The fastest way to get the power of your personal strengths working for you is to run strategic strengths experiments.
Using The Strengths Deck, a tool I developed to help you get up close and personal with your strengths, you can identify your strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between, in less than 90 minutes.
But having a strength means nothing until you use it. And knowing how to use your strengths wisely and well comes from running strategic strengths experiments.
My book Unleash Your Awesome takes you through the entire process from discovery of your strengths, to applying them in the real world. If you haven’t yet read or listened to the book, below is a super high-level summary of how to run experiments with your personal strengths.
A brief note about how The Srengths Deck works
I’ve seen way too many people take a psychometric assessment (personality, tendencies, strengths etc), then 100% identify themselves with whichever bits of the assessment made them feel good about themselves, or aligned with their pre-existing view of themselves.
The Strengths Deck card sorting exercise is different – it asks you to consider 75 different human strengths from the perspective of how good you are at them (your performance), and how much you enjoy them (your preference). It makes no value judgements about any strength or strength combination, and there is zero judgement about having weaknesses. If you’re breathing, you’ve got ’em!
You sort the cards onto The Strengths Deck Matrix, into one of five zones, based on how you rate your performance and preference for each strength. Then, you apply different strategies to your strengths, based on the zones they fall into.
The five zones are:
- Genius (high performance, high preference)
- Reputation (high performance, low preference)
- Indifference (low performance, low preference)
- Potential (low performance, high preference)
- Proficiency (moderate performance, moderate preference)
You can learn more about how it all works on this post over on The Strengths Deck website.
What is a strategic strengths experiment, anyway?
Anyone can run an experiment – pick an idea you want to test, give it a whirl in the real world, then analyse your results.
Did you get what you wanted/expected? Cool, you learned something! Even if it didn’t work out as planned, you still learned something. But was the experiment actually useful to you? Will it help you move forward to something better than today?
Too often, we run a scattergun experiments and hope something will hit a mark we haven’t even taken a moment to define.
A strategic experiment is different – you start with getting clear on the outcome you want. Then you reverse-engineer the experiments you need to get that outcome. For example, if you want to improve your 10km run time, you need to figure out which aspects of your performance matter the most. For some runners, it will be their endurance. For others, their core strength. Yet others will need to work on their nutrition or hydration.
A strategic experiment would involve testing one aspect of your running approach to see if it changes your performance. If nothing shifts significantly, you move on to another aspect. And you keep going until you find the thing(s) that move the dial the most. And you don’t stop when you find the first thing, you keep going until you have tested every aspect, because you never know where your opportunities might be hiding.
Enough about running! What about strategic strengths experiments?
Sorry, not sorry about that diversion into a running example. It’s been aaaages since I’ve been able to go for a run thanks to a niggling injury, so it’s clearly playing on my mind!
Right, strategic strengths experiments. They’re just like the running example, only you use your strengths instead of endurance, core strength, nutrition etc.
So, let’s imagine your goal is to improve at public speaking. The first strengths that spring to my mind for this goal are the Centre-Stage (1) and Storyteller (2) strength (see definitions for all the strengths mentioned on this page here). But what if you don’t have these in your Zone of Genius? You’ll need to dial up and combine other strengths, such as (in no particular order):
- Quality (3)
- Humorous (4)
- Social Intelligence (5)
- Determined (6)
- Interpreter (7)
- Creative (8)
- Persuader (9)
- Personal Development (10)
- Vitality (11)
- Competitive (12)
- Prepared (13)
- Legacy (14)
Once you’ve figured out which strengths might help, you need to run experiments with them to see which ones nudge your performance in the right direction.
Run a strategic strengths experiment
Let’s continue working with the example of the public speaking goal. The first thing is to define what you mean by “improve”. What metrics and/or qualities do you want to be better? What does better look like? This step is vital, because it will influence which strengths you include in your experiments.
For example, if you want to be less reliant on your notes, so that you can spend more time looking at the audience and moving around the stage. In that case, Prepared or Competitive might be great places to start. The Prepared strength will help you to feel ready to think on your feet, such as having a couple of ideas up your sleeve in case you lose your train of thought. The Competitive strength can energise you to challenge yourself to use your notes a little less than the last time.
If you want to create more audience engagement, then the Humorous, Social Intelligence, Creative, and Vitality strengths are all great options to begin with. Many great public speakers demonstrate the Humorous strength, giving the audience plenty to laugh about. And they wield their Social Intelligence by tuning into the audience’s mood and drawing them out. Taking a Creative approach to what can sometimes be a tired, old format can shake your audience’s expectations and get them talking. And bringing the high energy of the Vitality strength can wake up even the most sleepy post-lunch crowd.
Once you’ve selected all the strengths that could help, pick the one you think is most likely to make a difference. Then, come up with as many different ideas as you can to use the strength differently. Choose the idea you think will give you the biggest ‘bang for buck’, and give it a whirl. Track your results, and decide whether to stick with that approach, or try something else.
It can sometimes take several repeats of an experiment to tease out whether the strategy you are testing works well, or if external factors are the more likely cause of a change in performance. And along the way, keep monitoring your preference levels – the last thing you want to do is work so hard on a strength that it starts to burn out. If that happens, switch your experiments to a different strength for a while.
TL;DR? Here it is in a nutshell:
- Define what “improve” or “better” means.
- Identify any strengths you think might help.
- Choose one strength to experiment with.
- Brainstorm how you can use that strength differently.
- Pick the ‘biggest bang for buck’ strategy and run an experiment.
- Check your results and decide: keep doing or ditch, then try something else.
- Repeat until you’ve achieved your desired improvement.
Download your Strengths Experiment Tracker
I’ve created a one-page template to help you run your strategic strengths experiments. Not only does it help you define your goal and how you’ll achieve it, you’ll also think through barriers you might face, and the resources you have available. It also invites you to reflect on your progress, and document what you learn along the way.
Strengths definitions
Note: The definitions below are taken from version 7 of The Strengths Deck (published 2024).
Earlier versions of the Deck may have slightly different wording, but the essences of the definitions remain unchanged. They were edited for clarity based on user feedback.
(1) Centre-Stage: You engage people’s attention, speaking up in groups and naturally holding the floor.
(2) Storyteller: You weave engaging stories to share insights, lessons, values and humour.
(3) Quality: You want to get things right and deliver work that is of the highest standard.
(4) Humorous: You use laughter and playfulness to help others relax and enjoy themselves.
(5) Social Intelligence: You recognise emotions in yourself and others and know how to work with them effectively.
(6) Determined: You identify your priorities then act, adjusting to stay on course and achieve your goals.
(7) Interpreter: You simplify complex ideas so a wide range of people can understand them.
(8) Creative: You combine ideas, resources, and things in imaginative ways, creating a fresh approach.
(9) Persuader: You influence others and use words, emotions, and ideas to bring them around to your point of view.
(10) Personal Development: You seek personal development, learning new skills, knowledge and approaches and embracing feedback.
(11) Vitality: You approach life with zest and excitement, undertaking tasks with enthusiasm and energy.
(12) Competitive: You want to be the best in all you do. You assess yourself against others and seek ways to improve.
(13) Prepared: You think carefully about what is required, ensuring you are ready to respond to a range of alternatives.
(14) Legacy: You create a positive difference for those who come after you.