Ideation & Introduction

Welcome to the Cahen Ambler Blog!

I used to do a good amount of blogging back when the world wide web was just an infant, so I’m excited to use this space to talk about CliftonStrengths.

Speaking of back in the day, here’s my Strengths origin story.

I first took the “StrengthsFinder” assessment in 2011. I was a relatively young professional who had just been promoted and was, for the first time, assigned to supervise other full-time staff members. My supervisor sent me a leadership and management conference and it was all about Strengths. I spent the week learning about discovering our talents and using them to lead others.

Very quickly, I was smitten with Strengths.

When I discovered that my #1 talent theme was Ideation, it was a pretty cool feeling. Coming up with an idea or creating something new has always revved up my brain like an engine. Just sitting down to type this entry has me thinking about dozens of different directions to take this in.

Whether Ideation is a talent of yours or not, I hope to provide some insight here to help you understand the talent and be able to talk more comfortably about it.

How I talk about Ideation

People with high Ideation often have the ability to take complex information and unravel it for others, presenting it in more easily understood forms.

That’s my goal for this blog.

I plan to create entries for each of the 34 talents and talk about it in ways that help us understand it… differently. I’ll do that by using stories, anecdotes, metaphors and even references to popular culture to illustrate examples that are supported by Gallup’s definitions.

I’ve been told a time or two that I have a knack for making complex subjects more digestible with (sometimes off-the-wall) analogies and metaphors. So please follow along if that style suits you!

The Ideation talent can help us connect the dots for others.

If you lead with this, can you think about ways you have done this in the past? Does it energize you when someone is having trouble with a subject and you know exactly how to make it make sense? Do things sometimes just pop in your head and you have no idea where it came from, but it worked?

That’s your talent at work!

The Two Sides of Talents

I think of all talents as they are developing as having a good side and a bad side.

It’s like having this mythical superpower that we need to learn to harness for good. But with that, there’s also some aspect of that talent that’s our “kryptonite” that we need to stay clear of.

Here’s a visual that just “popped” into my head that helps me think about both sides of our talents. Remember popcorn machines before microwaves?

They looked like this:

You’d take a cup of Orville Redenbacher’s finest kernels and put them into the machine. A few minutes later the action would begin.

Some corn would pop perfectly right away.

Some would take a few minutes but turn out just fine.

Some wouldn’t pop at all.

And of course sometimes, you’d burn a handful.

That’s kind of how ideas work in an brain that has Ideation as a dominant talent.

As you’re developing the talent, the ideas are always popping.

With more experience, you know how to filter out the bad ideas from the start, perhaps even by using some of your other talents as a filter. It’s ok to burn a few kernels in the quest for good popcorn, and over time you’ll develop the skill in a way where you’ll very rarely burn a single kernel.

Practice, whether making popcorn or pitching ideas in a meeting, makes near-perfect.

Ideation is a great talent to have. It’s been my #1 all three times I’ve taken the assessment over the last 14 years. If you lead with Ideation, keep it popping and eventually you’ll develop it into a world-class strength.

If it doesn’t come through strongly for you, appreciate those on your team who have high Ideation.

Understand that their mind is still cooking up something when they are being quiet in a meeting. They might be using their talents to think strategically in other ways, or are starting to consider how they can execute or get buy-in for what others are proposing. Our talents work in concert not just with each other, but within our own thoughts. When you know that they have Ideation, encourage it. They might love a “there are no bad ideas” permission structure.

If you can help them refine their popcorn popping skill, then maybe all you need to do is add some salt and butter so we can all enjoy.