Bring Your Training to Life with the Magic of Storytelling 10 Apr 2025, 4:41 pm

It’s the moment facilitators dread. You look into the glazed eyes of your participants and wonder, “Are they really getting it? How can I make this more interesting and relevant to them?”

So we try to jazz up our delivery by bringing more energy or taking a break, or we just plow through the content and hope for the best. But it doesn’t change much.

These are perfect moments to infuse the magical power of storytelling. Even if you don’t feel you’re a natural storyteller, you can develop and use this skill to make your training delivery more powerful, compelling, and relevant to your participants. The good news is you don’t have to look far to find great stories.

But first, why would storytelling help in those “down” moments of training.

Why Storytelling?
We humans are a storytelling species. Stories are how we make sense of the world.

Think back to your high school or even college classes. What do you remember? Sure, you gained a lot of knowledge through formulas and practice, but the concepts you remember most likely came in the form of a story or illustration.

Stories are sticky. Stories resonate with us because it puts us in the same boat. We love stories because we live stories. They are part of our day-to-day life.

A study cited in Influencer: The New Science for Leading Change and the predecessor to Crucial Influence illustrates the power of stories.

Drs. Ray Price and Joanne Martin conducted a study with three groups of graduate students. They asked each group to remember important information they shared. The first group received the data verbally. The second group was given the information verbally but also shown charts and graphs to illustrate. The third group got the information in the form of a story.

The researchers later tested the students’ ability to remember the information accurately. They found no statistical difference between how much and how accurately the first two groups remembered the information.

But the group who received the information in the form of a story remembered more of the information and remembered more accurately. Perhaps more surprising was that the story group also found the information more credible than the other two groups.

I could go on and on with the research that supports the power of stories, but the best data is your own. You’ve experienced how stories draw you in. And your stories can do that too.

Your Best Stories Are Your Stories
We’ve established that stories work, but what if you don’t have any good stories? You can’t just make stuff up, can you? Well, you could, but it’s not recommended. Your best stories are authentic, real-life experiences.

I hear people say, “But my life is boring. I don’t have any good stories.” If you think that, you’re just not looking hard enough.

If you need help finding stories, here are three tips:

1. Look for emotional reactions. When you have an experience that elicits any kind of emotional reaction, there’s likely a lesson to be learned in that experience. That’s the foundation for a good story.
2. Live the skills and pay attention. Need a good story to teach State My Path? Start some conversations with Facts/Story/Ask and take note of what you learn. Need to illustrate how the Six Sources of Influence help diagnose a problem? Try it out and track the results. When you’re looking for examples, the universe often sends them to you.
3. Ask around. If you can’t come up with a good experience, ask others. You can often borrow their stories until you find your own. Just make sure you give attribution (e.g., “My friend…” or “Another trainer shared about a time…”)

Storytelling Is a Skill
The other common objection I hear regarding storytelling is, “But I’m not a natural storyteller. It’s not a skill I have.”

Think of a skill you’re currently good at. Sports. Music. Reading. Tiddlywinks. Chances are you weren’t always good at it. How did you develop that skill?

Practice. That practice likely started with some guidance from someone who already knew the skill.

Storytelling is a skill, so you can develop it the same way you develop other skills. Learn the fundamentals, get guidance, practice, and improve. Just like other skills, you won’t be perfect at first. But the more you practice, the better you’ll get.

You don’t need to be a natural storyteller to enjoy the power of storytelling. You just need a willingness to share your unique experiences as relatable, impactful narratives.

When energy wanes or participants aren’t connecting to content, tap into the power of storytelling to bring the magic back to your workshops.

Go tell your stories. There’s magic in that.

For a deeper dive on storytelling fundamentals, watch Mark’s webinar, “Beyond Fables and Fairytales: Using Storytelling to Teach with Impact.”

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Addressing Harassment and Advocating for Yourself 2 Apr 2025, 6:47 am

Dear Crucial Skills,

I’m a university instructor and I have a student who’s experiencing harassment from her roommate. Housing services won’t provide a room change despite available vacancies. The stress is affecting her performance in school. What can I do to help her?

Signed,
Professor

Dear Professor,

Seeing someone we care about struggle in a difficult situation is often harder than struggling ourselves. I commend you for wanting to help. My assumption is that your university has policies and procedures around reporting, investigating, and handling harassment. I would first encourage you to seek out and familiarize yourself with that process. There is likely a process through which you can report the harassment yourself, on behalf of your student, hopefully with her consent.

