People exceptionally talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths
as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform
something strong into something superb.
CliftonStrengths
This week, our guest blogger is Gigi Inness. As a teacher
for Norfolk Public Schools, Gigi helped launch the local TeamMates program in
1998 and served as the local program coordinator. In June of 2000, she became
the only regional coordinator for the program (the entire staff was 4 people)
and continued in that role through 2016, adding the regional director
responsibilities to her job in 2010. She started mentoring in 1998 and has had
4 long-term mentoring relationships. She currently mentors in the Millard chapter
and with the TeamMates+ Post-Secondary program. Her top 5 strengths are
Input, Maximizer, Relator, Intellection, and Developer. Here’s what Maximizer
looks like for Gigi:
Maximizer, for
me, can be summed up with the phrase “If we are going to do it, let’s do it
really, really well”. As a former employee of TeamMates I was delighted with
the opportunity to be part of Gallup’s Strengths learning. Knowing my top five strengths helped me
better understand and give power to the natural talents I had. I lead with Input, Maximizer, Relator,
Intellection and Developer.
As a young
person, I felt driven to do my best. I
would stay up late and investigate, rework, and redo until my project was what
I considered to be ‘excellent’. I wanted
my book report to have great content and
a really awesome cover—something not required, but that took the report to the
next level. I felt the same way about
Girl Scout badge projects, Valentine’s Day boxes, and birthday parties. I
didn’t care much for group projects, because I couldn’t assure the outcome. If we did work in groups, I wanted to choose
my partners, focusing on others who also wanted to take our tasks to the next
level. I never liked ‘busy’ work and
thrived in an environment where I had clear markers for success.
As an adult, I
valued being asked to lead an endeavor and I found identifying the strengths of
others to be an invaluable resource for moving the needle from good to
great. The more I understood strengths
in general the more exciting it became to pull others into a work event, knowing
we could deliver an exceptional product, whether it was a training, a manual,
or a meeting. It was a joy to identify the strengths of others and help them
find roles that let their strengths shine, knowing it is much easier to get
great results when people working to their natural strengths. For me, the
maximizer strength says: if you are part of the team, bring your ‘A’ game.
My maximizer
strengths also leads me to seek evaluation so that the ‘next time’ will be even
better. Combined with the strength of
Input, it is necessary or me to gather information from a variety of sources about what works (I like to read research on
best practices), what doesn’t, what the needs are, what the ultimate outcome
should be and what are all the ways we can get there. Then, and only then, the process can begin. Likely, there will be lists and binders and
spreadsheets and an extra dose of ‘double checking’ involved. This
applies to work as well as personal things.
I want to throw a great dinner party, not an OK one; and even though I
taught sewing, I’m taking a quilting class, just in case I can improve on my
next sewing project.
As you might
imagine, there are some downsides to this strength theme. I lack spontaneity, hesitate to try things I
don’t think I can do well, and spend a lot of time looking at all the
possibilities when ‘good enough’ might be just that.
Learning from
Gallup to name, claim and aim my strengths has been a true gift. Honoring my strength of maximizer, I find I
now have better life balance as I focus on my strengths and not my weaknesses.
Being able to identify and nurture strength in others has added depth to my
relationships in my family, with my mentees, and among my friends-old and
new. For all of that, I am grateful.
-Gigi
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