November 30, 2011
From Tim: Welcome Back!
Welcome to the Second Edition of the Insider! I hope you enjoy reading what has been contributed by members of the team. Please note that the main portions of this newsletter are supplied by different team members on a rotating basis. We are all about interdependence! This edition is fresh and different than any before. If you have not had a chance to contribute yet, look forward to the time when you can share with us what is going on in your strengths world.
Enjoy!
From DeAnna: The REAL Scoop
I am NOT of the opinion that “no news is good news!” No news generally means poor communication in my book, so this is an attempt to keep you in the “know.” We want you to have the REAL scoop about what is happening in Strengths StrategyTM!
We are on the grow, laying carefully each corner of the foundation so that we are able to solidly move into the future with confidence that we have dotted every “i” and crossed every “t”. We don’t want to miss a beat!!! That is good for all of us!
You would all be happy to know that we have hired an outstanding attorney, who will be helping us both with the intellectual property issues, as well as the international business work. That is critical, as we have had contacts from both Tiawan and Singapore, to add to the work that has already begun outside the U.S.—in Canada and in the Middle East. We are in the process of securing the international copyrights, international domain names, and appropriate trademarks that are important for our long term sustainability.
I have also begun the search for a part-time CEO, who will be taking over the managerial/strategic end of the business, freeing me up to focus on supporting your development, continuing to develop the tools, and to be free to work with clients to pilot our creations. I also want to have time to help our Client Service Leaders land key clients, helping potential clients understand what we have available to offer to them. I’ve also found and hired an HR director, someone who is deeply immersed in the strengths concepts, who will be working with me to design a strengths-based hiring process, and will be designing and overseeing all of our HR functions. Matt will be taking on the role of HR Assistant Director, in addition to his Business Manager function, and will be helping us design all the HR processes.
Additionally, you will be thrilled to hear that the Curriculum Design Team is hard at work on Team Discovery, and have begun to lay out the first day of the 2-day content. It is coming along beautifully, and will likely be ready to pilot early in 2012. Anne Grete and Doug are brilliant designers! We work hard and long and take each other to the edge in our design process. I am confident that you will experience this as fresh, new, and a different approach to building effective relationships and teams than you have ever seen before!
Beth and I have also laid out the 3-session Discovery coaching content, with the design being a beautiful blend of coaching and one-on-one application of the instruction. We will be providing you with some materials, phone recordings, and the plan for certifying our coaches in the next month. Stay tuned! You will all be VERY excited, as the coaching aligns perfectly with our Discovery class—the first session focusing on a very deep personalized Discovery of strengths; the second session focusing on creating the first phase of a Strengths Development Action Plan; and the third session assisting clients in moving toward Actualizing and Interdependence, by focusing on strengths based relationship design. We are creating the Coaching Toolkit more like a timeline, since it really is a personalized application of Discovery. We have had great results piloting it, and expect you will all feel significantly empowered to have these tools at your disposal! Hurrah for Beth’s brilliant strategic talent, helping us to land this content…
The last content development piece that might interest you is the systems/team strengths coaching design work that Noriko and I are doing together. We are having a marvelous experience blending the ORSC/strengths approach to coaching teams, and working with the PHP executive leadership team as our pilot. They are excited, and we are encouraged that the process we are building will be a significant contribution to the Strengths Strategy approach to helping teams really function effectively. Stay tuned!
Finally, I would want to invite all of you to stop and look at where we have come. It has been an unbelievable journey! We have only been at the full-time development of this business for 11 months. We have work in three countries. We have a team of consultants that now totals about 30 individuals, including internationally known trainers/coaches, a former Fortune 50 VP, a professional writer (who has published 13 books and countless articles all over the U.S.), a psychometrics expert/organizational psychologist, brilliant marketing/customer service experts, a published statistician/psychologist, a computer programmer from Scotland, a world class design team—who make us look like a million bucks, and a team of caring, dedicated trainers and coaches who are SO committed to touching the people of the world.
We have become a family, with a common purpose, which we are actualizing in the way we serve one another, and help each other accomplish our work—so we can serve those whose hearts and lives need our message. We have folks who stay up late and work long hours to serve one another, who check e-mail over holidays, who check up on each other to provide support and encouragement. We work with little pay, with full hearts, and with a deep commitment to making a difference. We are among the most blessed people of the world! We have friends and people who care if we show up. We have a purpose. And we each have a place and a way to contribute that is needed, valued, and cherished. Who could ask for anything more? So much to be thankful for at this season of gratitude and giving! I am thankful for each and every one of you!! I have confidence in our future, and hope in the possibilities that we are creating together… THANK YOU! Look out world: Strengths StrategyTM is coming!!!!!!