Now, there is some evidence in your question that the harassment your student is experiencing is either not documented sufficiently or not damaging enough to qualify as harassment under your university’s policies. Let me be clear and careful here. I do not imply that when a university student says she is being harassed we should do anything other than take her at her word. At the same time, two things strike me about your question:

1. Housing services has declined to make a room change despite available vacancies.  There could be several reasons for this. Perhaps your student has not provided sufficiently clear examples of harassment or advocated for herself.  Perhaps the housing staff who evaluated her complaint is untrained or lacking knowledge in the area of harassment policies. Perhaps the roommate’s behavior is annoying and irritating but not harassing.
2. You are asking advice from the authors of Crucial Conversations, not your university’s student counseling center, human resources department, or other university resource. You seem to believe the dialogue could be a helpful part of the solution here.

Again, let me be clear: harassment should be reported and addressed. Full stop.

And, in the spirit of Crucial Conversations, I offer this suggestion: teach your student to advocate for herself—with her roommate, with housing services, and with any others. Here are three tips she, and anyone, can use to better advocate for themselves.

Start with Facts

What are the specific behaviors of her roommate that are problematic? What is her roommate saying or doing that is causing the concern? Focusing on facts does not mean that the conclusion of harassment is inaccurate. It simply creates a powerful foundation for the conversation. She will likely get more traction with housing services if she explains the roommate’s behavior and then says something like, “Because these behaviors are ongoing and consistent, in my opinion they rise to the level of harassment.”

Seek to Understand

Often when we advocate for ourselves, we fail to consider other points of view. However, considering other viewpoints can help us reach resolution. Single-minded, self-interested advocacy is less effective than collaborative dialogue.

Yes, advocate for yourself with passion. But remember this rule of effective dialogue: you can advocate for yourself only to the same degree that you try to understand the other person’s perspective.

What is going on in the roommate’s life that may be contributing to the problematic behaviors? What about their culture or upbringing may lead them to believe these behaviors are acceptable? What are the policies that the student housing administrators are trying to follow?

Asking these questions doesn’t take anyone off the hook for bad behavior. It allows you (or more importantly your student) to see the other side, which will ultimately strengthen your advocacy and her advocacy.

Find Common Ground

Starting with facts (your perspective) and seeking to understand the other person (their perspective) are crucial because they lay the groundwork for the most important part of dialogue—finding common ground. We describe common ground or mutual purpose as the entrance condition to dialogue. Without it, there is no reason to engage in the conversation or hope for a resolution.

Your instinct to help is commendable. Respect her as an adult and help her by teaching her to advocate for herself.

Emily

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How to Deliver Feedback Gently 26 Mar 2025, 9:40 am

Dear Crucial Skills,

A coworker of mine recently told our manager he’s scared of me. When I learned of this, I was shocked. I had no idea. I assume it’s because I’m a marketing manager and it’s my job to review all his work. He’s a perfectionist, and I’ve noticed he gets defensive when I point out mistakes in his work. So I’ve tried to be less critical and let minor mistakes slide. Now the same thing is happening with another coworker—she has told the manager she’s scared of me. I wish they would just tell me. How can I address this issue, and what can I do if people are ‘scared’ of me because it’s my job to provide feedback?

Signed,
Not Scary

Dear Not Scary,

Your question resonates with me. I, too, am a marketing manager and I, too, have most certainly put relationships at risk by doing what I felt was simply my job. In the early days, bolstered by all sorts of excitement for my new career and a strong desire to do a good job, I wielded my red editor’s pen with reckless abandon.

As I reviewed and edited emails, articles, website copy, and such, I believed a job well done was to return the draft to its owner graffitied by red ink. And believe me when I say I excelled at this work—much to the chagrin of my colleagues.

Never did it occur to me that my role as an editor—and my enthusiasm for being the most accurate one—would inherently rub others the wrong way. Never did it occur to me that others would see my genuine intentions to do good work as a drain on their energy and a ding to their contribution.

It took years of interacting with coworkers and listening to some tough feedback for me to see that there could be a better way. To assume I could not be a good editor without offending people (even if it was unintentional) was a Fool’s Choice. There was a way to be both good at my job and more considerate to my colleagues. I could edit work in a way that would put our company in the best light possible, without causing unnecessary pain to my teammates.

The Fool’s Choice is a false dilemma we often make that suggests we face only two options—both of them bad. In your case, it might be that you can be a good editor whose feedback hurts and offends people, or you can be a bad editor and spare people’s feelings. In reality, we face several choices—some of them good. Simply put, the Fool’s Choice occurs when we get stuck in “or” thinking rather than “and” thinking. What if you could be a good editor AND spare people’s feelings?

Finding resolution requires that you refuse the Fool’s Choice and look for ways to both accomplish your goals and work better with others. Here are a few ideas for providing feedback more gently.

