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The goal of this week’s lesson is to help you think about your talents and strengths
and how you can apply them in college. While everyone was briefly exposed to StrengthsQuest
and your individual top five talent themes during Welcome Week, we’d like to take you
through a brief review of what you hopefully learned. Then, we’ll help you connect ways
you can develop and use your talents in college.
Review Slide
Before viewing the rest of the PowerPoint presentation you should know what your top
five talent themes are. You should also have read the long descriptions of your top five
talent themes as well.
I’m Not Good Slide
First, I want you to think of something that you have never been particularly good at.
Some examples that you could think of are playing basketball, doing math problems, giving
a public speech, playing ping pong, etc. Now, picture someone who is really, really good
at that activity. For example, a player on your school’s varsity basketball team or
your older sister who is a graduate student in math. Someone like that. If you were to
face off with the other person in a competition of that activity, how are you going to do?
Probably not very well, right? Now, let’s say you spend a year of your life practicing
and studying and taking lessons, really devoting your time to getting better at that activity.
Now one year later, it’s time for a rematch. How do you think that you will do? It’s
likely you will do better but you still might not win. Do you think that was that a good
investment of your time?
Investment Slide
The point of this example is that you will get a better return on your investment if
you spend your time going from good to great in a strength area than it would be to spend
time going from bad to average in a weakness area. That’s the main idea or philosophy
behind StrengthsQuest.
Basically, the key takeaway is that by learning about your strengths, and developing your
strengths, and then following and applying your strengths can lead to a happier you and
more successful outcomes. If you apply that to the college experience, it can give you
a way to be intentional with what you choose to focus on, what activities you participate
in, and what outcomes you can create during your time at the University of Minnesota.
Learning Styles Slide
You can visualize three main learning and teaching styles in college. One is Remediation:
this is where you pick something that you aren’t very good at and work at it and try
to get better at it. The second is Survival of the Fittest: this is where you will be
taught a subject matter and then you will be tested on it. Either you will pass or you
won’t. If you pass you can move on to more advanced subjects. Then you repeat the process
with the next level of the subject. The final one is Focusing on Strengths: this is where
you find areas that you are good at, focus on turning those talents into areas of excellence,
and then finding ways to leverage those specific talent areas and apply them to other parts
of your academic and college life.
You will probably encounter all three of these teaching and learning styles at different
times during your college experience. Please think of a specific time where you have experienced
each of the three approaches. For each example you thought of, think about how you felt in
that environment.
For the rest of the PowerPoint we will focus on teaching you more about the Strengths approach
and how you can use it in your college experience. The goal is for you to find opportunities
to use the Focusing on your Strengths method wherever you can during your college experience.
That might be in the subjects you choose to major or minor in, which specific classes
you chose to take, or the activities you choose to participate in.
Strengths Basics Slide
First let’s talk about talents. Strengths Finder defines a talent as a naturally recurring
pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior; that can be productively applied. A talent
is something that is innate about you and cannot be changed. You cannot pick and choose
your talents although you can choose how you use and develop them in your life. Strengths
Finder has established 34 talent themes and the inventory that you took over the summer
identified the top five talent themes for you. These are areas that are an important
part of who you are, or are areas where you have the potential to be “naturally good.”
People actually use all of these talent areas to some degree but everyone has a top five
that seems to be “most you.”
Top Five Talent Themes Slide
Some of your top five talents might seem really obvious to you, others might be more hidden.
Sometimes it is helpful to ask someone who is close to you (like a parent or good friend)
about how they see you use your top 5 talent themes. Family and friends will often have
insight into how you’ve demonstrated those in the past.
When you learned what your top five talents were in the StrengthsQuest exercise, you may
have had an “A-Ha” moment where you thought “That is totally me.” For some of the
other talents, nothing was immediately obvious but after some thought it seemed like it did
fit you after all. And finally, you may think that some of your top five talents don’t
seem to fit you at all right now.
One thing that might help you to understand your top five talents it to know that people
can use their talents in different ways. For example, one person might demonstrate their
Achiever talent by always being busy and doing lots of things all the time. Another person
might show their Achiever talent, not by doing a million different things, but by making
sure that they perfectly complete every single task they take on.
Also, you may use different talents in different areas of your life. Some people demonstrate
their talents most obviously in their work or school life, for other people they demonstrate
them in their personal life or in their hobbies. How you use your talents will be unique to
you.
Talent to Strength Slide.
But Talent alone isn’t enough. You can easily think of stories of people who have “wasted
their talents” or “not lived up to their potential.” To really make the most of it
you have to consciously develop your talent areas to turn them into strengths. A Strength
is the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific activity. The key
to building a strength is to identify your dominant talents, then complement them by
acquiring knowledge and skills pertinent to the activity. A talent has to be combined
with effort and skill and knowledge in order to become a strength.
For example, during the London Olympics over the summer you may have watched some of the
swimming or gymnastics events. The competitors were naturally talented athletes but they
also gained knowledge by having their coaches teach them how to perform. They built skills
by learning the correct athletic movements. And finally, they practiced and practiced
and practiced until everything seemed effortless (even though it wasn’t).
In the same way that a musician has to take lessons and practice in order to become good
you need to find ways to use and develop your talents to turn them into strengths. Here
are some examples of how people can develop their talents: Someone with the Analytical
talent may have enjoyed doing puzzle games as a child. While in one sense they were just
doing something that they were good at and enjoyed, in another sense they were also practicing
their analytical skills and preparing to tackle even more difficult problems in the future.
Another example is someone with the Winning Over Others or WOO talent who enjoys striking
up conversations with strangers. In one sense they are just doing something that comes natural
to them but they are also are working on building and refining their interpersonal communication
ability.