From Linda: Client Service Leader Update
In Phoenix:
- Shannon delivered TWO showcases the week after Dance Camp to Safeway corporate—and they were a smashing success! She also provided the follow up “free laser coaching.” She is doing a great job, and the clients LOVE her!
- Shannon/Linda have generated a mini-marketing plan which focuses primarily on 10 Phoenix organizations, with several promising possibilities. It is our hope that ultimately, each trainer will have a mini-marketing plan with their Client Service Leader. The marketing plan calls for several showcases/potential Discovery sessions pending for January-February in the Arizona area.
- DeAnna was in Phoenix last week with Noriko, providing team/systems strengths coaching and delivering another Discovery for PHP. PHP has LOVED their coaching/training experiences with Strengths Strategy and has invited them to meet with their parent company, Abrazo, about bringing this work to them. Abrazo IS interested! Stay tuned for more coming there…
- Team visit to Phoenix was very enjoyable…loved having all of us here in the sunshine….. thanks SO much for coming!
Minnesota Activities
- Peggy just completed her first keynote for Strengths StrategyTM, and she was an instant hit! People on campus were still talking about it two weeks after the delivery!! Stay tuned for her description below—hear all about it!
- Colette is working on an exciting keynote, via ITV, delivering a strengths introduction for a manufacturing consortium –a great partnership with Pine Tech. There has also been a request to replicate this type of delivery for their health care division. She and DeAnna have been working on creating the PowerPoint and the content, which any of you may have access to, if a similar opportunity presents itself for you.
- Beth co-led her first showcase in Minnesota and knocked it out of the park! She was outstanding, as you might all expect!!!
- A contract has been signed for Discovery to be delivered to the Hallock School System…A generous benefactor loved the training provided to his auto dealership, and has donated the cost of the training to be delivered to their school system. Dave will be co-leading this with DeAnna.
- Kathie and Lisa are looking forward to delivering another showcase in Grand Rapids in January. Way to go Ladies!
- Dave has been a busy boy! In between landing himself a brand new job, he has helped to secure two additional contracts for Strengths StrategyTM in MN. He will be co-leading 3-4 Discovery days in the next two months with the clients he has brought to the table. Way to go, Dave! You are a ROCK STAR!!!
- Several other contracts are circling in Minnesota, in health care, government, and other school systems. An explosion is brewing!
Alberta Activities
- Tim soloed on his first Showcase in Lethbridge on November 10th! Congrats to Tim! DeAnna’s mom, and Terri’s family attended Tim’s session—and they loved it!
- He and DeAnna will be co-leading two additional showcases in January—in Calgary and Lethbridge. Great possibilities are brewing!!!
- Crystal has been a VERY busy girl! She has been hustling, with great results! Proposals are currently out to town of Magrath; Alberta Health Services –CARE division, with a couple of others in the works as well. We are lucky to have her on the team! Keep your eye on Crystal—things are about to explode under her capable direction!!!!!!!
We are also pleased to have Scott join our team of Client Service Leaders, and to be working with Tony Jenkins in California. We expect a LOT of great things to begin emerging, as we all work interdependently together to unlock the strengths of the world!
We have the greatest team ever!
From Steve: Strengths StrategyTM Middle East/Psychometric Report Update
G’day from Dubai!
Middle East Activity
Since Maria and I have returned from Phoenix we have been as excited as ever about the possibilities of creating from a place of Strength. We have been having many strength related conversations and unsurprisingly, are seeing more and more excited people across Dubai and Abu Dhabi (the UAE Capital).
One example of this is a client I have been working with since January as part of a Leadership Program, I recently introduced him to “Strengths Based Leadership” by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie and the StrengthsFinder 2.0 Assessment. The first thing he said after I debriefed him on his top 5 strengths, was “Why are you only doing this with me now? … This is much more valuable than the other workshops (from Duke University, London Business School, etc) we have had and this needs to be part of the program!” This client has now spoken to and excited colleagues from his work about Strengths and he is energized!
