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The Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast explores the real-world strategies behind building strong work culture, improving organizational culture, and leading with clarity in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Hosted by leadership expert Nicole Greer, this podcast features conversations with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs who are shaping modern business culture through effective communication, leadership development, and intentional management practices.
Each episode delivers practical insights into leadership and business, including topics like team communication, project management, career growth, and creating workplaces where people perform at their best.
You’ll gain actionable tools, frameworks, and leadership skills you can apply immediately through coaching concepts, real-world examples, and professional development strategies, whether you’re a manager, executive, business owner, or emerging leader.
If you're looking for guidance on building a thriving organizational culture, improving communication, or advancing your leadership career, this podcast is designed for you.
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[00:00:00] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and I am the Vibrant Coach. And I am here with Jim Collison. Let me tell you all about Jim. He is the CliftonStrengths community manager for Gallup and produces Gallup's Called to Coach and CliftonStrengths webcast found at gallup.com/CliftonStrengths. In his role he manages a global community of Gallup certified coaches, which I am one of, and helps those customers who are engaged with our CliftonStrengths assessments worldwide. In prior years, he has managed IT resources, managed a high school and college internship program for Gallup, and was a member of the Omaha STEM ecosystem managing board, and he's been with Gallup since 2007. Welcome to the show, Jim. How are you?
[00:00:52] Jim Collison: Thanks, Nicole. Great to be here.
[00:00:54] Nicole Greer: Oh, I'm so glad to have you. So I, I love CliftonStrengths. I have been using this thing for about four years now. What, what exactly is that? CliftonStrengths, what is that?
[00:01:05] Jim Collison: Well, well, first thanks for being a Gallup certified strengths coach and the commitment to that. It's important. We have about 20,000 certified coaches around the world now, which is part of my job to make sure they stay educated and motivated and get their, their questions answered. We have 30,000 that have been through the training as well. So thanks for your commitment to that. CliftonStrengths, formerly StrengthsFinder, so you might know it by both of those names. About 50 years ago, Don Clifton thought and had this idea, what if we really began to focus on those things that we're best at and minimize the things that we're not. And it was a lot of research and a lot of conversations. The tool was in development for a lot of years. It really kind of grew out of a selection instrument they built, and they began to see some consistency in those and these kind of universal talents that we all have, right? Began to group those talents together and then came up with a set of questions, now, 200 questions that helps us predict those talent themes. We call them, you know, they're named CliftonStrengths, right? But these 34 talent themes that we can kind of predict an order for you. And with that order, you can begin to have some conversations around what I'm best at. And we found in working with individuals from you know, from a standpoint of understanding yourself, and then working with others or teams especially in the workplace, we have found that to be very helpful for people to be able to have performance conversations about what they do and what they do best. So, you can purchase that, it's available at a top five form. You get five of the 34. You can buy all 34 and have access to those as well. We've done I should check the number today. But we are super close to 35 million of those being completed here. So that's a quick rundown on what is CliftonStrengths.
[00:02:57] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh. And so it's, I I think what people love is the, the fact that we're coming at it from, here's what you're good at, instead of, here's what's wrong with you and we need to fix it.
[00:03:07] Jim Collison: Yeah. Well it's, it's interesting, you know, we, when we think about the eighties and the nineties, there was a lot of conversation about it being a well-rounded person or fixing those things that you're not good at or get extra training for those kind of things. Gen Z and millennials, I think they fundamentally understand this now, I don't think I go to college campuses and have these conversations about this idea of strengths-based philosophy. And I go, can we just agree that's a great way to do this? And they all just shake their heads like, yeah, I think this makes sense. So I think the hurdle of convincing people of that today is mostly over. I think most people realize, yeah, it kind of does make sense, right? Focus on those things that I'm best at. Minimize the things that I'm not. I think the trick is to give people safe environments to be able to do that in. I think that's the next step. Understanding it is one thing. The next step is, okay, can I find a safe, psychologically safe work environment where that will be honored and then really be able to use it.
[00:04:09] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I think that's really good. Yeah. And so, what are your, what are your top five and then maybe, maybe you could explain to those who are listening, this is my top one. This is how I use it.
[00:04:20] Jim Collison: Yeah. Yeah. So top five for me, Arranger, WOO, Maximizer, Communication, Activator. And really, you know, it kind of depends on the situation I'm in as to how I'm using those. My whole job of managing, you know, 20,000 certified strengths coaches around the world and all the things that has to happen with that. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I have to talk to all of them every day, right? But there's a lot of activities. Oh, it would be virtually impossible. But the all the things that have to happen in that community, you think about all the tasks associated with that. I mean, just in the last week, I've stepped into virtually four of our training courses around the world at all times of the day.
[00:05:00] Nicole Greer: How fun for you.
