Explore the Power of Strengths to Improve Engagement and Leadership with Jim Collison

Consuela Muñoz: Hi everybody on today's episode of Lead to Achieve I'm really excited to have Jim Collison come in, and he is going to be talking to us about the strengths of a leader and how he sees them. So welcome Jim. Glad to have you here.

Consuela. Great to be here and and thanks for inviting me in live from the Gallup Studios here in Omaha, as well as representing our Huskers who start football games tomorrow. It's

Consuela Muñoz: interesting. Here in Wisconsin, I don't have my badgers gear on, but very similar colors for sure. They are very close. Yes, support your state team, right? You bet. You bet. So Jim, I want to ask you, you have been a really strong voice in the world of strengths. And I wanted to ask you, what initially got you excited about that approach, and how has that shaped your perspective on leadership?

Yeah, I actually took cliftonstrengths A long time ago, and in the early, in the early years of it, like 2005

Consuela Muñoz: so I like to joke that I took strengths when it was 1.0 yeah, that's

it's very possible I did too. I can't remember. I didn't. I never looked but I remember coming home and saying to my wife, we need to parent like this is this is big, this big deal. We need to parent this way. And she took cliftonstrengths then right after that, and we talked a lot about, talked it about a lot kind of it changed a lot of the ways we did things. And I always thought I learned it first as a parent, before I began to apply it in the workplace as a leader. And so just thinking about, you know, understanding my kids and who they were, and giving them the opportunity to to do what they do best, right to discover those talents in the time strengths Explorer was out there, and when I started working for Gallup, the kids all came for Kids Day, got to take strengths explorer, get a little coaching. So we found out some of those, and then in later years, my daughter has expressed or enforced. Everyone will take cliftonstrengths at our house so we have a family grid and all those kinds of things. But it did teach me, and I still use it today. We still talk about it all the time. And I think what everything I learned, if I wrote a book, it'd be everything I learned about leadership, I learned from being a dad and so just, you know, using that with my kids really changed the way I used it. Listen, I got lucky on the Gallup side. I did all that before I started working for Gallup. I mean, it was kind of a miracle when I started here in Oh, seven. Then I kind of, and I worked in the IT space for a lot of years, so I wasn't even in this space. And in 2012 when we started certifying coaches, I said, Hey, I got this thing called the podcast. We could probably use it to talk to the community. And they were like, well, sure, we'll give it a try with you. And you know, one thing led to another, and we've done 1000s of these now. So I some people say, well, what's the secret to success there? And I said, I think just being available, like, you know, I'd love to say I did something to make it happen, but I didn't it. Just it kind of happened. And I said yes to a bunch of things, and I kind of fell into it now, I mean, I absolutely get to use you can see my, you know my themes here, arranger Woo, Maximizer, communication and activator, those fit podcasting really, really well. Any set of themes would fit podcasting, but these fit for me. These fit really well. So I lean into all of them. And everything that I do around podcasting,

Consuela Muñoz: I love that, and I love that you've got them there for everybody, for those that can't see, arranger, woo Maximizer, communication and activator, we have three in common. So that's awesome fun to see. It's always interesting. I love what you're saying about the parenting. And I think if you're a parent and you if you're working with strengths, you just naturally bring it in with your kids, right? So I had been doing something with strings. I recognized I have Woo, as you do, and I recognized woo in my four year old, right? We were moving into the house. It was really late, way past definitely dinner, even past bedtime. My husband's literally upstairs, blowing up the air mattress so that the kids have somewhere to sleep. And he comes up to me, and he's like, Mom, can I have a cookie? And I was like, No, it's so loud, it's late, it's so it's way too late. You're not having all that sugar laid and we're, I don't even know, you know, we're running around. And he and he paused a second, and he goes, Mom, you are so beautiful. I said, Oh, thank you, sweetie. Goes and I have a cookie now. And I said, Of course you can. That's how it works. Go get a cookie,

right? Like little influence there? Yeah, a little because

Consuela Muñoz: he, he was, it was so natural for him to consider what is, what is the the win for you? Know, and what is a win for me and so doing that, but to continue that with the parenting, you know, one of the things I always talk about the animal story, and the animal story, there's a got this point where the kid goes to see the the teacher conference, parent teacher conferences. And, you know, we have all this pressure to have, if your kids aren't getting straight A's, what are you going to do? And I think being in that strength based mode helps you back off some of that and say, You know what? This isn't where they drive from. This isn't their thing. As long as they're passing, I'm good. We don't have to have straight A's and everything. So I that you brought that in, yeah, well,

