actually we don't manage to bring it out in our daily life. Because maybe the role that we have to play in work in life doesn't really give us room for that strength, or we are not aware of it.
Taina N
Yeah, a hundred percent. have all of these tools at home. I had great feedback on them from the individuals. 'cause they enjoyed this cheat sheet of being able to visually very quickly just see, oh, what does it mean? at least what I've noticed with some of my clients, they do their strength assessment. we do their debrief. we do a few coaching sessions on that, and then it becomes sort of something that sits on the shelf, very quickly, like in three months time. But then having this sort of cheat sheet as you code it, that can be, anywhere on your desk, anywhere, it's a very, easy to hand tool that you can have. So yeah, I really love this.
Tobi
yeah, we sort of have it on the fridge door, so you can
Taina N
Mm,
Tobi
it out in daily life.
Taina N
yeah.
Tobi
these, in packages, so that you can also use them in a workshop like get
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
in a
package, and then each participant of the workshop can actually review that, in kind of reflective peer coaching conversations, that sort of exercises.
Taina N
Yeah. And great to have, I would say, especially if like, I'm thinking more about the work in organizations now. You know, once, like the typical journeys, you know, everybody does the strengths assessment, team assessments, debriefs, and then strengths are being sort of used one-to-one conversations or development conversation, you know, whichever way organizations choose to name them. And then, yeah, absolutely. A tool like this, it's sort of very useful, to have to hand in those conversations.
Tobi
Yeah. And then, while working on that, I was also in touch with some coaches. Some people are actually using the VIA character strengths assessment, for example, or other assessments in the beginning of journeys with the client in one-on-one coaching. Or also when they are working, on a team development, they would have each, member of the team fill a survey and take that sort of as a snapshot of the status, where is the individual person or where is the team? and
of course, that, idea, I couldn't let it go anymore. and we got started, on building something like that. and what we developed.
Challenges and Refinements in Strengths Assessment
Tobi
was basically our very first, MVP where
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
those 22 strengths from our compass.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
with three items for each of those strengths. So for example, we were saying, well, in order to describe the strength indicator, flexible, we would say, this is someone who's adapting to changes quickly, who's embracing new ideas, who's volunteering for new tasks,
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
and
Taina N
I tried to come up with a simple way to build this, into an online tool. Build a simple, minimum viable product, in Typeform actually. and the idea was Mm.
Tobi
that people would, rate these 66 behavioral markers on a scale of
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
and through doing so, identify their top strengths. and then invite other people to give feedback on the one hand, going through the same
process of rating all the 66 behavioral items. on the other also then giving feedback where I do, do I see potential overuse, et cetera.
Taina N
Mm. Yeah. I assume that there was, a sort of mathematical model behind this that would map out depending on your answers,
Tobi
Yeah, exactly. And, that's how most, of these psychometric tests work.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
this, behavioral marker is in the backend, tied to a certain indicator a
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
Psychologists would say, for example, adapting to changes quickly would be tied to flexible.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
we did
Taina N
Good to see.
Tobi
internal metaFox team and also, with, students I was a guest lecturer at a university and run basically an online workshop on strengths with them. And also invited,
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
students to take the assessment All of this was quite a hacked process. You had to go through several Typeform. You received the link to the next Typeform in an email, so it wasn't super user friendly. That's why we also didn't put it out in the world,
but simply used it to collect, roundabout 150 of these data sets refine the model. Because what we were able to do then in the next step was to run a factor analysis, what's happening there is basically that we look at statistically how. the different ratings on these different behavioral items standing up for ideas or volunteering for new tasks, initiating projects, these items, how do they correlate with each other? if a person ranks high in standing up for ideas, where else do they rank high?
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
and we found is that there was one big cluster so most people who were ranking high for standing up for ideas, they were also ranking high for volunteering, for new tasks, for initiating projects, for facing risks, bravely, all of these, they were correlated. And that's actually not what we want
Taina N
Of course.
