CONNECTEDNESS …
Individualization | Learner | Ideation | Intellection
This is currently a 6-part series.
1.0 PREFACE
Recently, my boss had our staff of nine take the “StrengthsFinder 2.0” Assessment. This is one of those things where you sit down at a computer and are presented with a bunch of statements and for each one you give a quick response on a scale as to how you feel about it. A lot of data is collected about you and a report comes out with the breakdown of where your ‘personal strengths’ lie. Behind this is the Gallup organization, who have been around a long time and know a thing or two about collecting data. 
I was a little skeptical at first, thinking this was going to be a ‘glorified horoscope,’ but after doing some research on what went into this, and then seeing the precision of the results, I was fairly impressed. I mention ‘precision’ as everyone got a very detailed assessment, and I found that people sharing the same strengths had different things in their own assessments that were specific to how they replied to all of the questions.
With regard to my own assessment, I conducted a personal experiment. Before starting, I read through the book we were given and went online to do some background research. I then looked through their list of 34 major strength categories. I found seven that I thought definitely ‘were me,’ and wrote them down. Subsequent to taking the assessment, my five strengths were among the seven I had listed, including 4 of my top 5 and my #1 choice was in fact #1. “Not bad,” I thought … or did I subconsciously cause those to come up? Either way, it was fun.
As you can see in the title graphic above, by strengths in order were; Connectedness, Individualization, Learner, Ideation and Intellection.
But this presentation isn’t so much about my results. What really got my attention through all of this process, was similarities I found between “StrengthsFinder” and the work of Stephen Covey, who wrote, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” a classic text with “powerful lessons in personal change.” I was already in the midst of analyzing Covey’s ideas and how they amazingly corresponded with kabbalistic principles of life, specifically the seven Middot, the lower sever Sefirot on the “Tree of Life.” I say ‘amazing,’ as Covey was a businessman and devout Mormon, and there’s nothing I can find about him indicating he ever had interest in Kabbalah.
Such is the nature of things though isn’t it? If someone is ‘connected,’ they will tap into the same eternal truths. (See the Intro to our Matrix study for more on this.)
So what I’ve done is convert a work PowerPoint presentation I had created, which shows the connection between the two books and added some Torah-related material for the purpose of our 13 Petals audience.
This is meant to be fun and thought-provoking. 🙂