it's, it's important to remember. I mean, my kids are 35 to 26 now, and they're fully in their career space, and we still spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, and they've changed jobs, they've done other things, you know, in in the workspace. And we, we spend time talking about, hey, how do we how are we taking these themes and turning them into success factors in what you're doing? My My oldest has responsibility. Of course he does. He's the He's the oldest, right? But he he has high responsibility. And in in he was doing a job for a while where that responsibility was really weighing on him, because they were putting a lot of financial pressure on him that he didn't, he didn't line up with what they were trying to do in his values, right? So, just driving against that, he changed jobs and moved into a role, or he was helping an organization with traveling nurses and onboarding and some of those kinds of things that responsibility then could thrive as he saw the the you know, he had the ability, every day, to make the lives of these folks landing in a new location work in a role from day one, right? And so the theme didn't change. It's just the deployment of it and add a little bit of values and some of those kinds of things into it as well. But we, we spend a lot of time talking about those, and it's the same in the workplace, right? I mean, we, we have these same conversations with people about, hey, I'm doing this kind of role. How can I do it in a way that works both from a team perspective and a management perspective, and then takes advantage of these, these themes, these natural tendencies that I have right to be successful. There are times when you just got to do stuff too, right? But if most of the time we can be focusing on those that's and I learned how to do that with my kids. Yeah.

Consuela Muñoz: And I, I feel like with that, you know, what? How do we get the themes to be more part of it? There's always what feels like a default way to approach a new task or a new project or a new role. And my thing is like, well, just take that step back, just for a moment. What are the results that you're trying to get? What are your strengths, and how can you use your specifically the way you use your strengths to get the same results and not just dive in and do it the default way?

Yeah, well, the in the way to know is through coaching, whether that's a formal coach, or whether it's an accountability partner, or somebody in your life who can say that didn't work so well, like we need that. We need those kind of feedback loops, and not to be negative, to also say that part went really well for you, right? So to recognize those things, hey, you're better when you're doing it this way. Or, you know, you ought to get some help. If you're going to do this, you should get some help, right? So having that element of a coach, accountability partner, somebody helping you see because oftentimes seeing ourselves is the most is the hardest part.

Consuela Muñoz: Yes, so many people that when we first start, because strengths are so natural to you, yeah, don't realize that other people don't think that way, or don't, wouldn't process a thing that way, because it's not natural for you. So you don't realize that you're actually just super, super amazing because of the strength. So to work, you know, to use that actively. So I love that. So when we talk about in the workplace a lot, I like to talk about employee engagement. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs as well, and I feel like there's this individual engagement that comes with strengths as well. But do you see any upcoming trends around employee engagement, especially as it relates to strength based leadership? One

of the trends I'm seeing in when we think about engagement and strengths together, especially in the area of leadership. So I don't think we have to convince people anymore that focusing on your strengths, minimizing your weaknesses, and having and having some concept of measuring your engagement. We all know that if you're not engaged, You're damaging to the organization, right? I don't that's a trend that's moved we used to have to convince people of that, and today, when I talk to college students each year, I get an opportunity to brand new freshmen, you know, coming in in the system. And I. I even ask him, when we're doing the strengths part, do I do I have to convince you of this? And they kind of say no. So I think there's a trend which is good. I think we're starting to see and maybe I can only speak for the US culture, and maybe I can only speak for the Midwestern culture that I live in here in Nebraska. But to me, it seems like there's less convincing I think that what that means is we need to do more actual action around it. So if we're going to talk about engagement, let's really talk about it, right? And let's talk about how we all own our own engagement in this. I think sometimes we think, Oh, it's on the organization, or it's on my manager. Well, I mean, there's that's partially true, those things how an organization operates and how a leader operates, definitely. You know, we have this number from, it's the manager of that. A manager has a 70% that represents 70% of the engagement of their team, right? They're important on that, but we've got to get better at stop just talking about it and start actually doing some things, right? So yeah. And actually, yeah, actually having these engagement conversations. And then in not, you know, in making, in the action planning steps of actually doing some action planning and then actually following through with it, it's one of those things, you get the results back, and you're like, oh, boy, here's some things to do. Then it's just like with strengths, if you put those results in a drawer and you don't come back to them for a year, they don't mean anything. If you got your cliftonstrengths results and you put it in a drawer and you come back to it once a year, it's not really that helpful. So I'd love to see a future trend, and I think this is just where we got to get, is being comfortable, being feeling safe enough at work that we can have these, these open conversations to say, hey, here's what's kind of stopping me from being engaged. What can we do? And then I think we have to ask ourselves the question, What can I do to to improve my own engagement? Because at the beginning of the day and engagement starts with the individual, right? We own our own engagement. From that perspective, well,