Tobi
because we make a difference between the strengths courageous and
proactive. But in our model, everybody who's courageous is also proactive. so that's what we found, that these two strengths. They cannot be clearly distinct from each other.
Taina N
Very interesting.
Tobi
Yeah. And, and this is
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
That you have to, go into when, when building a statistical model, no matter if it's a personality types model or also a strengths model, looking at how do certain behaviors that we can observe in the world and that we can rate ourselves and where others can also rate us, connect to a certain indicator, a language that we use describe this characteristic.
Taina N
Hmm. And I guess this will then lead to, a much lower number of strengths that you will have in your assessment?
Tobi
Exactly. Yeah. So, so we had,
Taina N
That's fantastic.
Tobi
running several of these analysis with different methods basically being applied to our data set. And what we found is that
22 strengths were simply way too much. we couldn't really
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
between these fine nuances in the language because there would always be an overlap.
Taina N
Yeah. And I guess whilst I think, we would want to recognize that yes, there could be, fine details or nuances, but that's also something that can be brought into the conversation. when you're debriefing a strength, it's not necessarily that the report has to contain, 22 or 24 of 30 different strengths. I'm getting really excited about this 'cause I think if you were to ask me what was the number one sort of negative or constructive feedback that you received from clients in using strengths. I would say it's the fact that they find the report, a bit overwhelming with the number of strengths and the amount of information that's included in the report and that they can only retain a very small amount of it So that's, been the most prevalent thing that I've heard. And it wasn't only on, strengths profiles, which is, the one that I was using most extensively. But I've heard it with Clifton strengths as well, who have 37 of them. it's the number one, I would say, criticism, from the end user.
So it's great to hear that you are, trying to reduce that.
Tobi
Yeah. And what you are sharing now is the perspective of users, of clients when they received this very long list of strengths, that is the one issue. the issue that we were coming from here is not even that, but simply the statistical correlation. Like we cannot say, if you rate high here and low there, then it means you have this strengths and not that one. we found that with our 22 strengths model, we couldn't really say this is, scientifically grounded. So we had to simplify
Taina N
Amazing. so the big absolutely.
Tobi
how to refine our model. at this point, we had already met, we had done a bit of a coaching journey using, the science of, Alex Linley. and that is what I also found quite enlightening. This notion of what makes a strength. It's on the one hand, the question, what are you good at? But it's
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
the question, what gives you energy and what do you do often? these were then also
the three dimensions that we started working with both in our workshops. and also when it came to developing the next version of our Strength Explorer tool.
Taina N
Hmm. I think it's super, super important to look at this. I think performance, it's. Assessed in, I dare to say, in all of the strengths assessments that I've seen, I've done maybe like eight different ones for myself. And, I think it's assessed in all of them, energy use variably. So some of them have, its so, and I think these two dimensions are super important. from my work with clients and also in organizations when it comes to motivation, employee motivation, et cetera, this energy, dimension is basically the lever that you have to pull in order to improve things. And then use is the one that we actually look at the most, I would say in coaching, right? 'cause it's all good and well, that you're really good at something and it, you love doing it. But if you're not actually. Using that strength. Well, it's just there in your, in your hidden potential, isn't it?
Tobi
Yeah. And
I think this is, what also gave me a lot of. Clarity when it came to, okay, what is it that actually gives me energy? This is also the things that I will be enjoying. And that's then also the things that I will be good at. Right? So there's definitely a correlation between What gives me energy that makes me feel good, and that's also makes me perform well. and that's also what we at metaFox very much use when it comes to roles in the organization. This, notion of how can I find my sweet spot?
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
work at my best and perform well at work?
Taina N
Yeah, absolutely.
Tobi
So, so that's,how we started out. On the one hand, the challenge, how can we reduce these 22 strings, with three items each into a simpler model, into a shorter survey also, and on the other, how can we incorporate energy and use as well?
