So glad that you have joined the team and are ready to take Strengths training to the next level!
To help jumpstart this process while you are waiting for the Facilitator Training kit to arrive, you can find the first few chapters below.
By receiving the Strengths Exploration Leaders Kit materials (i.e. book and associated forms, presentation tools, marketing resources, etc.) from or on behalf of Launchable Leadership, you are agreeing to a license to use these copyrighted outlines to provide pro-bono or paid training and workshops.
By using or adapting these outlines, you agree to follow the Fair Use provisions given here.
You may modify the outlines to add your own personal stories, notes to yourself, or to your clientele or presenting style. Following are the Fair Use guidelines you must adhere to, to use and/or modify these materials:
You must purchase a new copy of the Strengths Exploration Leaders Kit in order to use this material. If you came by these resources in any other way, go online to Strengths-Exploration.com and purchase an original copy of your own. You may not give away, sell or transfer these Presenter Materials, or a customized version of these materials to others without written permission from Launchable Leadership. (If you’d like to make a custom version available to others through Launchable Leadership, please contact us.)
You may not remove the copyright or attribution to Jason Hedge and Launchable Leadership.
Each individual workshop participant must purchase or receive their own print of a participant workbook in the “Strengths Exploration Workbook” series. You may not alter the course to eliminate the workbook or substitute other workbooks, and you may not photocopy pages out of the participant workbooks or simply point and use them as handouts. (Selling workbooks is what allows us to continue to create helpful materials and resources for you and your participants.)
You are encouraged to advertise workshops and trainings using your own personal and/or business name. You do not, however, have permission to represent yourself as Launchable Leadership or as a Launchable Leadership approved trainer without prior written permission. More importantly, you may present yourself as a Strengths Exploration Facilitator. Please contact us with any inquiries or questions.
You may not translate this course into another language without prior written permission. If you are interested in translating the material, contact us at info@LaunchableLeadership.com
© 2018 Jason Hedge, Launchable Leadership. All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Published by Focal Star Publishing, California, USA
Understanding your Strengths is a powerful way to bring about the improvements and change to take your performance to the next level. Strength training is being used in just about every area of life:
Are you ready to lead an interactive and engaging strengths based workshop?
The Strengths Exploration Facilitator Training Kit includes the set of tools you’ve been waiting for.
Successful people know what they are good at and leverage those abilities to excel in what they do. Strength Assessments seek to identify those abilities to enable others to apply leverage in their lives as well. When discovered, these abilities identify a person’s talents. Talents when combined with skills and knowledge become true Strengths that increase engagement and success.
Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D. is credited as the father of Strengths-Based Psychology. He, Tom Rath and others working with Gallup, Inc., were able to utilize his 40 years of research to identify the 34 most common strengths. These strengths identify someone’s top talents that can be leveraged for greater success and happiness in what they do. (http://strengths.gallup.com/110440/About-StrengthsFinder-20.aspx)
Marcus Buckingham, who helped Donald write the book that rst introduced the Strength assessment to the world, created StandOut, a different Strength assessment that focuses on nine Strength roles. In addition to these two assessments, there are other Strength assessments available that identify the unique dynamics that can be leveraged to help people to succeed.
You can use any of these assessments with the Strengths Exploration Facilitator Training Kit and participant workbooks. The individual and group exercises will help your participants understand more about
each Strength and how they apply to what they do and the team they work with. All you need is a good understanding of each Strength in the system you are using. This Facilitator guide will help you through the rest.
This Strengths Facilitator Kit, was designed to help you lead interactive workshops that bring about dynamic results with your participants. It does not contain training on how to describe each Strength. Gallup, Buckingham and the other Strength assessment creators have already done a phenomenal job describing their system and the individual Strengths. Please defer to them and their published material for language to describe each Strength, then use the rest of this book to walk your participants through the participant Strengths Exploration Workbook to help them learn how to apply their Strengths to what they do, value other’s Strengths and to work together in an effective new way.