[00:05:01] Jim Collison: This last night, I led a podcast in India. This morning I did our CliftonStrengths certified coach community call. Then then handling issues behind the scenes. Lots of emails coming in, lots of community stuff happening. That's all Arranger, right? That number one theme of Arranger.
[00:05:18] Jim Collison: I use that a lot. Use that Arranger, maximize your combo to get the most out of things right? How can we take something and get the absolute most out of it? But then when I'm doing it, like right now, I have this WOO/Communication, right? Two and four. And I'm spending a lot of, now, now I am in WOO/Communication mode, right? How do I influence people? How do I move people? How do I have a conversation that people want to listen to? I could go on, but there's kind of a simple explanation of, of those, of those talents in action. And then of course, the number five is Activator. So I'm always moving, like, let's do it now. In fact, I've already left. That's what tell people all the time.
[00:05:57] Nicole Greer: That's right. I'm in the car. Call me.
[00:05:59] Jim Collison: Are we going to do this? I'm I've already left. Like, it's so, it's who, who needs to start? I've already left. So those, there's a quick, there's a quick breakdown on my top five.
[00:06:09] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think the thing about sometimes our strengths too is some of us were kind of raised, you know, to, to have this thing called humility, but like, almost like the wrong kind of humility or something. And it's like, you know, don't get too big for your britches. Don't think so much of yourself, you know, help others, that kind of thing. But when you identify your top five and you start to put two and two together like you just shared, you're like, oh, that's what I do. Because almost sometimes you're so close to your strengths, you take them for granted. Like you don't realize how powerful they are or what they can accomplish.
[00:06:44] Jim Collison: Yeah. Well, it's been a 10 year journey too, like 10 years ago when I started podcasting for Gallup on this topic. You go back and listen to some of those episodes, I, I didn't know a lot. Like I was learning as I went
[00:06:56] Nicole Greer: Sure. Learning curves.
[00:06:57] Jim Collison: It was. OJT right, as we used to call it. And and so I learned a lot on the job, but talking about it a lot, spending time thinking about it every day, getting coaching, both formal and informal coaching from folks, has really helped me grow in that area.
[00:07:15] Jim Collison: And yes, I think, you know, there's a fine line between humility and boasting on some of these, but when you're, when you're in a spot where you, it's working for you. Don't keep it a secret. Like let people know, Hey, like I'm really good at this. Like, use me for these kinds of things. 'cause I'm really good at this. So often when I'm in meetings here at Gallup, we don't necessarily divide the work by responsibility. We separate it by who can get it done the best. And so oftentimes in meetings somebody's like, oh no, no, no, I'll take that. I want to take that one. That's the one I want 'cause I do that really well. So it's, yeah, could some people see that as boasting? Maybe, but it's super helpful to speed up productivity, especially 'cause there's things I don't like to do. So you know, I'm not a good note taker. I'm not really that good at follow up, just to be honest with you. I don't like those kinds of things. So whenever I have partners come along, and this is the the key here, whenever I have partners come along who offer to do that, I just always say yes. Like, of course, of course you can do that kind of stuff for me. So I appreciate that as well.
[00:08:23] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. And you said the fine line. And I think if you build a culture that talks about strengths, right? Which is part of being vibrant, right? People are alive, they're loving the work that they're doing, they're able to pass off the things that, you know, drain them. You're going to have people, what I call, lit from within, right? And they're going to really be able to enjoy their work. And, you know, when you do something that you love, you, you get in this state of flow that we've, we've heard about, right? So I, I think it's so, so important. Yeah. So when I found out that my top one was futurist, I was like, this makes all the sense to the world. I'm always talking about what else, what else? What's the potential? What's the possibility? Where could we go? What does the future hold? I've always been like that. I've always been like 10 leap years ahead.
[00:09:06] Jim Collison: It's, it's funny you mention that. We were just having a conversation at lunch today and we were spending a little time some, somebody had asked, what do you think's the big difference between strategic and futuristic? And so we spent some time thinking about those. This is at lunch. This is a Gallup lunch.
[00:09:22] Nicole Greer: Right, y'all are so nerdy.
[00:09:24] Jim Collison: Yeah. That, that's what happened today at lunch. Yeah.
[00:09:27] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And, I think it's so good. Yeah. 'Cause you, you really get close to it. And then I think once, you know, once you coach a client around their strengths, not only do they get close and recognize it, but then they can own it.
[00:09:41] Jim Collison: Yeah.
[00:09:41] Nicole Greer: Like there's an ownership or a fiduciary responsibility to your strengths.
[00:09:47] Jim Collison: Yeah, yeah. Well, we say name it, claim it, and aim it.
[00:09:49] Nicole Greer: Right? Right. We do.
