Strengths Finder

The school recently had a group of directors and principals each read Strength Finder 2.0.
The premise is instead of trying to work on your weaknesses, you should concentrate on your strengths and build them up. For the last few years the school seems to be on a track to run more like a business. Coming from the business world myself I can see some pluses to that. However, the school is also a ministry and unfortunately there have a few instances where the scales have tipped toward business and away from ministry. In my opinion anyway. I'm getting off track here.

After reading the short book (27 pages in part 1. The rest are the 34 themes) you can get online and take a 30 minute test that will reveal your top 5 strengths and a plan of action to strength your strengths. They call them themes. A few of them are Achiever, Analytical, Deliberative, Focus, and others. The test pointed out these as my top 5:

Input - People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

Learner - People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.

Connectedness - People who are especially talented in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.

Harmony - People who are especially talented in the Harmony theme look for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement.

Intellection - People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

That last one cracked me up. It goes a bit further:

Instinctively, you may select unusual words to describe your ideas or feelings. Perhaps your extensive vocabulary allows you to capture people's interest. Driven by your talents, you read to stimulate your mind, to broaden your perspective, and to explore familiar as well as unfamiliar subjects. Reading is a solitary activity, which is one of the reasons why you like it so much. You are quite comfortable being alone with your books and your thoughts. By nature, you sometimes use words, terms, or phrases that force people to stop and think in new ways. Chances are good that you think carefully about particular matters. You might enjoy reflecting on certain people and/or circumstances in your life. Perhaps you rely less on emotion and more on logic to draw reasonable conclusions about specific issues. You may tend to use your mind rather than your heart when critical judgments must be made. Sometimes you are most comfortable when you are alone with your thoughts. Maybe you have little need to be constantly surrounded by talkative people.

Hmmmm...I guess.