1. Set the table. I have learned that before even beginning a relationship of editor and author/creator, it’s good to have a conversation about what that relationship looks like. Your feedback is not personal—your goal is to deliver great work. At the same time, you know that the editing process is often painful. You might even know how it feels because you too have been on the other end. However, try to reach consensus that your shared goal is to create the best product possible, and you will accomplish that as a team.
2. Share your good intent. When offering feedback that is significant or harsh, preface with your intent. Reiterate to the other person that while your feedback might feel heavy-handed, your goal is to deliver the best result possible. You could thank them for their part in the success. It’s significantly easier to edit than to write something or start a project from scratch. So, acknowledge how their contribution was integral to getting you to an excellent result.
3. Explain your feedback. While editing and providing feedback on someone’s work can feel transactional to the editor, recognize that it feels differently to those receiving the criticism. While editing someone’s work might simply be a task on your to-do list, consider the time and effort the other person put into it. Recognize how deflating it could feel to see hours of your work returned red-lined and dog-eared. So, take time to explain your feedback. Share why you made the edits you made and why you think your edits make it stronger. This extra effort might feel unnecessary to you, but it can help the other person not only process the feedback but even learn how to improve for next time.
4. Welcome feedback in return. After explaining, be willing to hear their thoughts. Perhaps they thought about it differently. Perhaps you’ll see that you could have left it as is, or that there is merit in their thought process. I’ve learned to ask myself whether the original draft is wrong or just different than I would have done it. There is a difference between accuracy and preference. If your edits relate to personal preference, consider that you could be less critical in your feedback, knowing that doing so will help others build confidence in their work.

While these tips might feel specific to the editing process, they can work anytime you’re delivering tough verbal feedback as well. Clarify the relationship and your role in giving feedback. Take time to align on your shared goals. Next, share your good intent. The feedback is intended to help the other person succeed—not tear them down. Then explain where the feedback is coming from. If it is about behavior, be specific and share facts. And finally, be open to the other’s perspective. You might uncover new information or insight that can lead to more success in the future.

I also suspect that because people are “scared of you” you won’t even be able to have these Crucial Conversations until you break the ice. You’ll need to approach your colleagues directly and share that you’re interested in finding ways to work better together. I think this humble approach will do a lot to diffuse any fear or hesitation your coworkers have around working with you.

Best of luck,
Brittney

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Rebuilding Trust with Hurt Loved Ones 19 Mar 2025, 6:48 am

Dear Crucial Skills,

Last year I developed a severe drinking problem that negatively affected both my kids, especially my nine-year-old son. He stayed with his dad while I was in rehab. I’m clean and sober now, but he still won’t stay with me, and I’m crushed by this. How can I rebuild trust with him?

Signed,
Clean and Sad

Dear Clean and Sad,

Congratulations on regaining sobriety. The work you’re now doing with your kids is the next natural step in the growth you’ve begun.

Addictions are attempts to find a shortcut to normal problems of living. Every human being has an addiction or two. We can become addicted to anger, withdrawal, pleasing, drinking, drugs or adrenaline seeking—all in an attempt to crowd out feelings of anxiety, hurt, and vulnerability.

We try to escape the natural discomforts and pain of life in ways that produce short term relief but exact long-term costs.

You’ve spent the last year learning to deal with life on life’s terms without resorting to your shortcut. My friend Stephen Covey used to say, “You can’t talk yourself out of problems you’ve behaved yourself into.” Your problem with your nine-year-old is the natural consequence of how your past behavior affected him. He learned to mistrust you. The only path forward is for you to “behave your way out.” This is a next opportunity to deal with life on life’s terms.

There is no shortcut to trust-building. His very avoidance of you is evidence of how desperately he needs you… a trustworthy you. He wouldn’t be uncomfortable around you if you didn’t matter. Ironically, every day that you patiently honor his desire to avoid you, you rebuild trust. Avoiding you is his attempt to protect himself from repeated hurts of the past. Every time you graciously validate his needs, you rebuild an emotional bank account with him. He witnesses irrefutable evidence that his needs are more important to you than your wants. You want to be with him. You want his affection. You want a connection. But rather than demand what you want, he gets to see you willingly put his desire for emotional safety first. Waiting is working. Patience is powerful.

There will come a day, later than you wish but sooner than you fear, that he will run tentatively back into your arms. He will reach out as all children do for the approval and affection that biology craves. Let it come naturally, and it will come certainly.

Best wishes,

Joseph

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Kate Abshier and Taking Teamwork to New Heights 14 Mar 2025, 8:36 am

Combining the relationship intelligence of the Strength Deployment Inventory® with the framework of Crucial Learning courses seemed like a natural fit to Kate Abshier, a seasoned trainer of both the SDI and Crucial Conversations® for Mastering Dialogue who helped test the new Crucial Teams® course last fall.