[00:09:50] Jim Collison: Know what it is, accept it for who I am and then, and those are just, those are the two steps. The most important part is then aim it. How do we really use it? And I think this goes back to the humility question of how do I use it in the service of other people? That's when it gets really, really powerful. Right. We start serving each other with these themes. Yeah. Yeah. When we start helping each other on teams or in collaboration or whatever that is. Boy, then it starts to get really, really powerful, right? And so exciting to see those things happen. It's great. The discovery mode, when you're in discovery and you're finding things out about yourself and you, you know, you begin to see it for the first time. That's sheer dopamine, right? You just, your body just floods with dopamine. It feels good
[00:10:37] Nicole Greer: That's right. And you're marinating in all this good juju.
[00:10:40] Jim Collison: But nobody ever got anything done with dopamine, right? You got to eventually go out and get adrenaline or, or, or just hard work, right? To get some things done. So, I think sometimes we get stuck in a little bit of too much, what I like to call, name it, name it, and name it. All we do is we love the dopamine of naming it. Eventually we got to put those things into action, then move forward.
[00:11:03] Nicole Greer: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, I kind of alluded to it a little bit about how we've got to put it to work in our workplaces, but how have you seen people really embrace StrengthsFinders inside their culture so that they can do what I like to do, which is build a vibrant culture? How do you make this. CliftonStrengths, how do you make it cultural?
[00:11:25] Jim Collison: Well, there's a lot of different ways to it. We spend some time working with organizations and we help them do this and oftentimes it starts with a culture audit where we spend some time saying, culturally, where are you at today? How are things in the organization? We spend some time thinking about how engaged are people, what's the leadership structure look like? How are things laid out? What's going well and what's not? What's some of the values of the organization? Right? So think there's some, there's some pieces there, some pre-work that you've got to do.
[00:11:57] Jim Collison: But strengths becomes one of those tools, right? I, I, I really think this is both a strengths engagement question and then a wellbeing question, right? If any one of those is out of whack, the whole system is out of balance and it doesn't work the way it should, and so you, you've got to work on all three of those.
[00:12:15] Jim Collison: We have, we have tools that measure the engagement. We've written a couple books about wellbeing, and then of course we have this CliftonStrengths tool. And so when we think about embedding it in the culture, of course we know strengths adds a common language to performance, right? It also helps teams accelerate their, their their ability to work together and to know each other. It causes less conflict. We know in a lot of cases if we get the engagement piece right, we get safety and security and absenteeism and some of those things that plague organizations. We get those things to kind of improve, right? It's a better place to be.
[00:12:52] Jim Collison: You can't forget though, we can't have unhealthy people. Like if you're suffering, if you're physically suffering in some kind of way. Doesn't matter what you do with strengths engagement, you, you can't be engaged or be using your strengths if you're actively suffering. So we've got to make sure that from a wellbeing standpoint, that the whole being is taken care of.
[00:13:11] Jim Collison: So it's complex, it's not easy. I think a lot of folks are like, oh, okay, add a couple things. Yeah, we're, we're doing this right. But building vibrant cultures takes a lot of intentional work to get in there, and I definitely think it takes a plan.
[00:13:27] Nicole Greer: Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I think that the number one thing is that, like I've got Jim here, he's leading this whole community of 20,000 coaches, and he's very aware of what his strengths are and at first they were talents and he is turned them into strengths. And he's named it, aimed it and he claimed it, but he's still having conversations at lunch about it. Right. So I think the leader that embeds it in the culture is talking about it and doing it, you know, like it's lead by example. The old lead by example.
[00:13:55] Jim Collison: It does take managers leading by example, but it takes followers or whatever word you want to use for that. That's our current word that may. Teammate, teammates, whatever, partners, collaborators, whatever you want to use there. It, it takes everybody to do this thing together. Right? We've put a lot of pressure on our current leaders and managers in the workplace today. They're just getting blistered, right? It is, it's a tough world for them out there right now. They can't do it without followers doing things with them right in this. So it takes everybody. We've all got to jump on this engagement bandwagon. We all have to do it together, and we all have to do it with intentionality. And so yes, it's leaders, but it's really all of us.
[00:14:40] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. I love how we'll do a manager's workshop and we'll have the folks come and we'll put everybody's strengths on the grid, you know, and, and get it all laid out and kind of look at what's coming into play. And it, it helps people take some of that responsibility that you're talking about and it helps you see, this is the strengths of your leader, but here's all, as we say in North Carolina, Jim, all y'all's strengths, and it kind of shows, you know, everybody needs to step up.
[00:15:08] Jim Collison: Yeah. Well, and, and you think about that team grid concept and people working in, in that kind of environment, the awareness is the first step on that. But then the understanding and action planning that, you know, we just said name it and claim and name it from a team level, right? Becomes so important in the action planning part.
