Deliberative & Dinner

Imagine two friends meeting up for dinner at a new restaurant. The first person knows exactly what they want to eat a few seconds after scanning the menu. The other person needs a few minutes after the server first checks in.

Maybe the person who has their mind made up isn’t picky. Maybe they really know food and already scouted Yelp reviews. Either way, they’ve locked in their final answer.

The other person is processing. In their mind, they are making a pro / con list.

Do I want to eat the healthy option? Do I want the special? What did I have for lunch? Am I allergic to broccoli?

They are considering possibilities deeply. Their dining partner may think of this as indecision, but maybe they just have a preferred dinner choice algorithm in their head that’s calculating and they simply need the right amount of time and all of the information to come to the best decision.

How I think about Deliberative

Most work decisions are more complex than deciding what to order for dinner.

But it’s how I like to think about those with high Deliberative talents. Their coworkers might think they get “stuck in the mud”, unable to make a quick decision. But Deliberative talents can help avoid risk by thinking carefully through decisions and ensuring we’re making informed choices.

Apologies to anyone from Oklahoma, but I once ordered sushi at a restaurant in Oklahoma City. That was a bad choice by me. I wish I had leaned on my Deliberative talent a bit more to consider how close the nearest ocean was before deciding where to eat.

Deliberative folks need to let an idea breathe. They need to read a full report. They don’t always want to jump to the conclusion and act, they want to let things cook.

That’s the super power of Deliberative. As an executing theme, Deliberative is about the process related to how we get things done. It’s actually #6 for me.

Yeah, I’m the guy who has a hard time deciding what to order at dinner.

Here is my first of many Basketball analogies

Deliberative happens to be the only executing them in my Top 10. And that’s cool!

I often work with people who feel a little down about what they have in their Top 5 and what they don’t have. We can get “Strengths-envy” and feel lesser because of what isn’t on the list instead of focusing on what we do have.

The good news is that we all have each of the 34 talents.

That’s right. These are a categorization of all 34 talent themes, ranked in order of intensity. Think of it like a college basketball rankings. Your top 5, that’s like Duke, Kansas, UConn, Kentucky and North Carolina. Blue blood schools, perennial winners that are usually in the mix. Talents ranked 6-10, those are still very good teams! They will be #2 and #3 seeds in the NCAA tournament, very capable of winning it all.

Now when you get a bit lower… still good teams! Maybe they lost to a D-II school early in the season. Maybe they are streaky. You have that talent, but it’s not as consistent. It has to work harder to get out of conference play.

And when we get to our 29-34, well again – those talents are still there. They are on the bubble. They have good players, but they just can’t compete with your top talents. Maybe one makes a Cinderella run like Jimmy V’s 1983 N.C. State team. But otherwise, you wouldn’t invest as much effort into those teams.

Let’s say you were a coach and you got to pick any of those programs to take over. You’d choose a team in the Top 5 or 10. That’s the idea behind CliftonStrengths. You are the coach and you should give and seek investment in the things that you are good at naturally.

Deliberatively working with Deliberative

For me, getting things done and making things happen quickly isn’t always easy. But luckily, I have other strengths that help me achieve my goals effectively. Do I want to get it done, or get it right? Hopefully both, but the path isn’t always linear.

That brings me back to Deliberative. I worked with someone who notoriously took a long time to make important decisions.

They always needed several reminders as deadlines approached, nudging them to approve something. They wanted a long email with all of the data, evaluation and pro/cons of the matter before reaching a decision.

For many people, it was super frustrating.

When our organization invested in CliftonStrengths, I learned that Deliberative was their top talent. That’s when I began to understand them differently.

They made extensive lists of options, did thorough research, brought everyone to the table for feedback and deeply mitigated risk before proceeding.

They weren’t indecisive, they were simply cautious.

What did I learn from working with them? They didn’t rush to judgment. They exercised restraint. They made our team better.

Whether the Deliberative talent on your team shows up in you or in someone else, think about how it serves the group. That person enjoys having the ability to use their Deliberative talent.

And if you’re both Deliberative, definitely try to catch a meal together so that nobody feels rushed when ordering!