My Strengths!

In order to better "mesh" as a team, my manager proposed that we take a couple of self-tests to understand what we are like and how we can work better together. I performed a self test for work called "StrengthFinder," which is part of a book called "Now ,Discover Your Strengths," by Marcus Buckingham. While the book itself was less than useful, I found the test pretty useful. Here are my top 5 strengths: WOO (Making friends and winning people over) STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION MAXIMIZER (Striving for excellence) FOCUS (Having goals and being focused on getting to the goals) The results don't surprise me. It confirmed what I already knew: I thrive in project management, which uses all of the above strengths! I also love meeting new people and communicating (both in writing and, say, on stage.) The real learning is that I'm in a work group where teammates do not share these strengths (or, sadly, VALUE these strengths.) At the meeting, I was asked to explain my differences and I was mildly mocked for being "focused," for example. Believe me, I'm not a sensitive person, but I left the meeting feeling uncomfortable-the discussion became not about strengths but about values: it was determined that my values were different than the rest of the team. I have done a fair amount of reflecting and these revelations are definitely useful!