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
we discussed this quite a bit in the team, run different experiments. And for now, this is how our answer looks like.
Current State of the Strength Explorer App
Tobi
This is our, assessment app,
how it looks like today. So it asks you how do you relate to the following statement. then there is just as before a brief, behavioral marker, which says, in this example, I trust my instincts and hunches.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
might refer to a strengths as intuitive or something. But we also don't need to know that when going through the assessment, of course, we only,
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
look at the behavior
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
is this giving me energy? Do I find it draining or energizing and. often do I do this?
Taina N
And this is also quite clever that instead of asking two different questions, like what would, this would be normally two different questions in the assessment.
Condensing Assessments for Coaching
Taina N
You're able to condense that into one by using the, plotted graph or whatever is called. Yeah, quite clever as well. the tool will be so easy to use and the assessment is shorter will also make it so much more usable in that coaching journey with the client for coaches. 'cause you don't need to spend an hour of a session for them to, fill in the survey or it doesn't require that much
time from the client. It doesn't require that much time from yourself, to see sort of how is their assessment evolving in three months time, six months time, 12 months time, depending on the length of your coaching journey with a client. So it's quite exciting.
Tobi
of
Refining the Strengths Model
Tobi
course, this is also just, the first step of putting
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
refined model. So instead of the 22 strengths, we now have only 12 strengths. I it is not using adjectives anymore like we did before, but we came up with these role descriptions. So we were saying, okay, let's have the visionary strength, the see strength, the innovator strength. And then each of these would in turn, be connected with the adjectives that we had before, but we just found it when we were testing it in the team a bit more fun to actually ascribe these roles.
Taina N
Hmm, very interesting. This, this, I dunno, instinctively I go into archetypes work, immediately, I love that and I think it's a much more playful way, of introducing this.
Tobi
in the end, this is work in progress. I'm sure we will,
refine this once we have, collected a certain amount of data, can run some statistics on that. And then also the language will change again. So I'm also super
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
to get yours. And also the feedback from real world users as we launch this. I
Exciting and Challenging Aspects of Development
Taina N
do actually have a question. What was like the most exciting part of developing this and then, on the flip side, what was the most challenging part?
Tobi
I would say what was most fun is actually this survey, with our team and then also running a little workshop, with it in the team, kind of combining the results from our very first survey where team members had done the self-assessment and also collected feedback and then
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
We were also combining this then with the strengths cards, the metaFox stronger you and having people clustered and reflect and run peer coaching. On these questions of what do you realize, what do you not yet realize? are learned behaviors and weaknesses? And, using that in the team
was just, think on the one hand, fun and on the other hand, also valuable.
Taina N
and challenging, of course. All the strengths modeling and the statistics and psychology that we are discussing now, that is only one aspect of it. the other aspect is building this into an actual app. what technology stack should we use for that? How can we this easy to use?that is the main challenge And this building of the strengths explorer here is also a bit parallel to our, paper publishing business. Where,
Tobi
we think about logistics. How can we produce this? Where in which warehouse does it need to be shipped? How does it arrive at the customer? How do we bring it on the website? So these logistical questions that are behind the coaching and psychology
Taina N
Hmm. also what keeps us busy Yeah. And I guess that is, the journey of anyone operating in this field. I think even in my work, I would love to spend all of the time, in those real conversations with the client, but then you have all of that other logistical
part of being a coach the appointment tools and this and that and notes there's a lot, that needs to happen in order to make a meaningful conversation happen. Well, great. it was amazing to see this and yeah. Thank you so much. for the opportunity to see a bit behind the scenes of, how the tool is being developed. I look forward, to, looking a bit at your profile. '
Integrating Strengths into Coaching SessionsDemo Coaching
Tobi
So at this point, let's go into a small demo how you, how would you as a Coach Tyner use this in a coaching with strengths session?
Taina N
let's get going.