“Every time I facilitate the SDI, I mention Crucial Conversations because you’re talking about relationships, which is what the SDI is,” Abshier said. “It’s all about the conversations you have and how you approach those difficult conversations or meaningful conversations in your relationships. To have both in one class was great to experience because they’re naturally interconnected.”

Abshier was among a handful of certified trainers invited to train Crucial Teams last year when it was being developed. Crucial Learning’s product team selected Abshier because she was already certified in both the SDI and a Crucial Learning course, providing a much-needed perspective for feedback.

“I can see where we will implement it in my organization because we’re getting that request already,” Abshier said. “We receive various customized training requests from teams that either are experiencing communication challenges or are trying to understand each other’s differences, so they can work better together. People want to take their SDI results and determine how to use them to strengthen their teams, and that’s what Crucial Teams does.”

The SDI looks at an individual’s motives, conflict response, strengths, and how those strengths can be overdone. In Crucial Teams, each participant takes the assessment as prework, and those results play into the course design. The trainer helps teammates understand what makes one another tick—and why some may struggle to work together effectively.

“‘You don’t have to change who you are to change what you do,’ is a powerful statement used in the training,” she said. “We may need to adjust our approach to relationships and how we communicate with our team; however, we are not compromising who we are to become more effective in what we do.”

Abshier said she appreciates the enhanced and directed use of the SDI Platform during the training to prepare the participants to use it as an ongoing resource. 

She shared examples in the course of learners who paired up with teammates with whom they experience conflict and used the course as an opportunity to work through it.

“Crucial Teams definitely creates that unique awareness of, ‘If she’s this way, and I’m going to work with her, then I’ve got to be mindful and maybe change the way I approach things,’” Abshier said. “After completing the course, participants realize, ‘We now understand each other, and we’ll approach things differently after this training.’”

Unlike other Crucial Learning courses, Crucial Teams is designed specifically for existing teams. For the best experience, we strongly recommend that learners attend with teammates—people they work with on a regular basis.

Abshier said she could see how important it was to have direct collaborators and teammates with existing dynamics together in the course.

“They get so much more out of it because they can take their results and actually use the specific team report, for example,” she said.

Abshier taught the course in a virtual setting across three days, and she said she appreciated the time allotted for the training. She could see the value of each of the selected videos and activities.

“The New View Interview is invaluable as a cumulative approach to applying the skills taught in this training,” she said. “The example where two colleagues who have an underlying conflict and work on the same team choosing to be partners for this training activity and resolve their conflict is very effective.” 

Although the course launched recently, Abshier said she’s eager to roll it out in her organization soon.

“The audience seemed to love and value the content, and they were enthusiastic about applying what they were learning, which is the case in all of my Crucial Learning classes,” she said. “This course is high quality and well planned. The fact that Crucial Teams is designed to take your individual results and apply them with your team is so smart. It’s a refreshing, new approach to facilitate for a team. It flows well and just works.”

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Five Building Blocks for Creating Enthusiasm Around Learning Initiatives 14 Mar 2025, 7:18 am

In every organization, updating processes, ideas, and projects drive the need for new initiatives. The adage “change is the only constant” holds true in both life and in our teams—including for our learners! While we all know change happens, sometimes letting go of long-held habits, ways of working, and methods of learning requires extra effort and creativity.

Promoting and building excitement for initiatives involves a mix of strategic communication, engaging the right people, and promoting involvement. How do you create buzz around your efforts and capture the attention of people in your organization?

Match the Messaging to the Audience

First, create messaging around the idea that’s clear and compelling. We all want to know the “why” behind new initiatives and change. You can create a strong promise of value by clearly answering three key questions:

• Why does it matter?
• What problem does it solve?
• What’s in it for me?

Keep your audience in mind and adapt messaging around a new initiative to their pain points and what will resonate for them. How the message aligns with your organization’s learning culture can either propel or derail new and exciting projects.

Any time people are asked to change, they are also being asked to give up a routine, a relationship, or something familiar. Great leaders understand that change also means grief and will allow colleagues the time and space to accept new initiatives in a way that honors the emotional impact of change.

Engage Opinion Leaders

We would all like to think peer pressure is reserved for middle schoolers, but adults are as susceptible to the power of social influence as teens. Get buy-in from well-liked people in your organization who have significant social capital and engage them as standard bearers to share the message.

Part of engaging those with social influence could extend to the use of social media (LinkedIn) or internal communication tools such as Teams or Slack channels to share just in time information to maintain momentum.