Understanding the objective for each workshop will de ne the emphasis of your delivery of the material. When your focus is on improving engagement at work and increasing performance, your language will include work environment stories and examples. When working with students, you will focus on education with a career centered focus. When working with couples, you will naturally discuss relational dynamics. Regardless of the speci c emphasis, there are three essential focal points for every Strengths workshop:
Every exercise helps develop one or more of these focal points.
There is an inherent tension between points one and three that you must be made aware of. The best Strength assessments leave you feeling that you just got a report card and you have all As. Once the gravity of how amazing you are hits, it can be hard to begin to see a value in other Strengths. Participants routinely begin to think, “Since I feel so amazing with this list of great Strengths, how can any othercombination also be amazing? I have the best Strengths there are!”
To overcome this natural bias, you will need to be intentional about how you introduce the exercises that have a focus on other’s Strengths and by helping your participants understand that there are no Strengths that are inherently better than others. They simply identify a potential that needs effort before any payoff comes. In addition, given the right environment, each of the Strengths can be an invaluable asset for one’s success.
Presentation
For an experienced trainer, this material will provide a foundation for yet another successful workshop, but with likely more participant interaction than you’ve incorporated in the past. This lively interaction combined with the con dence and control of past training experiences enables a level of peace that simply doesn’t develop overnight.
However, the beauty of this material is that it provides such a solid foundation—with an emphasis on participant interaction—that even new trainers will feel con dent leading their rst Strengths workshop.
Con dence comes through practice. If you are able to practice the workshop with a few friends that you’ve bribed to attend with a pizza or two, you will be better off and wiser for the process. Study up on the Strengths, review the exercises and follow the preparation notes that follow to have a great experience that your participants will never forget.
Preparation
All of the work you do behind the scenes is so that you don’t have to overly work in front of everyone. You need to be fully present when you are on stage and when everything has been take care of, you can do your best to present.
As robust as this material is, you will still need to do some preparation before your start your 1st workshop. The following sections will review the various preparation needs including marketing, updating presentation slides, coordinating assessments and the like.
Attire
First impressions are important. People form impressions about us in the rst 30 seconds. Dressing well can lead to a better rst impression, which will set your workshop up for success. Dressing at the same level of the participants or a notch above is the best way to go. You are [now] a professional presenter and your attire should demonstrate that. While there are some environments where overdressing can actually become detrimental and create ohh-you-think-you’re-all-that attitudes, most of the time, dressing up a notch is the best approach.
Date, Time and Location
The preparation begins well before the workshop date. You’ll need to arrange the date, the time and the room. The room should be larger than what is needed for a typical static group that just sits down all day since you will have them up and moving around during the exercises. Several of the activities will need the participants to gather around tables, which require more room than chairs.
Assessments
Unless you are leading a series of short trainings spread across several days or weeks, you will need to coordinate a way for your participants to take the assessment before the workshop begins. This could include distributing books with online codes, or emailing each participant a link with an access code. Then you will want to remind them to print and bring the results with them to the workshop.
Once you register with Launchable Leadership you will be granted access to a Strengths Exploration Facilitator Only page that includes links to purchase the Strength Books and online codes as well as links to additional strength resources. Each manufacturer of the Strenght based assessments will have their own way of delivering the results, but typically they will only be sent to the participant. This requires you to plan ahead and set expectations for your participants in advance to ensure everyone has their list of Strengths in front of them for the workshop.
Workbooks, Paper and Pens
This interactive workshop requires participant workbooks and pens. Typically, up to half of the group will not bring a pen, even if you ask them to. Providing extras is a great way to ensure that everyone participates. You could even have specially branded ones created to help market for your next workshop.
Presentation Slides
You aren’t required to use slides during your workshop, but it can add significant value in reinforcing your training and explanation of exercises. You will need a computer and presentation software such as PowerPoint or Keynote. You will also need a projector that is bright enough to present in a partially lit room and speakers if you include any of your own audio or video. Don’t forget power and connection cords. Not every location is set up to handle projectors well. A wall may be sufficient, or a screen may be needed. You may also want to purchase a wireless presenter or clicker so you can change slides without walking up to the computer or yelling, “Next slide, please!”
