Strengths Coaching with Val Baguios III

Val Baguios III

If there's a specific opportunity or situation where there's a conflict, why don't you take note of how you are responding? That would allow Trisha to really understand: do I like how I'm responding to conflicts? Because that could go both ways. I'm perfectly fine with how I respond to conflicts, and then she comes back to the coaching session and says, I've had two conflicts and I was perfectly fine with it, my week went normal, it was all good. Or the point of coaching again would be, you know what, I had these two conflict situations and I really didn't like what happened. And then we could explore that, and maybe use her strengths again to see where this challenge would be coming from. But more than anything, it's about making Trisha more mindful again

Tobi

Welcome to another episode of The Impactful Coach. As I am recording this introduction to the episode, I am just back from the metaFox Inner Journey, our coach training program, which I facilitated in Singapore. And having been in Southeast Asia, and having had a few Filipino participants there, I again realized that a huge methodology over there is strengths coaching. CliftonStrengths seems to be the default tool for many coaches. And for me personally, strengths has been one of the most impactful methodologies, as a client, as a coach, as a human being. So today we bring all of this together. We are running a live coaching demo using CliftonStrengths with Val Baguios III, a Filipino coach. And as a client today you'll not hear from me, but from Trisha, the COO of metaFox. She has taken CliftonStrengths and she also brings a personal topic to the session: her need for harmony that sometimes shows up as conflict avoidance. After the demo I debriefed the session a bit with Val and Trisha. And as I was in the pure observer seat this time, I'm also trying a new format. When listening to the recording I hopped in here and there, to underline and

Val Baguios III

Thank you, Tobi, for having me here. Really excited to do this coaching demo. It was really out of my curiosity that I stumbled upon strengths coaching. It was a conversation between two of my friends talking about strengths, and I was like, what are these guys talking about? What is this top five thing? And they shared strengths with me. And from then on it opened my eyes to a possible career path for me. I came from a very technical background, I am an engineering

Tobi

And that history, I think we also talked about this in our pre-chat yesterday, started in 2011, I believe you mentioned, 15 years ago.

Val Baguios III

Yeah, I took the test in 2011, and here I am, up until now, doing strengths coaching.

Tobi

And if you look at your coaching practice today, who is a typical client of yours, and what do you usually help them with?

Val Baguios III

The typical clients that I coach would be people managers, around topics about managing their teams. It has evolved quite recently towards small and medium business owners here in the Philippines. I realized that they are also wearing the manager hat most of the time, so they are actually experiencing the same pain as the managers in bigger organizations. Because if you are a small or medium scale business owner, you are the general manager as well. So that's what I'm realizing, and I thought, huh, it's interesting to help these business owners. And from then on it really created a new dimension in the people I coach. Those are the leaders that I coach here in the Philippines.

Tobi

And if I'm now one of these typical clients of yours, a manager at an SME, what would be a typical challenge I approach you with? What's the first thing that comes up in these conversations?

Val Baguios III

I always joke around that if you are having headaches with your people, then I think I can help you. So that's the umbrella symptom, if you may. Another thing is understanding their leadership style. It's very interesting how many of my clients actually have this challenge, where they look at a certain role model leader in their network, or maybe someone that they've read about or watched somewhere, and they feel discouraged, because they compare themselves to that leader and say, I'm not like that leader. How can I lead my team? How can I be a successful business owner if I'm not as extroverted as that guy I'm looking at? And strengths allows us to have a conversation about where they're really good. And I remind them that you can be the best leader using your own strengths. So, around those areas, and of course people management, accountability,

Tobi

And you mentioned you came in touch with CliftonStrengths as a client yourself in 2011, and since then you took an organizational psychology degree. I imagine today your box of methods, coaching approaches and tools is quite full. So I'm wondering, when is it, and what is the situation where you say, oh, this is now a great case to actually bring out CliftonStrengths with my client?

Val Baguios III

I would always bring it up. In fact, that's part of, I'd say, the requirement whenever I do one-on-one coaching. And so when we're looking at certain behaviours, we can name them the way CliftonStrengths would name them, and it's easy for us to talk about it. So it really helps me. It's a requirement.