Tobi
So in a real world, coaching journey, it could have looked like that you invited me. To the app, I filled the survey, and then the survey produced a report that I can either, view online in the app or I can also, print or save a PDF report and then send that to you as a coach so we can discuss it in our session.
Taina N
Yeah. I would typically start the session with, seeing, what you want to get out of your profile. Are there any specific goals that you have, that we would need to
achieve in our time together? I think for today, what I was thinking is maybe if we sort of set the goal, to. Come out with one strength that we would want you to dial up and one strength that we would like you to dial down potentially. Would that be a good outcome for our conversation?
Tobi
Yeah, I guess so.
Taina N
I've only done the self-assessment at this point, And this is, the result that we can see.
Exploring Strengths and Their Impact
Taina N
Interesting.
Tobi
the ones that get the top score here, that's, innovator, doer, learner, connector, visionary.
Taina N
so these are your top five Strengths then. Um, What surprised you when you saw this, if anything?
Tobi
Yeah, so I guess is possibly be possibly a bit surprising is that this dual strength.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
like has this strong focus on tasks, on, on consistency, on checking boxes in a way that this really comes out on top. I would say I would've expected it in the top five, but seeing it
here on the very first place, also yeah. gives me this prompt of, Hmm, maybe this is actually something I'm overusing. and these days being also often a bit overwhelmed and a bit restless, guess that is
Taina N
Mm.
Tobi
a sign of overusing this tour strength.
Taina N
And if if you could then rearrange these ones, how would you want them to look like
Tobi
Yeah, that's good
Taina N
these top five
Tobi
I would
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
the doer to, to go down a bit here and
Taina N
So would it be your third one, your fourth one, your fifth one second one.
Tobi
yeah, I guess just looking at the titles, I would say the innovator feels more more enjoyable. I.
Taina N
Okay.
Tobi
while the doer also has this notion of drive and restlessness for me. So I would want the doer to go
down and embrace a bit this lightness learning and also make more room for the connecting bit. So I guess I would want a doer to go from score to last in the top five
Taina N
Okay. And then innovator would stay where it is.
Tobi
kinda. Yeah. think that is, that is one of the parts I'm, I'm enjoying most about my My role at metaFox at the moment is like this, this exploratory hat that I can wear for, for vast amount of time, in my daily, daily work.
Taina N
So which one out of the visionary learner connector will take? Would you like the to take number one then?
Tobi
Hmm. What I like about the visionary is that it has this team notion, Inspiring and uniting others by sharing a vision. So that is quite attractive about it. Because being a lot in the dual shoes these days, Yeah, it's also lonely, you know, it's like you
and the task, and the task is exhausting. and the visionary, the connector, even the learner, they all have this collaborative, connective a bit to it. and that is I think what I'm missing right now.
Taina N
What is something about liking or enjoying those that you wouldn't say out loud?
Tobi
yeah, I guess it's this sense of belonging that really is a big theme that, yeah, one wanting to be appreciated also, depending on that to some extent. So I guess that is sort of the dark side of the connector learner visionary, that there is also, on the one hand, the joy in connecting and collaborating. On the other hand, also this dependency of, ah, I need to be needed, you know? I need to be liked. that is something I wouldn't often admit to myself or to others.
Taina N
How does it feel now that we brought that into our awareness?
Tobi
Good. It's also something yeah,
Taina N
Okay.
Tobi
can do more consciously, actually check in with people more, even if I'm not, joining, day-to-day meetings or weekly meetings at the moment, just ping people and say, Hey, can we have a bit of a sparring on this? I would like to run this idea by you. That is something that I would say also my team members probably would enjoy.
Taina N
. So what I'm hearing is that you would find it hard to rank them differently.
Tobi
Yeah, I also want to keep it flexible and I have all of these in me and depending on what's needed right now, I can bring them out.
