Podcasts Business Lead Through Strengths Career Branding When Maximizer Is Your Strength

Career Branding When Maximizer Is Your Strength

Published: Dec. 30, 2018, 8:30 a.m.

I get a whole lot of questions about how to amplify your CliftonStrengths talent theme of Maximizer with your career.

In this series, I break down one strength per post \u2014 so that you can add to the insights from your StrengthsFinder report and make a better alignment between your job and your strengths.

- If you\u2019re exploring this concept as a manager, use this series for career development ideas and even new clues about responsibilities you could give a person with this talent theme so that they can show up at their best.

- If you\u2019re exploring this concept for yourself, use this as a chance to build a reputation for your strengths so that you\u2019re more likely to be given assignments that live in your strengths zone.

You\u2019ll get three layers to chew on:

1. Career Branding

2. Red Flag Situations At Work

3. Fresh Application Ideas

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Career Branding When Maximizer Is Your Strength

You probably already have a reputation for what you know. Think about your personal resume, CV, or your LinkedIn profile, I bet it's full of \u201cthe what,\u201d which are things like job titles, skills, knowledge, expertise, or the degree you earned. What\u2019s missing is usually "the how,\u201d and this is where your StrengthsFinder talent themes live.

Chances are good that you are a lot like my StrengthsFinder training clients, where you don\u2019t physically see your teammates and customers every day. That\u2019s why LinkedIn has become so important for career branding. It\u2019s how your teammates, customers, and vendors go look you up before a meeting - to see who they\u2019re about to talk to. And rather than only telling them what you know, you should also give them a peek at how it is to work with you.

So here are a bunch of Maximizer-related adjectives to consider using in your career branding efforts and your LinkedIn profile:

  • Efficient
  • Sorters
  • Selective
  • Persuaders
  • Strengths-Oriented
  • Choosy
  • Challengers
  • Always Refining
  • Never Done
  • Transformers
  • Excellence-Seekers
  • Tinkerers
  • Iterators
  • Quality Boosters
Red Flag Situations For Maximizer

These are the cultures, interactions, or situations that feel like soul-sucking drudgery to someone with the talent theme of Maximizer. They might even make you want to quit the team. So I\u2019ll give you a couple of these to be on watch for \u2014 because if they fester, you might get the urge to quit the job or become detached and disengaged at work.

Here are two Red flags for Maximizer:

  1. Premature Launch. If you lead through Maximizer, you naturally focus on quality. You have high expectations, and it hurts to hand over a work product before it meets your quality standard. So if you\u2019re on a team that values quantity over quality, you\u2019ll likely get frustrated. Also, if you find that a work product has huge potential\u2026if only you could do this to it\u2026(only to find out there\u2019s no time or budget to allow it to live up to its potential), it will make your Maximizer sad.
  2. Weakness-Focused Culture. Maximizer is a talent theme that is naturally aligned with a strengths-focused culture. If you find yourself part of a team that obsesses over weaknesses and problems and what\u2019s wrong, you\u2019ll be yearning to flip things around. Sometimes your strengths point of view will be refreshing and welcomed, but if you find that it\u2019s dismissed, you\u2019ll feel drained by only working on what\u2019s broken rather than getting the high leverage out of strengths.
3 Fresh Application Ideas for Maximizer

These are ways to apply the talent theme of Maximizer at work, even when the job duties on the team feel pretty locked in. If you\u2019re exploring this concept as a team manager, be sure to have a conversation around these ideas. You\u2019ll both be able to come up with places to apply them.

For someone who leads through Maximizer, put this talent to good use with one of these options:

  1. When the rest of the team can\u2019t see potential in a project or person. The Maximizer talent sees potential all over. So you could apply this to a change that people are resisting, or a future vision that needs to be created. You can even turn on the Maximizer talent to bring an inspirational message to help other people see \u201cwhat can be."
  2. When you need incremental improvement over time. People with the Maximizer talent don\u2019t need to constantly work on exponential change. They get a charge out of incremental improvements that compound over time. If you need someone who can help you realize potential over the long-haul, tap into the powers of the Maximizer who loves to test and experiment and iterate to continually improve something.
  3. When you want to go from good to great. People who lead through Maximizer rarely rest on their laurels. Good isn\u2019t good enough. They like to make things better and better and better. They\u2019re constantly asking \u201cwhat if we did this\u201d or \u201cI wonder what it could be like if we tried this\u201d - they\u2019re looking to get the most out of things, so they\u2019re chasing efficiencies and mastery all the time. If you want someone who doesn\u2019t get bored with continuous iteration, tap your Maximizers.

So there you have it. It\u2019s a quick tour for building your career through the talent theme of Maximizer. So, here\u2019s your homework:

  1. Go take action on your LinkedIn profile with the career branding section. Challenge yourself to write one sentence in the Summary section of LinkedIn that captures how you collaborate as a teammate at work.
  2. Then think over the red flags to see if there\u2019s anything you need to get in front of before it brings you down.
  3. And finally, volunteer your talents through the application ideas. And if you\u2019re a manager, have a conversation with your team members about which of these things sound like something they\u2019d love to have more of.
Rock Your Talents As A Team

If you\u2019re thinking about doing a virtual or in-person event to kick off your strengths-based culture, head on over to our training page to see if our current offerings are a good fit for you. Until next time, thank you for being part of this powerful strengths movement that helps people unleash the awesomeness already inside them.

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