Tobi

Super interesting. So if I'm pulling a few strings together that you mentioned: the challenge is often finding my own style as a leader, understanding who I am as a leader, maybe compared to that role model leader that I'm looking up to. And in order to give clients a language for what they are strong at, you are using strengths.

Val Baguios III

Absolutely. That's where it becomes really helpful.

Tobi

Great. And in order to make this super hands-on, as we usually do on The Impactful Coach, we try to really get into the weeds, into the nitty gritty. So I'm super happy to welcome Trisha to the conversation. I think Trisha is in many ways a typical client of yours. She is Filipino as well, she is a leader at a small business, and she is also evolving her own leadership style. So I think that's a great match for us to run a small demo. And to get us started here, how about you introduce yourself a bit, Trisha. What makes you curious about strengths?

Trisha

Hi, Tobi, nice to meet you both. I work as an integrator with metaFox, so I oversee different functions of the business, collaborating with different people in different departments. I also provide the space for the leaders in our organization. And what makes me curious about strengths? I think strengths and weaknesses always kind of go together for me. But at the same time, I've been hearing how there are just underutilized strengths. So that is one area of learning that I wanted to have. I want to know how to tap into it

Tobi

Yeah, awesome. And just to give this a frame: you are the COO at metaFox, and there you also help people grow. We are an organization of 12 right now, and you are facilitating our leadership team meeting and other meetings in general, being the go-to person for all kinds of leadership questions.

Trisha

And to add to that, I only started in the role last year, so I've only had the leadership role for a year now. I'm pretty new to the leadership stuff.

Val Baguios III

Congratulations on that.

Trisha

Thank you.

Tobi

Cool. And here I'll just leave it to you, and you can hop into the report debrief and the coaching conversation as you would usually do.

Val Baguios III

Will you share your report, Trisha?

Trisha

Yes, sure. So here's my top five strengths report.

Val Baguios III

Perfect. You have Achiever, Consistency, Harmony, Focus and Responsibility in your top five. Let's do a little bit of a debrief first on your report. How did you find the CliftonStrengths test?

Trisha

It was fairly easy. I was surprised that it has 200 items, but the questions were really easy. At the same time there were specific questions I was unsure of. You have this scale with two statements, and you have to choose which one resonates more with you.

Val Baguios III

Yeah, perfect. Don't worry about it, because the test itself is, I think, robust enough that whatever you do, if you answer in the middle, it takes note of that and it's something they consider as well at the back end. Now, your top five results: how do you feel about them, in terms of you being connected to them? Were you surprised? Can you tell me more about it?

Trisha

Well, I was not surprised about being more in the executing category, because I've always been aware that this is where my strength lies. Most of my colleagues also give me feedback with regard to those areas. So definitely not surprised about number one, two, four and five. What surprised me most would probably be number three, the harmony. I think I always had a problem with handling relationships, and having this specific relationship category as part of my top

Val Baguios III

Interesting. Now, you mentioned two areas. You can relate to being more in the executing category, and what we see here is that your report is composed of four, four of your top five is actually purple, which is executing. And one of them, harmony, is relationship building. And you mentioned, Trisha, that you've received feedback from your team members before about being really good at executing. What is some of that feedback that you received?

Trisha

Yeah, at metaFox we actually have this feedback culture, so we also appreciate each other's strengths quite a lot. Some of the feedback that I always get is how reliable I am, how I can take ownership, and how I am dependable for the team. So those are the useful bits of feedback that I get.

Val Baguios III

And where would you connect that feedback in your top five, perhaps?

Trisha

I would say responsibility, and also consistency.

Val Baguios III

Responsibility and consistency. Have you read your report on consistency and responsibility? Have you browsed it? And, maybe even in your own words, what does consistency mean for you, and what does responsibility mean?

Trisha

Yes, I read it. I actually had a different idea of what consistency is. For me, consistency was just being able to deliver. I guess that falls more on the achiever side and not on consistency. Here it's focused on how I maintain balance and how I value fairness.

Val Baguios III

Wow. So consistency means balance and fairness. At least that's what the report says, and you agreed to it.

Trisha

For responsibility, let's go here. As I already shared with the feedback, it's about taking ownership.