Make It Fun

New initiatives and ideas can be exhilarating, but they can also be unsettling. One way to help your audience accelerate through the grief curve is through sharing their own experiences in a safe environment. Create a path for them to develop their own shareable content around the new initiative. This builds a sense of ownership and involvement.

Additionally, using a countdown to launch is a fun way to create a sense of urgency and excitement.

Tell Stories

Build an emotional connection through storytelling. Share stories of real people and real impact, especially where you can draw direct connections to your initiative and audience. Self-avowed “sister-preneurs” Janine Kurnoff and Lee Lazarus, whose business The Presentation Company helps people become strategic communicators, explain, “We are far more likely to remember stories because they ignite our right brain. Our right brain lets us take in new information and then feel and imagine things. It ignites our creative processing where we leave the realm of the known and begin to envision possible futures—beyond what is in our mental filing cabinet.” (Kurnoff, 2021)

Remember and Remind

Don’t let your initiative get lost in the day to day. Keep your team engaged by sharing progress and even roadblocks. Engage people directly by letting them know what’s coming next and asking for their feedback on progress.

New initiatives—whether for learning and development purposes or business development—have the capacity to both energize and challenge. Though mindfulness, connecting to already held values, and respecting the need to gain buy-in, leaders can shape a dynamic future in their organizations.

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What To Do When Someone Shuts You Out and Refuses to Talk 12 Mar 2025, 8:22 am

Dear Crucial Skills,

I’m in a personal situation where the other person has completely shut me out—getting back to safety is not happening. The other person will not respond—not even to emails. What is an appropriate way to make a last attempt? I’m thinking of sending one last message, something like, “If you would like to talk, please contact me. I would like to hear from you.” Then should I just wait it out? What can I do?

Signed,
Anxious

Dear Anxious,

I have learned from sad experience that not everyone values communication equally.

Never mind differences in values, sometimes our timing is not in sync. While you may benefit from having a conversation and trying to resolve conflict or find closure, it is reasonable to assume that others, at times, will weigh the benefits and risks of talking and determine that moving on, without talking, is less risky and more beneficial.

This can be incredibly difficult to accept when we find ourselves on the side of conflict that wants to work things out or find closure.

That said, there are a few things you can do.

First, let go of your desires for a specific outcome. When you let go of expectations for how or whether the other person shows up, you are free to better contemplate how you want to show up.

Second, try to think of a time in which you did not want to talk with someone who wanted to talk with you.

You currently find yourself as the pursuer of communication, but I bet with enough reflection you can recall a time when you were the pursued. What was that like? Why did you not want to communicate? Why were you unwilling to grant an audience to the person who so desperately wanted to hash things out or speak their piece or reconcile differences?

Remembering what it’s like to not want to communicate may help you empathize with the person who doesn’t want to communicate with you.

Finally, reflect on your relationship and see if you can identify anything you’ve said or done that may have influenced the other to retreat and refuse your requests, which seems inevitable given your estrangement. The easier story to tell ourselves in such situations is that the other person has given up on communication, that we are the noble and willing party, while the other is ignoble and unwilling. But there are more generous—and probably more accurate—interpretations of what’s going on inside the other person.

After you’ve looked hard at yourself, write the email. What you’ve suggested may suffice: “If you would like to talk, please contact me.”

But if in your reflection you recalled hurtful things you’ve said or done, you might also offer an apology and airtime.

Apologize for anything you’ve said or done that may have sent the other fleeing, and offer them uninterrupted airtime to express their anger, hurt, or frustration. Offer, in short, to be the lipless receptacle for their complaints and grievances. Humility offers your best chance of restoring a sense of safety.

Should you get a response, deliver on your promise. Listen without talking. Take it on the nose. Give them the airtime.

When they have finished, thank them for sharing what they did. Then ask for permission to respond. If granted, make it clear you have heard them.

If you have hurts that you need to share, hold onto them for a while. Don’t risk safety before it has stabilized. If the conversation progresses, you may ask the other person if they are ready to hear your complaints. If they aren’t, honor that. You may need to slowly and reassuringly hold the conversation over days and weeks.

I’m not suggesting you take responsibility for the other person’s emotions or subject yourself to abuse. Essentially I’m suggesting you give the other person a sense of control over whether, when, and how the conversation unfolds—and guide them in that process. Try to make it clear you will only go conversationally where you’re invited to go. Remember, you may not be invited. If that’s the case, go back to step one.

This is a high road, and not an easy one to walk. It will require courage, patience, and discipline on your part. Yet that is the stuff on which enduring relationships are built.