Taina N
Yeah. that's also another thing that I'm seeing quite often with clients is that top five or top 10 may not shift significantly from one assessment to another, but that order is shifting. So, probably if you're gonna do this assessment in three months time or six months time, you may see these top five strengths being the same, but in a very different order depending on where you choose to focus your
attention. So, should you start doing some of those actions around, connecting with your team et cetera, you might see connector, maybe moving up or, you know, who knows, maybe even visionary. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the journey develops. Should we move forward to looking at how does this translate into then the different realized and realized learned behaviors?
Tobi
Yes. So If we, look at how the assessment categorized it, this is, what came out. So under realized strengths, we again see three of the top five, that is innovator, dor, and learner. And similar to the previous view, we see like, okay, how does this, strength play out in a meaningful way? And the risk of overuse and how would. look like and I guess that reflects nicely our previous discussion. Like when the doer is overuse, it says You may burn out by focusing solely on task.
Remember to break
Taina N
Mm
Tobi
and prior prioritize self-care maintain your energy and wellbeing.
Taina N
Absolutely. An
Addressing Overused Strengths
Taina N
d I guess one of my first questions here in this section would be, is there a strength here that you're overusing, maybe to the point of diminishing its impact. And it sounds like you're already identifying the doer as you potentially being that strength. I think another thing that would be interesting to look at is what's the impact on others, when overusing this doer?
Tobi
Yeah, I would say my relationships outside work, they obviously suffer when the doer is tuned upwards really high. Because I'm really stuckat the computer. I spend a lot of time, on these projects and there's less time to just have a walk with friends, go out, for sports or even party or spend time with my wife and I guess that's the impact on others.
Taina N
if we look at some
of your other strengths could be these two other realized strengths or maybe, any of the top five. Would there be one strength that could support you in dialing down the door? So I'm almost looking at, what is something that is already a strength that just maybe needs a tiny bit of fine tuning that could really make an impact on not overusing the do.
Tobi
Hmm. Yeah. I guess I can see several, actually. On the one hand, it's the connector that, for. the value on others' perspectives, foster trust, and in this sense of collaboration. At the same time, I would also say it's, the learner, even though I don't like the phrasing that we have here currently, like, this notion of constantly seek personal growth, that again, has a bit of this, I need to develop, you know, I see a bit of the dual phrasing in how we define the learner
here. so actually now experiencing the model, I would say maybe we can rephrase the learner to have this notion of lightness and even if we don't rephrase it in the model, I would say that is what I would want for myself to counter play the dual.
Taina N
That's a really interesting perspective. 'cause what I'm hearing there is that you're almost recognizing an overplayed doer, even in, in the description of the, of the learner. I'm wondering if by learning and actually just constantly seeking personal growth as it's, as it sets there, would that be the equivalent of the, I guess the negative effects that you've currently identified in the, in the doula?
Tobi
Yeah. I think how I interpret that learner for me now, it is more of a, it has this element of the connector also.
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
these two for myself here on the one
hand, yeah, taking this as a enjoyable journey of lightness, of connection and, and even if it's coming back to the learner, that that isn't necessarily a super collaborative, strength here. it can also have this notion of, you know, just reading a book that is not necessarily tied to a task right now, or watching a YouTube video is not about. Building apps with no code or psychology but also just has this notion of learning
Taina N
Hmm.
Tobi
joy's sake.
Taina N
Yeah. So I guess as a quick recap, we've identified that the doer is one of the strengths, that we want to dial down a bit. And you would do that mainly by trying to, in a work context, spent a bit more time with people off task if you want. and doing a bit of check-in that would hopefully break up that routine that you have of just working hyper focused, but also will
dial up that connectness, a bit more.
Tobi
Yeah. Yeah, that's actually quite useful. Thank you.