Val Baguios III

Taking ownership.

Trisha

And following through.

Val Baguios III

And it says there, you're organized, you're reliable, you're dependable and you're efficient. Those are really good words to have if you are a leader. You mentioned earlier also that you weren't expecting consistency to mean that. You might have another, maybe a dictionary idea of the word consistency. And no two people will have the same paragraph. That's because, I don't know if you felt this as well while you were reading, your consistency would be influenced by your achiever, by your harmony, by your focus, by your

Trisha

Yeah. As I shared, I think one of my, I'm not sure if I can call them weaknesses, is relationship building. I wouldn't really call it a strength of mine. So it was such a surprise to have this as part of my top five. I could accept it if it were not in the top five, but it's number three. So that's surprising.

Val Baguios III

You said that you feel like relationships, or relationship building, is a weakness of yours. Where are you coming from with that thought?

Trisha

I think it's also because of my strength in focus. Because I tend to really focus on things and think realistically, I would often focus on tasks rather than on people. So that's one thing.

Val Baguios III

Got it. Anything else?

Trisha

Nothing else.

Val Baguios III

Okay. So you feel like you tend to focus more on the tasks at hand rather than on the people, on anything that comes with people, like their emotions and all of these things. But harmony is there. So, how do you understand harmony so far, based on what you've read?

Trisha

For harmony, I think it's also about coming into agreement with everyone, and also about inclusion.

Val Baguios III

Agreement with everyone, and inclusion. Perfect. So I guess that's a good rundown of what you have in your top five. Definitely we will talk about that more as we go along in our conversation. But to make sure that, I guess we have around 20 minutes more in our conversation, how would this be really helpful for you? What might be something that you want to talk about and relate back to your strengths?

Trisha

Since it's my first time having this, harmony made me aware that maybe it's something that I can tap into more. And also because, as you can see, I highlighted this part about steering clear of debate. I think that has been one of my challenges as a leader. For us, we actually value productive conflict, but at the same time I don't personally want to participate in something that would clash with others. So I think this strength of mine also hinders me in voicing out my side of things, and

Val Baguios III

also in making better decisions. Right, got it. And if there's one thing that you want to take out of this conversation that would make you say, hey, that was valuable, that was a good coaching conversation, what would it be, in your head right now?

Trisha

Well, for a coaching session, I always expect it to surprise me. So, something that I do not know personally. And also a next step, and hopefully something that I can integrate into my daily life.

Val Baguios III

Something that you can integrate into your daily life. I'm guessing this is about your strengths.

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

Strengths that you can integrate into your daily life. Perfect. Then maybe we can jump onto that route to begin with.

Trisha

I think it would be nice to get clarity on the consistency part, aside from the harmony part, of course.

Val Baguios III

So, maybe consistency and harmony.

Trisha

Yeah. Because I may have the dictionary definition of consistency, which is not in line with how Clifton defines it.

Val Baguios III

Actually, you are right. If we look at these highlights of yours, and it's good that you highlighted these areas where you see the purple rectangles, those are the parts of your report that are very unique to you. The things above, it says there what consistency is, and you highlighted some of the words or phrases as well. Those are generic descriptions of consistency. But the ones under the coloured rectangles, these are unique to you. These are things that other people who have consistency might not have. Generally you are right, consistency is about balance and

Trisha

I've always been a realistic thinker. I view things, there's two ends of the spectrum, realistic and idealistic. I have often described myself as a realist and I often go with realistic assumptions, set realistic goals, those kinds of things. And yeah, I think I can resonate with it perfectly.

Val Baguios III

And there it goes again in the second paragraph: practical and realistic thinker. And how has being a realist helped you so far, in your life, maybe in your role as a leader? What do you think about that?

Trisha

I think it shows in how I am as a leader, because I tend to focus on realistic steps, and not the kind that is quite innovative.

Val Baguios III

Can you remember a situation where you are thankful that you are a realist?

Trisha

That is quite difficult. I think I just apply it so normally in my life that I don't even know if I'm applying it, that kind of thing.