If that isn’t hard enough, consider this: Your email may get ignored. Then, six months later, out of the blue, this person may want to talk, and you will have moved on. You very well could find yourself not wanting to communicate. What would you do?

Restoring safety in personal relationships that have been strained to the point of silence and separation is rarely linear or predictable, and certainly not guaranteed. You likely have a circuitous and arduous path ahead.

But, like many challenging paths in life, it can be richly rewarding and worth the work.

I hope you find the peace and resolution you seek.

Ryan

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How does the SDI compare to Clifton Strengths Finder? 26 Feb 2025, 10:05 am

This is the fourth article in a series that addresses the numerous questions we’ve received about how the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) compares to other workplace personality assessments. This installment looks Clifton Strengths Assessment (CSA), previously known as Strengths Finder. Previous articles covered MBTI, DISC, and the Big Five.

What is a Strength?

The S in SDI and CSA both stand for Strength. Same word, but vastly different meanings. Understanding how the two assessments define strength is key to understanding the differences between the assessments themselves.

Clifton Strengths is about individual talent. In this assessment, strengths refers to the behaviors that one person does well and that help them accomplish things.

The Strength Deployment Inventory is about personality and relationships. Strengths refers to behaviors that are deployed in service of underlying motives.

Overview of Clifton Strengths

The CSA offers two reports: an abbreviated report that shows a person’s top five strengths, and a full report that shows the ranking of 34 strengths, or talents, which include labels like Analytical, Maximizer, and Woo. These 34 strengths are grouped into four domains:

1. Executing: how you make things happen.
2. Influencing: how you influence others.
3. Relationship-Building: how you build and nurture strong relationships.
4. Strategic Thinking: how you absorb, think about, and analyze information.

The CSA is named after author and researcher Don Clifton, who introduced the assessment in 1999. It was followed in 2001 by a book co-authored with Marcus Buckingham. The assessment has been known by a few names over the years (including Strengths Finder) and got its current name in 2015.

Overview of Strength Deployment Inventory

The SDI, introduced in 1971, and based on Elias Porter’s theory of relationship awareness, provides four independent but connected views of a person, two of which are about personality, and two of which are about behavior at work.

Personality

The first view is called the Motivational Value System (MVS) and shows how three primary motives blend or integrate in a person when things are going well and they feel best about themselves and their relationships. There are seven MVS types, all of which are a blend of three primary motives—concerns for People, Process, and Performance.

The second view is called the Conflict Sequence and shows how motives shift when people experience conflict. There are 13 Conflict Sequence types.

Behavior

The third view is called the Strengths Portrait, and it shows how a set of twenty-eight strengths are prioritized in working relationships, from most likely to deploy to least likely to deploy.

The fourth view is called the Overdone Strengths Portrait, and it shows how those twenty-eight strengths can appear to others when expressed with too much frequency, duration, intensity, or in the wrong context.

The SDI is intended to promote self-discovery and generate insights that can be applied to improve relationships. SDI results are intended to be used to build self-awareness and interpersonal awareness in training and development efforts, not as an assessment of talent.

The Positive Psychology Connection

Don Clifton and Elias Porter both have connections to positive psychology, which, to oversimplify, is essentially the study of what is right with people instead of what is wrong with people. But Clifton came to it from a diagnostic background, having operated a personnel selection company before merging with Gallup in 1988. Porter, on the other hand, came to positive psychology from a therapeutic background, as a significant contributor to Carl Rogers’ Client Centered Therapy, which was published in 1951.

Application of Results

With CliftonStrengths, the focus for application is to orient one’s life around one’s top talents. For example, if you are a Maximizer, you should seek out opportunities that let you measure your performance and compare against others or standards. If your top strengths include Analytical and Intellection, you should seek opportunities to process data and design workflows.

CliftonStrengths advocates focusing on strengths and not worrying too much about weaknesses. The idea is that if you just concentrate on what you do best, in terms of talent, you’ll be so busy doing great work that you won’t need to develop your lesser talents. As an example, if you are supremely talented at electrical work, but not talented with plumbing, you should be an electrician and not worry about plumbing. And there is no such thing as being too talented in one area.

With the SDI, the focus is on first understanding the underlying motives that reflect personality – both when we are at our best and when we experience conflict. With regards to behavior, the focus is on becoming more agile in the use of strengths so you can get better results with other people. It’s about choosing your behaviors with the outcomes you want in mind.

The SDI also recognizes that strengths can be overdone even to point of becoming weaknesses. An overdone strength, such as trusting becoming gullible, is a well-intended behavior that is used too frequently, with too much duration, or unwelcome intensity, which can trigger conflict in relationships.

