Since 2015, there has been a great increase in the number of companies in Singapore and across Southeast Asia enquiring about the CliftonStrengths (formerly Gallup StrengthsFinder) Team Building Program. Since 2021, the CliftonStrengths Profiling has been taken over 30 million times globally.
This article is written especially for Team Leaders and those in Human Resource, who are regularly looking out for team building programs that can be beneficial to their team and organization.
Based on past experience and participants' feedback from over hundreds of CliftonStrengths workshops I have conducted, I am giving 8 reasons on why a CliftonStrengths workshop could just be the ideal Team Building Program that a team or an organization should consider.
1. It's incredibly uplifting!
How often do people have the opportunity to hear the good things that other colleagues have to say about their own strengths?
Leveraging on the Strengths Language which is derived from the field of positive psychology, conversations that take place build up the morale of the team. The conversations in the workshop revolved around what is right with people rather than what is wrong. In many work cultures where affirmations and encouragements are in deficit, team members received a much needed morale boost. The overall morale of a team has been observed to be greatly heightened after a CliftonStrengths team building workshop.
2. All new partnerships start with a Conversation
It begins with a conversation. As cliche as it sounds, new partnerships can be formed from having a conversation on how different strengths complement. It is one thing to discover why certain people work well together. It is another to intentionally build partnerships that revolve around different strengths that complement. One of the most powerful segments during an interactive workshop is called “getting the best of me”. It is so important to hear from our colleagues how they feel they can bring out their best at work and what support they need from the team.
3. Knowledge-Based Learning
Most team building activities are interactive and fun in nature and CliftonStrengths workshops are no different. One thing that stands out about a CliftonStrengths Team building workshop is that extra dimension of knowledge-based learning, especially in facilitating self-awareness and in gaining data to understand other colleagues. This is usually missing from the usual one-off team building cooking, art-jamming session or a laser quest mission.
A well facilitated CliftonStrengths workshop empowers and equips participants with practical handles on how to move forward with the knowledge gained. These handles allow the different team members to build on the positive energy gained from the workshop. Feedback from many participants have demonstrated that the strengths conversations that took place after the Strengthsfinder workshop usually transmit into greater synergy in the workplace.
4. Increase in An Individual's Self-Confidence and Self-Awareness
A well facilitated CliftonStrengths session is not only fun but participants leave with a greater level of self-awareness. By learning how they think, feel and behave in unique ways that are very different from their colleagues, participants have commented that the insights can help them in designing interventions for professional development. The knowledge gained from understanding their own strengths and the strengths of their colleagues gives people a renewed sense of confidence in themselves as well as for the team.
5. Understand How Strengths Cause Conflicts
A CliftonStrengths team building workshop helps participants understand how certain strengths among team members can clash and turn into potential conflicts. For example, a CliftonStrengths theme of Harmony prefers emotional efficiency while the theme of Strategic prefers operational efficiency. Harmony believes work gets done faster without the conflicts that suck up more emotional energy of the team. Strategic believes that efficiency lies in cutting down unnecessary steps even if the process has been established and executed in the past.
Such understanding and awareness usually helps people to realize how certain conflicts are non-personal in nature and is really a result of different perspectives. A CliftonStrengths workshop can provide participants with very effective handles on how to manage and resolve conflicts that happen in teams.
READ: Using CliftonStrengths to Resolve Conflicts
6. A Long Term Strategic Investment
A CliftonStrengths team building workshop is a long term strategic investment for companies as compared to one-off bonding sessions. Strategies to manage teams can become more customized because of the strengths data and hence more productive. Out of knowing different strengths of the team members, strategies devised can be more targeted especially in complex work environments.
It is often observed that after a CliftonStrengths team building workshop, many leaders take up the follow-up recommendation to receive individualized coaching. Often the purpose of the coaching session is to learn more about how to leverage the different strengths of the team members to grow team performances. This is one opportunity that can be captured after a CliftonStrengths team building workshop.
7. A Practical Alternative for DIVERSE Groups
A CliftonStrengths session provides a strong and practical alternative whenever a team building exercise needs to be catered to participants of a wide age range (or with vastly different physical fitness levels). The workshops usually take place indoors. While the activities are interactive and fun, they are not physical in nature and do not require any additional insurance liability coverage.
8. Understanding Human Relationships
The most common feedback from participants who attended the CliftonStrengths Team Building Workshops come down to understanding human relationships. "You learn to withhold your judgement because you now see a person for who they are and you learn to accept them”.
This is immensely transforming for any kind of human relationship!
Some Testimonials from TEAM Leaders
“Victor has been a very professional coach, walking with us patiently through our CliftonStrengths results. It was a fun and interactive team building workshop and we are glad to find out our individual strengths through this workshop. Thank you Victor!
Chloe Teo | Senior Director, Enterprise Clients | Colliers International
"The StrengthsFinder workshop went down very well with everyone and it struck me that was a near-perfect and flawless session. The session was very balanced, well-paced and well-organized. The session was peppered with personal (and often hilarious) anecdotes that the team found to be very helpful and relevant. Personally, understanding my own strengths and those of my team has helped to make sense of some of the behaviours from my team members and myself and caused me to make adjustments to some of the ways I interact with my team."
Wong Rin Rin | Former Legal Director & Associate General Counsel, Asia Pacific (MNC)
"The StrengthsFinder workshop was excellent and the feedback from all the team members was that it was one of the most valuable workshops they have been a part of. The concepts and team exercises certainly helped the teams to grasp the strength-based thinking, as well as enabled the team leads to get a closer view of their team dynamics, diversity and strengths."
Saurabh Mandal | Head – Supply Chain (MNC)
"As a Team Leader, I benefitted from understanding the team’s strengths and am glad that the team bonded from the workshop. The team really enjoyed the session. I will recommend this workshop to the other departments. It is beneficial to our personal lives as well as professional lives. Great job!"
Corrine Ee | Head of Distribution (MNC)
"The greatest benefit for me was to understand and start appreciating different talents of different individuals. That enables me to work better towards common goals. I find this workshop interactive, comprehensive and lively! I rate this workshop a 10/10!"
Michael Wu | Chief Financial Officer (MNC)
"This workshop helped me understand the team differences and what makes each person unique and what we have in common. I think this leadership program is a great one and I highly recommend it for leaders & teams."
Richa Goswami | Head of Digital, Asia Pacific (MNC)
How do I run the CliftonStrengths Team Workshop Programs?
Fun & Interactive, focusing on team DYNAMICS, TRUST BUILDING and EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION.
Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command
Victor is an accredited ICF Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC) and CliftonStrengths Coach based in Singapore. He is also a Newfield Certified Ontological Coach. Victor facilitates teams to leverage their collective strengths, get clear on ways of engagement and ways of working to strengthen team and interpersonal dynamics. Victor intentionally integrates the strengths-based and ontological approach into his team coaching and strengths workshops.