Val Baguios III

Oh, you are. I have this thing about strengths, that it's like asking the fish about the water. If you ask the fish, how's the water, the fish would tell you, what water? But to us who are looking from the outside in, it's very obvious. To them, because they've lived with it their entire life, it's so natural. For example, setting goals. Are you setting goals for the team, for yourself? Do you do that?

Trisha

Yes, for my personal life.

Val Baguios III

Oh, perfect, there you go. How do you think you being a realist manifests when you set those goals?

Trisha

I think it really shows, because I only set goals that can be accomplished within a year. Actually, by the end of the year I have this habit of organizing what my next year would look like. What do I want to achieve?

Val Baguios III

Wow, perfect. And how would being a realist look in terms of you setting your goals? Have you compared your goals with other people as well? Have you ever done that?

Trisha

No. I believe people will always have different goals, and I'm not really a fan of comparing. So I just want to be realistic in terms of my resources and what I can do. For example, for each month I only set

Val Baguios III

See, there you go. Your likelihood to create goals could definitely be connected to your achiever, but you are being realistic about those goals, also in the timelines. You mentioned that you set one-year goals, because that's, I guess, the span of time in which things, the resources, can be a bit predictable on your part. I sense that's the chosen timeline for you because that's fairly realistic. And I noticed also that you said, I just set one goal, because if I set more than one goal in a month that could lead to burnout. And you know what I also sense there? Focus.

Tobi

Hey, really quick, this is production Tobi coming in on a meta level. What I want to point out to you is Val's coaching technique here. We can call this strengths spotting: he's listening to Trisha and, inside her stories, names strengths as she is describing them. Like focus, when she is talking about setting only one goal per month, or achiever, when she organizes her year ahead. This can be a powerful coaching technique to help clients become more aware of when their behaviours are helpful. Back to the conversation.

Val Baguios III

That's strong focus there as well. So that's a combination of your consistency, focus and achiever. And how has that helped you? You setting goals in a 12 month period only, and setting one goal per month. How has that helped you?

Trisha

It helped me become more motivated. I also tried not having it for a year and it didn't really feel right. I didn't feel like I did anything for a year. So it was nice to have this overview of what I did and what I'm planning to do, so I can also go through every month knowing that something actually happened.

Val Baguios III

Perfect. It gives you a sense of progression in your life. But you also know that it's realistic. It's something that you can achieve, and it creates direction. So, does consistency make sense? Is there anything else that you want to clarify in the consistency theme?

Trisha

No, I think that's good enough. Right now I have this idea of consistency being equal to realistic approaches.

Val Baguios III

Exactly. So for you, consistency, whatever the meaning of consistency was for you earlier, now you can connect it: to me, consistency is being realistic. Just out of curiosity though, did your consistency bring about any negative effects on you, maybe?

Trisha

I would say so. With regard to having a realistic mindset and just setting goals for a year, sometimes I tend to not look at the broader overview.

Val Baguios III

Longer timelines, maybe.

Trisha

Those kinds of things.

Val Baguios III

How do you manage that? Do you even bother, or are you like, no, I'm perfectly fine with one year anyway, so I'm okay with that? What do you think?

Trisha

Yeah, right now I don't want to make it a problem. So I would just stick with the one year, to not have anything bothering me.

Val Baguios III

Exactly. And maybe you're coming from somewhere when you said you're not used to setting goals with a broader, longer timeline than one year. Have you seen anyone, maybe anyone you know, who sets longer term goals?

Trisha

My brother, because he is really ambitious.

Val Baguios III

Okay.

Trisha

He would have large goals that he would pursue in, I don't know, five or ten years.

Val Baguios III

How is that working out for him?

Trisha

I think it's working out well for him, because he has reached some of his long-term goals.

Val Baguios III

The reason why I opened that up is because you have to understand: when you call something a weakness, normally it's something that is getting in the way of your success, or something that's getting in the way of what is expected of you, or maybe of what you are expecting of yourself. Notice that I asked you, did you have

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

There you go. Is there anything in harmony, maybe something that you highlighted, or maybe something that you did not highlight, that you want to do a deep dive on, and on how it manifests in your life?