Before using the slides included with the purchase of this book, downloadable from Strengths-Exploration. com with registration and proof of purchase, you will need to add content on each slide discussing the individual strengths. Your personal knowledge of the material and information available online from the creator of the Strength assessment you choose can help you include the right content. The Strength names and descriptions are the property of the respective company and are thus not included here, but the information is readily available for you to glean and use.
Slide templates have been created to share about the individual Strengths including places for the Strength’s name, an image that represents the Strength such as an analogous image or character, and bullet points to help your participants understand each Strength. Do not include too much information on the slide, just the highlights.
The participants will want to take notes on each of the Strengths in their very own Strength Exploration Workbook. The Team Edition participant workbook includes room for participants to note the:
The available slide decks include room for bullet points that were originally created to describe what people with that Strength Love, Dislike and Need. You can use the bullet points in the same way, or create your own use for them. Those bullet points can also be copied by the participants to the My Strengths Reference section for future quick reference. The online Facilitator Only section includes links to outside resources that can help you identify possible bullet points to use.
You get to choose the order you present the Strengths in. You can go in the order the assessment company presents them, alphabetical order or according to the domain they are in. Domains are groupings of Strengths that have a common theme. This information can be found online if the assessment company has created them, otherwise you can skip that section. You can nd additional links to Domains in the Facilitator Only section online.
As you go through the training sections below, several include examples and sample responses on the slides. You can use them as they are, or change them slightly to re ect the trademarked names of Strengths of the system you choose to use.
Microphones
Microphones are essential when working with large groups, but most smaller groups are able to hear
a presenter just ne when they project their voice. The location where you are presenting may have microphones available and it is wise to check in advance. Corded, wireless and lapel microphones can all affect how you can interact with the crowd. If you naturally speak with your hands, a wireless lapel microphone is best. Otherwise you may have to choose between large sweeping hand gestures and the crowd’s ability to hear you through the microphone. Including a second microphone for the participant’s use to ask questions or to discuss what happened in an exercise is also helpful, but not always necessary.
Water, Snacks and Facilities
They seem to go in that order too. The more comfortable your participants, the easier it will be for them to maximize their experience. Clear markings for the location of restrooms is essential and with a longer workshop, water and light snacks can help keep participant energy levels up.
Marketing
You don’t need to spend a lot on marketing but yers and carefully crafted emails can go a long way in setting the audience up to be ready to learn. If you aren’t a marketing genius, have someone else create the yer for you. Online talent can be found at places like www. verr.com, www.odesk.com, www.elance.com, www.guru.com, www.freelancer.com to name just a few of the options. We’ve included a few marketing resources for you on Strengths-Exploration.com.
Patience
Patience is one of the great skills that often eludes us. As the participants warm up to the idea that they get to stand up, move around and engage in the learning process, you will nd that closing the exercises can become increasingly dif cult. The problem is actually a good one though. You are enabling participants to actually participate! Add in patience and a microphone or booming voice and eventually they will calm back down. Keep your cool and remember, they are learning and reinforcing what you are sharing when they talk. They just get carried away sometimes.
Implementing lasting change requires more than one interjection into participant’s lives. Interactive workshops are proven to increase participant understanding and enable greater memory retention, but that expands exponentially when follow up sessions are included.
There is more material in the participant workbooks than some workshops have time to cover. Maximize the workbook’s potential by setting up follow up sessions when you book your workshop.
Distance and time don’t always make follow up sessions feasible, but there are options. You could appoint a key group contact as the follow up trainer. The group could meet together to discuss what has changed since your workshop, how they have been implementing their strengths more, what dif culties they have encountered and what goals they have now reached. You could also help set them up with an unused exercise in the workbook and help them feel comfortable to lead the group in the activity so that the learning continues. You’ll receive the credit in the end and they’ll want to have you back in the future and be happy to refer you to others.
