Strengths-based team development with a Gallup Certified Coach. Helps a leadership team understand and lean into its natural talents — and stop trying to fix what was never the problem.
The instinct is understandable. Something's broken, fix it. Sand off the edges. Smooth out the bumps. Build the leader who can do everything reasonably well.
The CliftonStrengths approach, backed by decades of Gallup research, points the other way. People grow most in the direction of their natural talents, not their weaknesses. Teams perform best when each person leans into what they're naturally pulled toward and shares the rest. Trying to be balanced makes everyone average. Leaning into strengths makes a team distinctive.
The work of this programme is making your team's strengths visible, naming them, and rewiring how the team uses them in service of its actual goals.
Tailored after a discovery call. The components below are the building blocks; specific format depends on team size, goal, and time.
Top 5 for every team member (30 minutes per person). Full 34 for the leader. Codes purchased and distributed; James handles all admin.
Three hours with the full team. Names every theme out loud, builds a team strengths map, surfaces where strengths overlap and where they don't. Each person leaves understanding their own top 5 and seeing the team's distribution.
Optional second session that translates the map into specific operating-rhythm changes (how meetings are run, how decisions get made, who pairs with whom on what). For deeper engagements, one-to-one strengths conversations with each team member.
90-minute one-to-one with the leader on the Full 34 ranking. Surfaces the lower-ranked themes that explain friction and the upper-ranked themes that explain leverage. Builds a personal leadership playbook out of it.
Short follow-up session a month after the main work. Tests what stuck, what didn't, and what needs another pass. The difference between a workshop and a real shift is usually whether this happens.
CliftonStrengths is an assessment developed by Gallup that identifies your natural patterns of thought, feeling, and behaviour across 34 themes. Top 5 surfaces the five strongest themes; Full 34 ranks all 34, including the lower-ranked themes that are usually the source of friction.
A Gallup Certified Coach is trained and licensed by Gallup to interpret CliftonStrengths results and translate them into practical team development. James Christensen completed Gallup Global Strengths Coach certification with code I8ORIXJ2F.
Yes — every person who works on the team gets their CliftonStrengths Top 5. The leader typically goes deeper with the Full 34. Cost of the assessments is included in the engagement, not billed separately.
An off-site or full-day intensive runs in one day. Half-day series runs over two to four months. Either format includes pre-assessment, the live debrief sessions, a 1:1 strengths conversation with the leader, and a follow-up touchpoint at 30 days. Best results come from teams that book a follow-up half-day at month three.
Top 5 gives you the strongest themes (where your natural pull is). Full 34 ranks every theme, which surfaces the lower-ranked ones that often explain friction in a team. For most teams, Top 5 for everyone plus Full 34 for the leader is the sweet spot.
Short conversation about your team and what you'd want this work to do. James designs a proposal from there.
Email james@christensencoaching.com