Trisha

Yes, I would zoom in on how little is gained from conflict. I also believed in that. But at the same time it steers me away, as you can see here, it steers me away from debate. So I think it's not a healthy approach to conflict. It's at the point where I want to avoid conflict, and I don't think that is a healthy approach to a situation.

Tobi

Again, meta level Tobi, with a small nugget from strengths psychology. Where Val and Trisha have arrived now in the coaching conversation is the overuse of Trisha's harmony strength. So it's the same strength that, for example, helps Trisha keep a team meeting constructive, that can also be overused and tip into the conflict avoidance that they are exploring here now.

Val Baguios III

Do you feel that? Can you confirm that you have a general tendency to avoid conflict?

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

And where are you coming from with that, avoiding conflict?

Trisha

I just don't see much use in debating with someone.

Val Baguios III

Interesting.

Trisha

Especially if I don't have strong feelings about it, and also if someone has this resistance to resolving the conflict.

Val Baguios III

So, in your mind: why engage in conflicts or debates? Number one, do I even have a strong feeling about the topic? Number two, is there anything healthy or worthwhile that we can get out of this? If none, then why engage? But at the same time, you were telling me earlier, I think that's not a healthy view of conflict. Where is that coming from, though?

Trisha

Because I always wanted to have healthy communication with other people. And I think communication comes with two-way conversations with everyone, even when in conflict.

Val Baguios III

Have you ever had a two-way conversation with anyone who has a different idea than yours? Maybe in your team? How does that go?

Trisha

Those are the kinds of situations I'm not a fan of. In our leadership meetings we will of course tackle some topics, and there will be times when there are different kinds of perspectives. But someone will always have to give way.

Val Baguios III

What do you mean, someone always has to give way? Would that be you all the time, or?

Trisha

I would rather it be me, yeah.

Val Baguios III

Yeah. Go ahead, go ahead, please.

Trisha

That's one issue. But at the same time I am also looking for, I'm not sure what to call it, I'm not sure if it's also part of harmony, having a consensus. So when people share the same idea, I tend to just go with that.

Val Baguios III

Right. Consensus.

Trisha

Yeah.

Val Baguios III

You're right, it's like majority wins. Let me just go back to that example where people might have very different ideas than yours. My first question is, in those situations, are you able to express your idea? To put it on the table, so to speak.

Trisha

I always make sure to voice out my opinion.

Val Baguios III

There you go. And normally you would feel the inclination that, I voiced out my idea, I'm ready to give way if anyone has a better idea.

Trisha

Yeah.

Val Baguios III

And how does the team normally, in your experience, decide on what is better?

Trisha

Well, at first, how I approach it is to just go with a decision where everyone feels comfortable. And I also ask for feedback from other members, like our co-founders, Max and Tobi.

Val Baguios III

Okay, you get their feedback as well.

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

And their input on the decision. And then whatever seems to be the majority's preference, or the idea that might be more beneficial for more people, that's what you go for. Does that make sense?

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

So what I'm hearing here is that you seem to be a leader whose approach to conflict, or to conflicting ideas, is very democratic. Does that make sense? Democratic in the sense that, I'm going to hear everyone out, and whatever is the general consensus of everyone, we're going to go with that.

Trisha

Yes, that is my approach. But I also had this feedback that we are not running a democracy.

Val Baguios III

What do you mean by that?

Trisha

That I can also go with an idea that doesn't go with most of the people.

Val Baguios III

And when you do that, why so? Where's that coming from?

Trisha

Someone just gave me this advice, our co-founder specifically.

Val Baguios III

Okay.

Trisha

I had already shared this struggle of mine with him. And he assured me that we are not running a democracy, so I can also go against the agreement. So that is something that I have not touched upon, because I'm still more comfortable having this democracy thing going on.

Val Baguios III

Right. So going against another person's idea is something that you're struggling with. Is that what you're saying?

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

Right. And when you say go against, what does that look like for you, tangibly?

Trisha

Just generally having a different idea or perspective on things.

Val Baguios III

So, meaning to say, you would rather stick to ideas that are realistic, something where you think, this idea is achievable, and maybe something that has been proven already, perhaps something that is consensual, meaning everyone agrees to it already. So that's something realistic too.

Trisha

Yes.