Using the SDI and CliftonStrengths Together

The SDI and CliftonStrengths maintain different definitions of strengths. Both definitions are valid, but those differences lead to measuring different things, which can be complementary in training, development, or coaching settings. A discussion that includes people’s talents and motives can reveal something greater than the sum of its parts. It can cause people to think about how and why they developed their talents, and how their effective use makes them feel worthwhile as a person, and even how they may feel conflicted when their talents are not utilized or valued at work.

In summary, CliftonStrengths is about identifying existing talents, while SDI is about understanding personality and its influence on behavior in relationships.

March 3, 2025: This article was edited by the author to remove an outdated critique of CSA.

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How to Bring Up a Sensitive Subject with Your Spouse 19 Feb 2025, 9:55 am

Dear Crucial Skills,

My wife has a good job and is an overachiever. Prior to the Covid pandemic, I had a great job that paid well, and at the time I made more than her. Then I lost my job and struggled for about a year before landing a job that pays less. My wife, on the other hand, was promoted and given a raise during this time, so now she makes more than I do. She SAYS it makes no difference, but I’ve noticed changes in our relationship and how she treats me. Should I bring this up to her? How do I confront her behavior and what appears to be a lack of respect?

Signed,
Disrespected

Dear Disrespected,

Yes, you should bring this up. Few relationships ever get better by not talking about problems. But before you do, I think you have some work to do to prepare for the conversation.

Let’s start with your use of all caps when you write, “She SAYS it makes no difference…” While I can’t know for sure why you chose to use all caps, I assume you did for emphasis. The story I am telling myself about your use of all caps is that you have brought the issue up with your wife before, she has assured you that she respects you, and you don’t fully believe or trust her. That is probably worth exploring. Why don’t you believe her? Is she dishonest in other aspects of your relationship? Or is it because you believe you have incontrovertible evidence to the contrary?

You didn’t mention the former, that your wife is routinely dishonest and you don’t trust what she says. So, for our purposes here, let’s assume it is the latter—despite what your wife says, you have noticed changes in the relationship and how she treats you. You seem to believe that her actions prove her diminishing respect.

There are two plausible explanations for the behavior you are now noticing. First, the behavior existed before but you simply didn’t notice it or didn’t interpret it as a lack of respect. This may be because you were confident and secure in yourself. You didn’t have any doubts about your standing in the relationship, perhaps in part because you made more money than she did and that created a sense of self and security for you. If your own self-image has been shaken by your relatively lower income, you would likely be primed to notice behavior you haven’t noticed before and attribute it to her disrespect. If this is the case, your challenge is not talking to your wife about her possible disrespect. Your challenge is to find a sense of self-respect that is not tied to your economic contribution being higher than hers.

The second possible explanation for the changes you have noticed is that there are indeed real changes in her behavior. You don’t share what behaviors you have noticed, so we can’t draw many conclusions or validate the conclusion you have drawn. Suffice it to say, almost all relational behaviors change over time. Very few people behave in a relationship the same way, year in and year out. Indeed, few of us would want to exist in such a stagnant, stale relationship.

If her behaviors have changed, there could be numerous possible explanations, including:

• She doesn’t respect you (your explanation).
• She is tired and stressed because of the changes in her new role.
• There are other relationships in her life that are impacting her (e.g. aging parents, teenagers, polarized friendships).
• She is experiencing a change in her own mental health.

While your explanation for her behavior change is certainly plausible, it also centers on you—you are the primary influence on her behavior. I encourage you to remove yourself from the center and consider other factors that could be impacting her behavior. Doing so should open you up to a richer, fuller exploration with your wife of these behaviors.

When you are ready to have the conversation, start with your intent. Why are you bringing this up?

For example:

“I care about you, and I care about our relationship. It is important to me that, as situations and circumstances change, we build a relationship that is both flexible and resilient.”

Then start with your facts. Be specific about what you have noticed. Simply saying “I have noticed that your behavior towards me as changed” is not going to cut it. Cite specific behavioral incidences that suggest patterns or changes.

Next, tell your story. This would be a good time to acknowledge her previous reassurances and share why you haven’t been able to accept them. For example:

“I am worried that, now that our incomes have changed, you don’t respect me in the same way. I know you have said the income reversal doesn’t matter, but because of the pattern of these behaviors, I am worried that it does, and you feel disloyal in sharing that with me.”

Finally, ask for her perspective and do your best to listen and believe her.

As a bonus tip I would add a great finish to this conversation from Terry Real. After you have shared what you are seeing, the story you have told yourself, and how it makes you feel, let your wife know what would help you feel better. Articulating for yourself and for her what you need is a crucial step forward.