Consuela Muñoz: I love that, because that's what I've been thinking as well. Like employee engagement is a big thing, but each individual is kind of in charge of their own engagement as well as their own goals, right? We've heard this for years, like you're in charge of your own success and how far you go and what goals you've set for yourself, but we're also we have a big part to play in our own engagement. So I love that. That is, I know you have activator as well. That's one that I share. I have activator as well. So yes, we're definitely about actions like but anyone can help you create a goal or write a goal or write that action plan, but how do you get someone to actually do it, to take the actions, to make it happen, versus just something that we talk about? How do we get the action in action?

Well, there's leaders. This is where the area where leadership is super important, right? And in get moving it forward. Leaders have to have the courage to take it and then remind people, Hey, we're talking about this. We're talking about this. We're talking about this. It's one of those things. It's a leader's job to make sure this comes back right and not just gets forgotten. And so as we think about in those strengths based leadership roles, leaders got to be out front. Part of them mean their their role is really to make sure the individual is positioned correctly and has the materials and equipment to do their job and is positioned correctly and taken care of from a needs responsibility standpoint, but it's also to grow the team right? I think sometimes, I think sometimes, in some situations, leaders get too bogged down in the day to day production of stuff, and they realize that they're too bogged down in that, because they're spending too much time on that, and not on the people who are supposed to be doing that job right, or however that works. And so I think, you know, the engagement piece of that fixes some of that busyness, if it's done right. It's hard though you're in as a leader, you're in those situations, and you're just drowning.

Consuela Muñoz: I don't listen.

I'm not here to bash leaders. It's the hardest job. It is the hardest job out there.

Consuela Muñoz: It is a hard job. And feel like people are getting less and less training to get set, to be in a place to move forward, right? Yeah, as well as this whole like, you have your own responsibilities, as well as managing your people and so, or leading your people, and so if you get bogged down in what you have to do, then there's less time to actually develop your people.

Yeah, yeah, well, and I think, I think we're the executive teams are not doing a great job of supporting their managers. That's their responsibility. I think sometimes they get promoted and then they think, Oh, I'm out of the management I get to think about strategy and, you know, future and big stuff. And yeah, yes, you do, but you also have managers who. Need to be, who need to be supported and and I think that in a lot of areas, those middle managers, you know, and then, of course, we have, you know, whole group of of employees who are, who have needs. And listen, we, we've never been more enlightened on what what it means to be engaged and disengaged. And so employees are, I'm not going to put up with this and those middle managers, and they're just getting crushed in the middle and so you just got to support them. I do think we could do a better job of, you know, knowing, of having great executive leadership in managing those managers, however they decide to do that. So got some work to do on that. We hear about that all the time, for sure. Yeah, yeah,

Consuela Muñoz: no, I love that. And let's, let's push for that. Let's push for that to be a trend. I love that.

Yeah, it's difficult. If it was easy, anybody could do it would

Consuela Muñoz: be done already, right, right. Speaking, speaking of what's not easy, I did want to ask you a question, and that is, with lead to achieve, we're really looking at being able to achieve things that others think are not possible, like that's an impossible thing to achieve. Is there any time where you've been able to achieve something that others thought wasn't possible, specifically because of the strengths that you have and how you use them.

Yeah, I've two really good examples. The The first one is actually, you know, we've, I've probably created somewhere in the realm of about 2000 podcasts over the last decade for Gallup that, you know, early on we did. People were asking me, what's a podcast and and I didn't even start the job thinking I would make that many right? You, the opportunity was there was available. Something I love to do is we think about what helps me do that. Woo, communication, obviously. But activator got it going. Maximizer makes it better, although I'm a quantity guy with Maximizer as opposed to quality, I'm a quantity guy. I make a lot of things right with it, but

Consuela Muñoz: housing, yeah, right.