Val Baguios III

So I guess the challenge here is, what if I want to have a really weird, out of this world idea, how do I get that? I think that's something that you're coming from. My question is, have you ever experienced a really, maybe even weird idea in your life, maybe in school, maybe at work? Have you ever experienced opening up an idea that is quite different?

Trisha

No, I go with the norm. I don't usually go into weird ideas. So yeah, I've never seen myself having a weird idea.

Val Baguios III

And how is that playing out for you? Do you like that part of you? Do you wish it were something else?

Trisha

I embrace who I am. So if it's not me, I accept it. Other people can have weird ideas, but it's just not me.

Val Baguios III

There you go, there you go.

Tobi

This moment with Trisha and Val really shows to me what strengths work is really about. Finding out what qualities I as a client have, and really embracing them. Finding my combination, my strengths fingerprint, and becoming clear on, this is me. Just like Trisha does in this moment.

Val Baguios III

I think, Trisha, that's powerful: embracing that other people might have other ideas, weird ideas, out of this world, innovative ideas, but that these might not come from me. Now, I know that sometimes, as you mentioned, there are opportunities where maybe the organization or the team might need an innovative idea, something groundbreaking, something that would rock the boat, so to speak. How would you do that then?

Trisha

You mean when someone is giving an innovative idea?

Val Baguios III

No, when the team needs an innovative idea. How would the team get that innovative idea?

Trisha

Yeah, that has always been one of my challenges, because it will not come from me.

Val Baguios III

And where would it come from?

Trisha

I would count on my colleagues, our team members. I have this trust in them, and we also have different sets of skills that we can benefit from in each other.

Val Baguios III

That makes sense. And how would that look in practice, counting on your other team members?

Trisha

I always ask for their input.

Val Baguios III

There you go. I think one of the most powerful aspects of CliftonStrengths, in fact we call it a guiding principle in strengths, is that, number one, difference is an advantage. Having different people in a team is actually a good thing. And different here means, I'm more of a going-with-the-flow kind of person, sticking to what's safe and proven and realistic and pragmatic and all of these things, while some people in the team would say, I would just surprise you with my ideas. In CliftonStrengths we always look at the themes.

Tobi

Meta level Tobi here again, and I would like to underline Val's words here, because he's not asking Trisha to become more innovative, trying to coach her into becoming this innovative leader. Instead he's encouraging her to embrace what she has discovered, and to delegate this weakness she has identified, of not being innovative, to other team members. So instead of saying, ah, I want to become well-rounded, I want to work on my weakness of not being so innovative, she's saying, I wear this weakness with pride, and now I delegate this to other team members.

Val Baguios III

How was this so far, Trisha? What's becoming clear for you in terms of understanding your strengths?

Trisha

Well, it's much clearer now. I think I do have an idea, and it's much more similar to how I actually go through my work all day. I was expecting to find new ways, but it's more like accepting myself.

Val Baguios III

I love it. I love it. CliftonStrengths is all about embracing and loving your ways more, and discovering where they could be helpful, in which situations. If our mind is focusing on looking for something that we don't have, it's going to be hard for us to leverage and maximize the things that we do have. You understand what I mean? The mind can only do so much. So I think what happened here is that you had to let go a little bit of the, hey, I am looking for something, so that you could focus more on asking the question, I'm this kind of a leader, where can I maximize this more? In which opportunities will this be helpful?

Trisha

Yeah, it was great, thank you.

Val Baguios III

Thank you. Thank you so much as well.

Tobi

Yeah, thank you, both of you. And maybe I'll kind of repeat Val's question: how are you feeling right now, Trisha?

Trisha

Feeling a bit relieved. At first I was of course nervous about how this was all going to turn out, and what I would be discovering or changing about myself. But it's good to have this assurance that I have my own set of qualities that I just have to accept and embrace.

Tobi

Yeah. And you can, you don't have to, right?

Trisha

Yeah.

Tobi

I noted down a few quotes during the conversation, and maybe we can look at those. I think this is exactly one of the keys that I found interesting: at some point you said, I embrace who I am. And if I look at the evolution of how the conversation went, it seemed to me that in the beginning you were struggling with having harmony there in your top five, and even seeing it as a source of problems in a way, and that evolved towards accepting and even embracing it as a strength. Would you say that's accurate, or how does it feel?