Unrealized Strengths and Actions
Taina N
great unrealized strengths, which is my favorite part of a profile always. I do enjoy the hidden potential in people all the time. So yeah, I'm really curious to see what you have here? Visionary connector. Ah, interestingly, well, It's almost like we're answering both questions, isn't it? 'cause we're dialing up the connector, which I didn't know that is in your unrealized strengths, but there it is. How do you feel about the other two? And the diplomat? Maybe I would ask you, 'cause we haven't spoken about the diplomat that much.
Tobi
Yeah. it's funny how now we get to the unrealized section in the report and it turns out we have sort of discussed that already, by looking at the top five. I would say, yeah, just going a bit more again, in connection and communication. Like where I see the visionary is, as discussed, how we
could also appease the doer a bit. And then a diplomat. Yeah, I guess the diplomat for me, it says here, to make room for the strengths. You resolve conflict, with empathy and vulnerability, promoting psychological safety and common understanding. and I guess what I can see here is that what makes the doer very exhausting for me these days is also this implicit sense of expectation that I feel maybe from Mark, my co-founder, from other team members, because they don't see much of me these days, they always hear me say, yeah, we are almost ready to launch the Strength explorer. Almost ready, almost ready. and this day, is postponed and postponed. what I can see here in the diplomat is this, here it says, it can also be described as humble, compassionate, maybe I would interpret it even as self-compassionate and showing myself vulnerable there in the team, which is something that
would help me and possibly also then have a positive impact, on our culture. be in a way. a role model or an example in a way that other people who might even be in similar shoes as I am, might also help them.
Taina N
When you were describing that current situation of the team not seeing you, much these days, and you sort of feeling this self-imposed pressure of, well, you're away working on this tool when you're almost ready. Instantly in my head I was like, how have you shared that with the team and Max? how have you shared, this self-imposed pressure that you're feeling and I'm gathering from what you've said on the diploma that you haven't shared this at all with them.
Tobi
Not much, I guess. No. And yeah, in the one-on-one conversations with Maxxi regularly comes out, he might also have similar experiences, but maybe be less hard on himself. I guess, he's just. Maybe a bit more kind or confident also to, to
not make his own life so hard. But yeah,who am I to on his behalf?
Taina N
Mm-hmm. mm. ,
Tobi
what I also find interesting here in this view is that the seer , scored relatively high on energy, but low on use. And I think this is also maybe this notion of kindness, self-compassion that maybe isn't necessarily even in the definition, but that I can here for myself in a way.
Taina N
Yeah. I can definitely see how that could be the case. And I guess this is the beauty of seeing this together almost as a map. I sort of like this view a lot. 'cause we can very quickly see just from our brief conversation already, how everything is linked, right? you are the person that holds it all. As much as we sometimes try and focus in conversation on like, you know, one strength or the other. But I actually so interlinked together that the, the result as we're saying, it's a snapshot in time and what happens with one influence is what happened with the other one. So going back to your unrealized strength, like what would maybe be,
just so we can maybe leave with a bit of an action, what's maybe one thing that you could do this week to stretch one of your UN strengths?
Tobi
After our call right now, actually call up a friend and go for a walk making room for the connector. that I think is one concrete action and applying the diplomat strength on myself in a way. This, compassionate, considerate, empathetic persona in myself.
Taina N
Mm
Tobi
bringing, treating myself as someone responsible for helping. Yeah, it's a very good phrase. I would challenge you to also think about what you were sharing earlier around, how you're feeling in relation to your colleagues and Max currently, and see if by. Dialing up this sort of vulnerability, that you have in the diplomat, would bring down your perceived level of expectation from them,
Taina N
Yeah.
So just see if there's anything useful for you to take from that. Let's see how we're doing on weaknesses and learned behaviors. Does any of these three surprise you to see them in this category ?
Tobi
the analyst, I was surprised in fact that it scored that low. And I guess
Taina N
I am very surprised.
