What one dysfunctional relationship taught me about the limits of CliftonStrengths and the importance of having difficult conversations early. 

I arrived to run a CliftonStrengths workshop for a functional team. 

Before I arrived, someone had quietly mentioned there was “an issue” between two of the team. No further explanation. 

When we’d all settled, I surveyed the team. And I could feel the tension. 

 

I knew something was wrong before anyone said a word 

The meeting room was small. Everyone was squeezed around a boardroom table. Conversations were polite, but the atmosphere felt tight. People were choosing their words carefully. 

What the strengths grid told me  

Before any workshop, I spend time looking at the team’s strengths grid. The team doesn’t see it usually at this early stage of an engagement, and this was a short 2 hour introductory session. 

It’s simply one of the ways I prepare. 

A strengths grid often gives clues about how a team gets work done. And guides me in my preparation.  Lots of Relator theme, for example, often suggests I need to start with lots of one-to-one paired conversations. Other contrasting themes reveal where there could be natural tensions, especially when people with very different ways of making decisions or taking action need to work closely together. 

When differences become frustrations

Of course, strengths don’t predict conflict. But they can help explain where frustration may arise if people don’t understand what sits behind each other’s behaviour. 

Looking at this team’s grid, several contrasting themes caught my attention. 

There were people who liked to think deeply before speaking, working alongside those who trusted their instincts and were happy to make decisions quickly. 

There were people who carefully assessed risks and consequences working alongside those who wanted to get moving, learn from experience and adapt along the way. 

Neither approach is right. Neither approach is wrong. 

And there wasn’t conflict between everyone. Just two people. The Activator – let’s go and the more thoughtful considered Deliberative. 

Without a shared language, those differences can become the very things that frustrate us most about each other. 

• The reflective person starts seeing the Activator as reckless. 

• The Activator starts seeing the reflective colleague as an obstacle. 

• The risk assessor believes they’re protecting the team from mistakes. 

• The fast mover believes they’re protecting the team from paralysis. 

Both think they’re helping. 

Both think they’re doing the right thing. 

And both become increasingly frustrated. 

The stories we tell ourselves about other people 

What fascinates me is that we don’t usually get frustrated by what people do. We get frustrated by the story we tell ourselves about why they’re doing it. 

And that’s where strengths can be incredibly useful. 

It’s not because they solve conflict. But because they help us understand what might be driving behaviour before frustration hardens into something much more difficult. 

The myth that strengths can fix everything 

As much as I’d like to think it’s true, the reality is Strengths can’t fix everything. 

Least of all a dysfunctional team. Yes, I have been brought in as a last-ditch effort more than once.  And I am determined not to accept such a future engagement. There is a belief that a strengths workshop can somehow repair a team that has already reached a point of fundamental breakdown. 

It can’t. 

Using strengths at that stage is a bit like putting a sticking plaster on a severed finger. 

Understanding isn’t the same as repairing 

By the time I met this team, the need wasn’t strengths awareness. 

The issue was trust. 

The issue was this pair’s relationship. 

The issue was that positions had become entrenched. 

After the workshop, I offered individual debriefs. 

One person immediately got in touch. The other had absolutely no interest. At least, I felt, one person had left this engagement with a deeper insight into how their relationship had foundered.  

What if they’d had this language earlier?

What if they had seen what the other brought, and what the other needed to be their best? 

The fact is Strengths don’t change teams. People change teams.  

Yes, Strengths can provide a language and develop shared understanding. And Strengths can help people appreciate differences before frustration becomes conflict. 

But. And it is a big but. Only if people are willing to have the conversation. 

Perhaps if this team had developed that language years earlier, they would still have disagreed. 

But they might have understood each other a little better while the frustrations were still manageable. 

And sometimes that makes all the difference. 

Performance isn’t usually lost in the work. It’s lost in the friction between people.