DeAnna will be here in Dubai with us the first week of December, as we deliver two showcases and one internal Discovery day. We are in the process of landing our first client—a health care organization from Abu Dhabi. We are excited to formally role out Strengths StrategyTM Middle East! There is a lot of excitement about our work here, and we are expecting to have full capacity showcases with organizations from some of the most impressive companies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I delivered my last “friends and family” event last week to Maria’s husband and a few friends, and they have been talking to everyone about this, and generating enthusiasm on all of our behalf! It is very exciting!
Psychometric Assessments Activity
In addition to building excitement and awareness of our strengths based approach, I have also been working with DeAnna on the Strategic Performance AuditTM (SPA) and the Strengths Engagement and EffectivenessTM Assessment (SEE). Some of the changes we have introduced include enhancements to the flow of the report and clear links to other Strengths StrategyTM material such as the Strengths Maturity ModelTM to ensure this report is consistent and fully integrated with the larger story we are telling to clients, conceptually similar to the wonderful job that was done on the reworked Discovery timeline.
These are exciting tools as they will both be part of the Discovery Pre-work, which I am excited to say, is expected to be online very soon! The pre-work is being finished, even as we speak! This will mean that participants can complete these assessments via the computer then print out their reports to bring to the Discovery day. Debbie is working on the Discovery Pre-work Summary Report right now (which will be a simply 4-5 page summary of the pre-work), and Sam is completing the programming. We hope to be able to pilot this early in December. This is exciting because the scatterplot will soon be automatically generated for use at the Discovery day. This means you will no longer have to teach people how to add up the values and plot the results!
This is an important step for us as a team as these online assessments will enhance our professional and cutting edge image with our clients. Especially since these assessments will be more user friendly online which will enhance the participants’ pre-discovery experience, allowing them to concentrate more on exploring their strengths than managing paperwork.
I have had very exciting conversations with both DeAnna and Tim about how these tools can be leveraged outside of discovery and we are all excited about the possibilities. For now, I will leave this teaser hanging without further explanation. I look forward to hearing from all of you about how you see these online tools being leveraged for enhanced participant/client experiences or greater business development for Strengths StrategyTM.
With the SPA, we have been able to rework the questions and reports allowing us to give a very informative and clear report to our ‘Production/Design Team’ who have apparently weaved their magic and created a spectacular report that looks amazing and reads well (hopefully you have all experienced this by now—if not, PLEASE take the assessment and provide us your feedback). In terms of this Production/Design team, (forgive me if I miss out people) we have had Debbie and Kayla working on layout design, Erik creating our graphics, and Susan, a professional writer, to ensure a professional look and to help the readers really connect with the content DeAnna and I put together. In addition to this we have leveraged Sam’s significant programming genius to get this online.
There you have it, Team! Much to be excited about!
From Peggy: All I (WE!) Need is an Audience!
For a first effort, it wasn’t too shabby! I delivered my first Strengths StrategyTM, Inc. keynote speech in late October to about fifty people at the Pine Technical College in Pine City, Minnesota. Our contact in Human Resources adapted some tongue-in-cheek email copy that I had written to pique the participants’ interest. One email per week went out to everyone on staff and in administration.
Here is an email example:
Do you get a chance to do what you do best every day at work?
A.) Some days depending on the work flow.
B.) Only on the third Tuesday of each month. Is that a “Yes”?
C.) I refuse to answer this on the grounds that it might incriminate me.
We want you to hear more about doing work that allows you to use your strengths. You’re invited to Taking Your Strengths to Work on October 26th for a social hour and the chance to hear how work can be engaging and energizing.
DeAnna is right; we know more than we think we do! I had enough material for a couple of hours so I went over my allotted one-hour by 20 minutes. Discussion was relaxed (yes, I got them talking!) and full of humor.
However, I think the addition of Samantha’s powerful, professional, creative PowerPoint slides were the tour de force. Her artistry on the screen makes it a joy to present. Her PowerPoint is available to any of you who have keynote opportunities! It is really well done!
The evaluations were positive and we hope to schedule some Discovery sessions as well as more keynote speeches in the area.
So much to look forward to!
Recognition Corner
We would all like to recognize the contributions of Anne Grete and Doug for Dance Camp. It was a successful deep learning experience! They continue to be in strengths actualization as they share their talents and gifts with us. We are very grateful for the chance to have their leadership and contributions! THANK YOU!!!! You two are truly amazing!