The main thing to remember is that talent is just the beginning. You need talent + skills
+ effort + knowledge to equal a “Strength”. While you don’t need to put forth an Olympic
level of effort, there are things that you can do to consciously build upon your talents.
Think about some ways that you have developed your talent areas in the past. And also, what
are some ways that you can develop your talent areas now that you are in college.
Sunny Side/ Shadow Side Slide
Just because a person is aware of his or her top talents doesn’t mean that’s enough
to effectively develop them. As we just pointed out, it takes effort to develop talents into
strengths. Talents and strengths can also be used both productively and unproductively.
When we are intentional and use our talents in a “healthy, productive” way, these
talents can be seen as strengths. In other words, that healthy and productive use is
like the “sunny side” of our talents. The opposite is also true; our talents can
also have an unproductive or “shadow” side. To demonstrate this, think of one of
your talents. Can you think of a time you used it in a not-so-great way? It might have
been a time when you “over” used it or when someone approaching the situation from
a completely different viewpoint really misunderstand your approach or perspective.
Here are a couple of examples to get you thinking about the sunny side and the shadow side of
your talents.
Someone with the Achiever talent theme might use it productively to work really hard, but
if not used productively, the person might be perceived as thinking work is more important
than their relationships with other people (being a “workaholic”). Or someone with
the Achiever talent can find it hard to say no to other people and are always in danger
of taking on more projects than they can realistically accomplish.
Another example could be someone with the Harmony talent theme. They could use it productively
to serve as a middle-man or go-between and help people reach consensus and understanding
on contentious issues. Used unproductively, that same person might use Harmony to go along
with other people even if they don’t agree with them in order to avoid conflict. They
never get to go to the restaurant that they want to go to because they don’t want to
disagree with what their friends are doing.
As a final example, someone with a talent of Deliberative might be great at thoroughly
thinking through an issue before deciding on an action so that they are always well
prepared, but the shadow side would be when that person takes so long to decide that they
procrastinate and a decision is never made.
Once you are aware of how you use your talents you can find ways to minimize unproductive
uses (the shadow side) and emphasize and focus on the productive uses (the sunny side).
Choice Slide
Now, we will explore some of the ways that you can use and develop your talents and strengths
in college. Please think about some ways that you could use your talents in your first year
at the U of M.
Thinking back to the scenarios we gave at the beginning of the presentation. What was
the activity that you identified that wasn’t as easy for you? What if needed to work on
that for an entire academic year? For example, if you didn’t like public speaking, you’d
have multiple classes each semester where public speaking would be part of your grade
and you would also be participating in student groups where you have to speak publically
all the time and you would have no choice to get out of it. What would that experience
be like? Probably not very fun and/or terrifying.
But you DO have a choice. A degree from the College of Liberal Arts is a flexible degree
that gives you choices in your courses and your outside of class activities. Obviously,
there are degree and major requirements that you need to do and you will want to pick classes
that are challenging, but that still gives you a lot of choice and control over your
first year college experience. Will you use your freshman year to try to get better at
what you aren’t good at or will you try to capitalize on what you are good at? The
decision is up to you.
Making the Connection Slide
Here are some of the ways that you can use your talents and strengths in college. One
obvious way that you can follow your strengths is by choosing a major or minor in a subject
area that you are good at. You can also choose courses, either within your major if it’s
a flexible major, or as electives or liberal education requirements that you enjoy and
are interested in.
If you think that we are just telling you to always take “easy courses” that is
not the case. We do want you to take on new and challenging subjects while you are at
the U of M. But remember that talent alone isn’t enough. You need to actively work
at and develop your talent areas to turn them into strengths. The academic decisions that
you will make are one of the key avenues for you to accomplish this.
You can also use the “Focus on Strengths” approach within a class when you are doing
the homework and assignments. You can’t control the assignment, but you can control
HOW you use your talents and strengths when doing homework and studying. For example,
based upon what your individual strengths are you may like studying by yourself or you
may do better if you form a study group and work with others. Or it may be some combination
of the two. You may find that you need to do one task at a time and see it through to
completion before doing something else or you may study better of you do work on each
subject for a short time and have variety. The point is to find a study method that lets
you apply your talents and strengths to the task at hand.
And finally, you will find lots of different opportunities to use and apply your talents
in student groups and extra-curricular activities.
Group Work Slide
One big way to use the Strengths approach is to apply your strengths and talents in
small groups. Find out what your other group members strengths are and then leverage that
in your projects.
Have you ever been in a group where no one really takes on a leadership role and the
group flounders? Where EVERYONE tries to be in charge, creating conflict? Where time in
the group is a lot of fun but it’s just social time? Knowing what your own strengths
are as well as the strengths of the other members of the group can help you create a
team that can really get things done and is also a positive experience for all of its
members. Strengths can be a way to capitalize on what each member is good at, which can
positively impact the whole team.
When you meet in your small groups later on this week, you’ll have a chance to talk
about how your strengths may play out in group/team projects. To prepare for that meeting, think
about groups activities that you have found challenging in the past? Which groups did
you find motivating and productive?
Strengths Review Slide (Conclusion)
To end this presentation, I want to review some of the key concepts of the Strengths
approach.
Remember that everyone has talents areas that they are “naturally good” at. What your
specific talents are and how you use them will be unique to you. You cannot change your
talents but you can control how use them and develop them.
Knowing what your talent areas are is just the beginning. You need to consciously find
ways to work at your talents to develop them into strengths. Once you have developed a
talent area into a strength, then you need to use it in a productive fashion. Keep your
strengths on the sunny side and not the shadow side. Finally, you need to find ways to apply
your strengths and leverage your strengths in order to accomplish your goals.
We hope that you will find ways to apply your strengths to your first year experiences in
the College of Liberal Arts.