Recently at my job I was given a book titled How Full Is Your Bucket which included the URL and a pass code for a Professional Strength Assessment. There are 34 strength profiles according to this system: Achiever, Activator, Adaptability, Analytical, Arranger, Belief, Command, Communication, Competition, Connectedness, Consistency (formerly Fairness), Context, Deliberative, Developer, Discipline, Empathy, Focus, Futuristic, Harmony, Ideation, Includer (formerly Inclusiveness), Individualization, Input, Intellection, Learner, Maximizer, Positivity, Relator, Responsibility, Restorative, Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic and Woo.

Of course I couldn’t wait to take the assessment because I LOVE this kind of thing.

Now I have a certain opinion/perspective of what I consider to be my ‘professional’ strengths. (I figured things like Achiever, Learner, Adaptability, Communication and Self-Assurance.) And then I have a different understanding of what I would consider to be my ‘personal’ strengths. With these two distinct sets in mind I was surprised when my list of ‘professional skills’ ended up looking more like what I considered to be ‘personal skills’. Here are the results of my evaluation:

Positivity
People strong in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.

Woo
People strong in the Woo theme love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over. They derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person.

Ideation
People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.

Includer
People strong in the Includer theme are accepting of others. They show awareness of those who feel left out, and make an effort to include them.

Connectedness
People strong 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.

Now overall I think the list represents strong aspects of me fairly accurately. But I never really looked at those aspects as having professional value. What has been most enlightening about this exercise is beginning to question how my ‘personal’ strengths ARE my ‘professional’ strengths. Perhaps what I thought were my ‘professional’ strengths are actually more like skills that I THINK a corporation/organization VALUES and so I emulate them in order to achieve success. Hmmmmmm?

Obviously I’m just beginning to scratch the surface…but it really is interesting to think about and I enjoy continuing that wonderful process of self-exploration and discovery.