If even that isn’t feasible, set participants in accountability groups and assign a section or two as homework for them to complete on their own and discuss together at a de ned time in the future. The more contact they have with the material, the greater the level of change that will occur.
Despite all of the online social outlets available today, there is something unique about human-to- human interaction that just can’t be replaced. Work time, family time and personal time are lled with personal interactions, and yet most trainings only require the participant to sit still and listen. This sets the person, team, family and organization up for failure.
This workshop and the interactive exercises intentionally create interactions to increase the value, learning and impact of the workshop.
Interactive workshops combine the best of training and experience together into one seamless process. It isn’t hard to work them both together, but it is a different process than most of the training we’ve received. Most learning comes passively. We go somewhere, sit and watch, hear or read something and then we are done. Learning is conducted this way because it is ef cient for the trainer. They can cover more information in a shorter amount of time when the audience just listens. By contrast, a trainer leading
an interactive workshop won’t be able to cover as many topics, but the audience will have a personal experience and a greater likelihood of implementing that knowledge.
To create an engaging and interactive learning environment, you must be comfortable sacri cing the amount of content for the potential of a deeper learning experience.
Step 1: Know your audience
Gain an understanding ahead of time as to what they know about Strengths and what their past experience has been with it.
Step 2: Set expectations
Let your audience know in advance the topics you will cover and what outcomes you are anticipating for them.
Step 3: Plan for interaction
Ensure the meeting room has extra space for groups to spread out. Include extra tables for gathering teams for exercises.
Step 4: Practice
It isn’t easy to give up the microphone and let the audience follow an exercise while you essentially just watch. It is especially painful to sit quietly on stage when the audience is thinking or writing something out. You naturally will want to keep talking, adding in additional facts, adding something, anything of value. But, it is just as important to lead from behind to ensure the audience receives the best experience possible. Practice with friends and family. Practice learning patience by calmly gathering back everyone’s attention when an exercise ends but the conversations don’t. This practice will build the con dence to push through unfazed.
Step 5: Develop your wrap up
Of the two areas you will need to focus on, introducing exercises and wrapping them up, the second is the most powerful. This is where the countless ‘aha’ moments come from. After the fun of interacting is done, the wrap up locks in what was learned. The wrap up is best done by either:
After you’ve decided to create an interactive environment and you are coming to grips with the fact that you’re trading quantity for quality, you are just about ready to begin.
Each of the exercises has a listed purpose. This creates the goal for the exercise and is the focal point for your wrap up time. When your audience emphasizes these points in their discussion, you know you’ve done your job.
Setting up the exercise is also important. Share this with energy and enthusiasm. You alone set the stage for the success of the exercise, so be sure to show how excited you are. This can feel foreign and fake but is absolutely necessary. Even if you normally don’t feel comfortable with a lot of expression, a lot is lost in transference from the stage to the audience. And the larger the audience, the larger the expressions and hand motions need to be to have any chance of reaching the audience.
You also want to give them a reason to do what they will need to do, but without spelling out the purpose of the exercise word-for-word. It is much better for them to come to an understanding of the value of the exercise themselves than for you to just give them the answer.
To do this, create a reason for the participants to engage with each other:
Once the exercise has begun, you are released from the responsibility to be constantly performing. You can answer a question here and there or just step back and watch.
After the rst time or two, you will begin to catch the interactive training bug and won’t want to go back to the plain old monologue. It is such a powerful tool that it is hard to put down. Plus, you’ll have as much fun as your audience! Simply focus on three main parts of interactive exercises: the intro, the exercise action time and the wrap up.
Additional pages have been included in the back of the workbooks for you to use with your own interactive exercises. You can use those pages during the workshop or after the workshop as part of a follow up program. Follow up trainings help to keep the Strengths culture alive by refreshing everyone’s memory about the bene ts of focusing on Strengths.