Without a doubt, changes in income can have an impact on relationship dynamics. Working though those changes, both what they mean to you and your relationship, can allow for a stronger healthier relationship that isn’t dependent on a rigid hierarchy of income.

Emily

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Strengthening Team Relationships: The Why Behind Crucial Teams 14 Feb 2025, 10:56 am

“The more aware we are of what makes us tick, the more aware we are of what makes others tick, the more aware we are of the impact we make on each other’s feelings, the more empowered we become to control the outcomes of our relationships with others.”

—Dr. Elias Porter, psychologist and creator of the Strength Deployment Inventory®

What factors play into a team’s ability to perform well? The answer might surprise you. According to our recent research study, it wasn’t the size of the team, the type, or even whether the group was homogenous or diverse. Rather, what matters most is how strong the relationships are between team members.

This finding is exactly why we’ve launched our brand new Crucial Teams® course. Built on the relationship intelligence of the Strength Deployment Inventory, Crucial Teams helps learners better understand themselves AND their teammates to turn personality differences from a source of friction into a source of strength. 

“During the course, teammates draw on the Strength Deployment Inventory to explore their own and each other’s motives, the different strengths each member brings to the team, the behaviors that can trigger conflict in the team, and how each person uniquely reacts to conflict,” explained Master Trainer Justin Hale, principal consultant of learning design and research at Crucial Learning. “They discuss and explore these insights with each other and learn how to apply them in their interactions.”

The additional understanding can have a tangible impact on various team performance outcomes, too. In our recent survey of 800 professionals, those who reported having strong relationship factors also reported that they:

• Waste less time and money than when these relationship factors aren’t present
• Adapt to change to stay competitive, improve efficiency and processes, and/or develop new products or services
• Have clear performance standards and expectations that everyone understands
• Report a higher quality of the team’s work
• Achieve team goals
• Meet deadlines

These tangible results matter, but to me, the arguably greater effect is the psychological safety and improved happiness that comes from working on a team where you assign positive intent to others’ actions and can understand one another’s motives, conflict triggers, and strengths.

My first taste of the SDI’s power to mend broken workplace relationships came in January 2024, just weeks after Crucial Learning acquired Core Strengths, when we gathered as a company in Salt Lake City. We’d all taken the SDI before the conference so that at the event, we could dive into the SDI in a classroom setting. Of all the luck, the colleagues with whom I had the most conflict were at my table!

Sure enough, as the workshop wore on, I gained more and more understanding of why we kept butting heads. The crowning moment was when one of them tapped me on the arm, pointed to his Strengths Portrait, and then gave me a high five—my top strength of Quick to Act was dead last on his list! It was a lightbulb moment, seeing that where I felt like he was lagging, he felt like I was nagging.

We walked away understanding the need to meet in the middle, and we’ve navigated that dynamic well in the year since. I’m thrilled that now others can experience similar insights and improved collaboration through our new Crucial Teams course.

How can you help the teams with which you work similarly improve relationships and team performance? Justin Hale offered these four tips from the Crucial Teams course:

• Identify At-Risk Relationships: Think about a handful of relationships on your team that impact results you care about. First, rate the quality of each relationship from 1 to 10. Then rate how the quality of the relationship impacts those aforementioned results. By doing this, you can more accurately understand which relationships need the most attention. Remember, a team is a collection of personalities held together—or torn apart—by the relationships among them.
• Mind Your Wake: There are behaviors we do that help us succeed, but sometimes we can overdo them—turning a strength into a weakness when we do it too much or in the wrong context. Being helpful is great until you’re smothering, for instance, or persevering is admirable until it becomes stubbornness. Consider the frequency, duration, and intensity of your strengths to ensure they aren’t irritating others.
• Cultivate Curiosity to Build Respect: If you’re having conflict in a team relationship, try to understand the other person’s motivation. How might their behavior help them feel good about themselves? What is the most generous interpretation you can give? Ask them, “Why is this important to you?” “What do you care most about on this project?” The more the other person feels understood, the more respect you’ll build.
• Speak Their Language: Have the other person’s value system in mind when discussing a project together. Are they most concerned about the people involved? The process? The results? Small shifts in focus help them know that you care, you respect them, and you value their unique contributions.

If you want to share the research and why behind Crucial Teams with others, access and pass along the Why Crucial Teams? overview. 

If you’re ready to bring Crucial Teams to your organization, contact your senior client advisor today. Not sure who that is? Contact us. While we do offer a Crucial Teams trainer certification course, those who are already certified in a Crucial Learning course and/or the SDI assessment may want to consider the Fast Track certification program, but specific prerequisites apply. Learn more by downloading our resource, Three Paths to Certification.

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