Trisha

Well, when I had harmony as my top three strength, I was surprised, of course. But it did make sense with how I approach certain situations, so somehow I already accepted it. But at the same time, I don't think I am tapping into it so much that it would create a lot of benefits. And at the end I think I had a clearer picture of what harmony is for me, and not in general. So having that specific view of how I approach things, and not the general definition, I think it helps me accept it more and also utilize it more.

Tobi

So taking the content rather as a prompt than as the truth, and then making it your own, so you can really embrace it and live it.

Trisha

Yeah.

Tobi

And how about you, Val? In what way was this kind of conversation typical for a real client conversation you'd have out there, and how was it not?

Val Baguios III

Very, very typical. As I said, a lot of leaders struggle, looking for things about their personality. For whatever reason, they have this certain idea that I have to be like this in order for me to be a better leader, I have to be like that in order for me to be a better leader. And maybe it's coming from good intentions as well, that they want to serve the team. But that's the thing, and that's the challenge about maximizing one's strengths. If the energy of the mind is focused on, I want to have other things that I cannot see inside of me, then that takes up a lot of space in your mind. It's, I want this, rather than, I have this, how can I maximize it? How can I be the best leader that I am with this kind of set of strengths? And when the leader finally embraces that, you know what, I am this kind of leader, and I think I can deliver whatever is expected of me using my own processes, using my own approaches, I

Tobi

So this even comes with self-compassion, in a way. I would say it prompts self-compassion. All the characteristics that we struggle with, in Trisha's example the harmony and, oh, maybe I should stand up for myself, actually seeing that, oh, that's who I am, and that's actually fine, and maybe it's even a strength and I can use it.

Val Baguios III

Exactly.

Tobi

That's powerful.

Val Baguios III

Exactly. I love the self-compassion piece. It makes a lot of sense in what we do in strengths, and it could be an opening for a person to embrace and later on even celebrate the strengths that they have.

Tobi

Nice. And if I look at the conversation that you two had, on a meta level, I think I could see four parts. In the beginning you were looking at the report together, you clarified some terms, you compared them with Trisha's understanding, and you pointed out that the different descriptions are a lot about the combination of strengths. And then at some point you went into a new phase, and there I saw, in a way, what we in coaching would call the contracting step. You specifically asked what would make this conversation useful to her, et cetera.

Val Baguios III

Yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate. The first part would be what we in strengths coaching would call naming. And a little bit of claiming. So there are three parts in strengths, where we would say naming, claiming, and then aiming. Naming is just understanding the language of the report, getting familiar with the report. Claiming, I don't know if you noticed, there's the part where I asked, how has this manifested in your life so far?

Tobi

Yeah. Naming and claiming, I like that. And then in phase three, this was then, I would say, the strengths coaching conversation. You were curious, you asked Trisha, can you remember a situation when you were grateful for the strength? And then taking another angle, how does the strength show up in your real life? I think Trisha talked about setting realistic goals, and also using that in order to watch out for herself. And at some point another thing that you did, and that I noticed, Val, was this strengths spotting. So Trisha would

Val Baguios III

You are absolutely correct. Strengths spotting, that's actually a term we use. We spot strengths in the stories of the coachee. And what we found, even in my own team, is that it's such a great validating feeling that, hey, my strengths are quite helpful, actually.

Tobi

And if I come now to the fourth phase that I mentioned: you gave Trisha homework. You asked the client to pay attention to their strengths, and to do that sort of strengths spotting exercise for themselves, keeping the strengths in awareness in order to bring them out more.

Val Baguios III

If there's a specific opportunity or situation where there's a conflict, why don't you take

Tobi

So what I hear is, in reality you wouldn't tell her, but you would really take a coaching stance and ask her about specific situations.

Val Baguios III

Yes.