Tobi
yeah, I guess if I would've taken the assessment in another spot, it might have also come out differently. And I guess it's this, like I examine details closely to main maintain accuracy. Then it's also this one.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
Risks thoroughly before deciding
Taina N
Which you do. I almost wanna say, maybe you've been forced, because you are doing a lot at the moment, probably has forced you to do less risk assessment than you would usually do. So therefore, you are answering the question now
Tobi
Mm-hmm.
Taina N
But it's just because of the nature of, of the doing.
Tobi
And I guess that's also something where if we would bring in the feedback
function now, that would be really useful.
Taina N
Exactly.
Tobi
I said, well, I actually don't worry about the details so much now after a conversation and realizing that this doer strength is overplayed a lot, I would say, yeah, maybe I actually do consider the details and make my life harder with that. So it could be really interesting to. Say, okay,
Taina N
Yeah.
Tobi
Ty like you, who knows me a bit, actually sees this differently. That could provide me quite a lot of insight.
Taina N
Exactly, and this is where I look forward to you guys. And obviously me seeing this, feedback from others, Being introduced. I think that's gonna be incredibly valuable in understanding what was happening.
Concluding Thoughts and Next Steps
Taina N
Okay, well, I guess we can sort of leave this at, at that. I think we have some concrete actions for you in what strength needs to dial it down and you'll do that by trying to connect with people, both in your team but also outside of work. You have a clear action to connect after our call with, one of your friends and go for a
walk. So yeah, it was useful. As usual, I think I'll leave you with one last question, and that's how will you track or notice, the impact of these actions or using your strengths more intentionally as I would like to say.
Tobi
I guess in my journaling practice, you know, I,
Taina N
Okay.
Tobi
I have this, small table that I fill out in the evening, on my e-reader notepad.
Taina N
Okay.
Tobi
And there II assess. Body, mind, And soul.
Taina N
Mm-hmm.
Tobi
like, did I do sports? Did I do some sort of meditation, mindfulness practice, and did I do something for my soul? Did I connect with loved ones? I will make this my reminder to keep me accountable, to engage more in bringing more lightness into the learner to tune down the door.
Taina N
Well thank you so much. I think an unexpected but precise version by
using some paraphrased words. It was really nice to see that all, and I think it's gonna be amazing. I can't wait to see the final result of all of this. I look forward to try and get out, of course, in both my private practice, but maybe actually we have to reintroduce some strengths work, at work. I've been looking at a few things. We used Clifton so far, but who knows? Maybe the metaFox tool can actually be the answer that will satisfy all of my very rigid requirements that I've developed over the years.
Tobi
Yeah, thanks so much. the coaching session was definitely unexpected and precise and that makes it useful and with regards to the further tool development, I'm also super excited to get your feedback and have this evolve into something very useful.
Taina N
Great. Thank you.
Outro
Tobi
And this is where we conclude our strength special on the making of a coach. Honestly, before Taina and I hopped on that call, I
really had my doubts, if anything would come off that coaching demo because as a developer of that tool, I had of course taken the assessment many times and also read all the texts from this report quite a few times, but becoming aware. Of the impact of my dual strengths has really, yeah, kept me busy these days and actually turned out quite a powerful realization. I could really apply that in my daily life since the recording and tune down my doer. Balancing it a bit more with the sense of intuition and grounding, but don't take my word for it. If you have become curious about the Strength Explorer, go to ox.eu/strengths where you can find the access to the app, and for the time being, use it entirely for free. You can try it yourself, review your results, and if it seems useful, share it with a client to understand where they are in your coaching journey.
And I really look forward getting your feedback both on the Strength Explorer tool, as well as on today's episode. You can email me at Tobias at metaFox eu, or of course, simply Lethal Rating on your podcast app. This is it for today. After this excursion into strength psychology, we'll go back to the making of a Coach with Leadership Development facilitator Paris Thomas. You can subscribe on your podcast app to not miss out on that, and I really look forward having you as a listener or viewer already next week. All the best on your own journey. I'm Tobi from metaFox. Bye-bye.