And so there's just for me that no one said it couldn't be done. We just didn't know what could be done. And so those themes just kept pushing things forward, right? Just kept doing and doing and doing. It's amazing. If you would have said to me, then you're going to make 2000 of these. I would have been like, no, no, that's not but we did, you know a little when you when you stay at it, day after day, month after month, year after year, the tenacity to and then, of course, I mean, the arranger puts it all together. Lot of the shows that I do are interviewing people and that are that arranger loves to handle the media, handle the chat room, handle the interview, all at the same time. I love that. I can never get tired of that. And I keep getting I think I keep getting better at it, and so it kind of drives me in that way. One quick physical example, when I started, I'm not a very I'm a big guy, and I'm not a runner, but I started running in my 40s, and I thought maybe I could run a marathon, and I ended up running five of them, because Maximizer, right? I was never satisfied. It's like, oh, if I can run one, I probably could run two. And then, you know, just those things, or those themes creep in, and they start really driving you to success and and, you know, you gotta to run a marathon. You gotta put a lot of work in. Yeah,

Consuela Muñoz: I have not run a marathon, and I love that you were talking about. Maximizer for you is quantity, and you're up to five already. So, yeah, you know, who knows how I'm

not running anymore. My doctor was like, dude,

oh, he's like, new hips. Keep running. So I so I stopped. But that from, and let

Consuela Muñoz: me say for starting at 40. Still, that's,

yeah, 40 to 50. I ran. I ran a ton, but let me say a maximizer. I mean understanding. I think the key sometimes we take these terms and we we say, Oh yeah, yeah, that's about me. That's about me. And then we move on, and there's a lifetime of learning. I think I didn't learn what Maximizer meant for me till I was maybe eight years into the end of the podcasts, and was spending some time talking with Micah, one of my former co hosts on the show. And I realized, you know, we the definition of it is, is a kind of that we always talk a lot about quality and it that didn't line up with me, but I, I was running marathons at the time, and I thought, Oh, that's a quantity thing. I want to do. I want to do more of things. I want to be and of course, when I ran, I was always talking to people, and I was willing as influencing them to come run with me, like I never ran alone. I wanted to run with people, right? You're

Consuela Muñoz: wooing people to be in your for sure. Yeah, I was

influenced the whole way. I mean, I remember. One marathon as I was finishing. Well, it was a half marathon, and for some and they they would peel off, and the full marathoners would go another 13 miles, and the the other ones would peel off and finish. And when I turned around to say goodbye to some folks, like, 20 hands, or like, See ya, and those are all folks I pulled off the you know, they started walking, and I'm like, we can't walk, run with me. Well, I'll finish this thing. Like, get in here with me. But knowing that, see, this is the key right now that I know my this Maximizer drives me to numbers, I can put myself in situations where those numbers matter. Like, hey, if you want a lot of something, I'm your guy, yeah, and I don't, I'll drive more and more and more and more. Not always needed, by the way, yeah, more is not always needed. So it's not for everybody. But that's a good for me. That's a good way to kind of, I think, focus on those. Don't read them one time and put them away. You got to continue to grow with them as you, as

Consuela Muñoz: you lead people well, that's been very great advice, I think, for anybody who's starting out with strengths or even that's been in it for a while, don't just read them once, look through them. Learn continually what they mean to you. And really that diving in, right? Because people have an idea what it means when you say communication or activator or Maximizer. And then there's you know, the general of it, and then there's specifically how you use it because of your other strengths. But then your knowledge of that only grows and only is more useful to you the more you dive into it. And the more you can apply it to other things where you need it. Yeah. And

sometimes we run into a concept. I call it, you know, we have this name it, claim it, and aim it. Philosophy, right that our coaches we talk about, you know, naming it, knowing what it is, and then claiming it, making it yourself, and then aiming it, actually doing something with it. I think sometimes we get stuck in the name it, name it and name it. We just like to talk about the themes. They're fun to talk about, right? Oh, yeah, I'm this way. I'm that way. Listen, if they're not having some kind of impact in your performance. So some kind of it's not driving you to some kind of result. Okay, they're just a name. I mean, they actually need to do something. So think about what is each one of these doing, and how are you having success with it? And then how do you repeat that? Because that's what we all just want to be successful, right? And so these are just shorthand. These are shortcuts a little bit to understanding that. But don't get stuck in just talking about them. Got to push them forward. You got to deploy them. You got to aim them at something and learn how they're going to be successful. For you. I

Consuela Muñoz: love that. Thank you very much again for being here. Very good information for everybody looking at you know, developing that strength based leadership. Well, I

Appreciate you having me. Thanks for having me on today.