Tobi

Cool. Then I'd be super curious to get your view, both of yours, on the metaFox Strengths Discovery. What we see here is Trisha's top five from Gallup: Achiever, Consistency, Harmony, Focus and Responsibility. And right here, if you don't mind me sharing, we have Trisha's metaFox Strengths Discovery report, with the top five being Organizer, Guardian, Examiner, Finisher and Decision Maker. I'd be curious, Trisha, how did the two reports feel to you? Where did you see differences? What did they have in common? How was that experience when you reviewed the two?

Trisha

I think both have their own facts about me, so I can relate well to both reports. For this specific one, the Strengths Discovery, it's the same as how the strengths reports usually are, and like our feedback: it often focuses on the executing part of my personality, of my approach. And I didn't see any relationship strength here as part of my top five. So that is one thing that I noticed. But aside from that, I can relate well to all the strengths.

Tobi

So where in CliftonStrengths the harmony came as a surprise, this one was more like, yeah, okay. And yet, if we go down here a little bit and we look at this more detailed report and your three realized strengths, as we call them here, I would say maybe we see a bit of the harmony also in your metaFox strength of the Guardian: we have fairness being important, being loyal,

Val Baguios III

The fairness part. Fairness is consistency and harmony kind of combined, in a sense. Loyal, I think that's responsibility. Dependable, responsible, there you go, in the Organizer part. Nice, this is nice.

Tobi

Yeah. And the approach we take with the Strengths Discovery is looking at the dimensions of energy, use and success. What Trisha was asked here in the survey was, what is it that gives you energy, and what do you often do? And this is what came out here for the realized strengths. This is basically what she both often does and what gives her energy. And if we go down, the unrealized strengths would be what gives her energy, but what she's actually not using that much. So this is how this report, this approach to strengths, is based on the psychology research of Alex Linley. How does that look to you, or what comes to mind when you see that, Val?

Val Baguios III

The unrealized strengths.

Tobi

Yeah, and also the approach of categorizing them this way.

Val Baguios III

It feels like an application. And the funny thing about this is that the top five CliftonStrengths are not literally the strengths. What Gallup says is that if you apply them in a specific situation and it gives you good results, and you invest skills and knowledge in it, that is the definition of a strength for Gallup. So these five things are just your patterns. That's why they call them the CliftonStrengths themes. Themes is normally how we would describe these things.

Tobi

Yeah, and this is also why we categorize them this way, because it makes it very applicable in the coaching conversation. What you can see here for the realized strengths is exactly what you said, where a strength can also become a weakness. A theme, or a role, we coin them as roles here. If you have too much of it, then it becomes a weakness. And the example we give up here is, for example, extreme self-confidence can be perceived as arrogance.

Val Baguios III

Absolutely.

Tobi

So we say, okay, if we categorize them as realized strengths, this is what we can also watch out for: how does it look when we overuse them? And for the unrealized ones we look at, okay, how can I actually make

Val Baguios III

Definitely, if you're looking at strengths, I'm guessing you already took the strengths assessment. But if not, that's definitely something that I would highly recommend. Take it for yourself. In fact, I would encourage anyone who wants to do coaching around strengths to be coached as well. I wouldn't have advised this ten or fifteen

Tobi

Super cool. So, number one, hop into your client's shoes and try strengths for yourself. And number two, find your community. In the Philippines that's the Strengths Philippines community. Awesome, thank you so much.

Val Baguios III

Thank you. Thank you, Tobi. Thank you, Trisha.

Trisha

Thank you, Coach.

Tobi

That's it for today. I hope this made you curious to get started with your own strengths journey. If you haven't had any touchpoint with strengths yet, a super easy and free first step can be the metaFox Strengths Discovery. Simply go to strengths-discovery.com and take the assessment yourself. Unlike Gallup, we also offer the possibility to invite feedback from people close to you, so you can, for example, compare your own self-perception with how your sister, your friends or your colleagues see your strengths. And of course we also put the link to CliftonStrengths in the show notes, the assessment that Trisha took for today's session, which is about 60 dollars. And should you be based in the Philippines, I can also only recommend the Strengths Philippines community, where you can meet Coach Val and many other super nice people at one of their monthly meetups, even if you aren't a coach yet. That's it from my end today. I'm Tobi, co-founder of metaFox, and I wish you all the best on your own journey of becoming an impactful coach. See you back here in two weeks. All the best and bye bye.