[00:15:28] Jim Collison: What are we actually going to do? And then what are we going to hold ourselves to, and how are we going to manage that, and how are we going to measure it? Right? All those things have to happen. We can't, wishful thinking doesn't work anymore, right? We can't just be like, well, I wish it was No, no, no. We, we need people of action who will step in and create those things and move forward.
[00:15:47] Jim Collison: If we can do it in a strengths-based way where everybody understands who they are and we've got. People positioned, right? And let me, let me asterisk that for just a second. Then you know, if we can do it in that way, then I think we can be very, very successful. Here's the problem though, in a lot of organizations, there's folks, when we, you know, we have a question in our Q 12, I get the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
[00:16:10] Jim Collison: And when folks start figuring out what they're good at, sometimes they're mispositioned in their role, or they're doing, they, they've been given expectations to do things that are out of maybe their strength sweet spot. The problem is tomorrow you can't just change that. It takes time. So we also need to be patient with the process to kind of work it through working with managers, working with the leadership, working with folks to say hey, I'm really good at this, can we figure out some ways to change the way we work so that we can take advantage of those things? Never happens. Well, I shouldn't say never. Doesn't always happen overnight. So patience needs to be deployed on some of this as well.
[00:16:50] Nicole Greer: Mm, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So, if a leader or a manager does a team session for the first time and they get their people together, they all take the assessment and take a look at it, what story might you tell us about how somebody excelled or had an excellent outcome? Like it woke the team up and they were like, oh my gosh, untapped potential left and right.
[00:17:15] Jim Collison: Yeah, it may be easier to tell general stories around those. You know, oftentimes what I hear coming in from the field, what the stories people are telling me is generally like this, oh, I thought you didn't like me. I thought that behavior was because you didn't like me or there was something about me you didn't like, and now I realize that was your fill in the blank. That was your WOO, or that was your deliberative, or that was your strategic that was rubbing up against something of mine. Right? Or a misunderstanding right? And in that safe environment when these talents become exposed for what they are and they stop becoming personal battles. 'Cause you know, we have those, every organization has them.
[00:18:05] Nicole Greer: And we're, we're offended and we take things personally. That's right.
[00:18:08] Jim Collison: Yeah. No, no. Right on. And you think, oh, there, everybody's against me or whatever. I mean, when I was, when I was in high school, I failed my first semester of English, I was put in an honors program class. I didn't really belong there. Right? And I remember I tried, I actually didn't try as hard as I probably should have, but the note that the teacher sent home to my mom with the F that I got in the class said, it's going to take a little less of Jim's charismatic smile, if he's going to pass my class. Like
[00:18:36] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's knew I fantastic. there's that WOO.
[00:18:41] Jim Collison: I was trying to win her with a smile that didn't work in most cases.
[00:18:45] Nicole Greer: She wasn't having it.
[00:18:47] Jim Collison: But we begin to see like oftentimes that that WOO characteristic in me can be seen as, oh, don't, you know, don't try to influence me in some
[00:18:59] Nicole Greer: Don't sell me.
[00:19:00] Jim Collison: Me on some. Right. Exactly. Don't sell me on something. Well, when that gets understood as, hey, that is who I am. Oftentimes when I work with teams, they don't want to be the upfront person. They don't want to go out and talk to people. They don't want to go out and give the updates. They don't want to do the selling 'cause
[00:19:18] Nicole Greer: Be on stage. Right. right?
[00:19:20] Jim Collison: Yeah. So I say, look, I will do all that for you. You just tell me what to say. I will be your mouthpiece.
[00:19:26] Nicole Greer: right. Y'all get the analytics.
[00:19:28] Jim Collison: That works surprisingly well. Right? That works surprisingly well. People are like, oh, you mean I don't have to go to those meetings? No, I'll go, I'll go to those meetings for you. Right. So there's, there's maybe a personal example of, of, for me, how that kind of works in that scenario.
[00:19:45] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. Yeah.
[00:19:47] Nicole Greer: Okay. So, so somebody takes the CliftonStrengths and, you know, I, I have seen people really be successful at integrating this into their life and career. You know, even if the organization, they're in is not using this as a tool. You know, they're just, they take it on for themselves because they're that kind of person, you know, maybe they have achiever as one as their top fives, and they're like, I need, I need to know all I can and do all I can. And so they go out and do it, but they, they really are smart about understanding their strengths and, and, and have great success. What are your thoughts about how to integrate this into your life and career if you're working on your own?
[00:20:27] Jim Collison: Yeah, a lot of folks take CliftonStrengths, read the report, which is awesome. You get a percentage lift of productivity just by reading the report. But there's some, there's some things that you can do and we've got some tools available online. I think keeping this in front of you in some way, writing down those top five on post-It notes or however want to do it, you be creative in that. Writing it down, putting it out in front of you. You know, I'm thinking, you know, right here I podcast every week and you're going to be like, Jim, couldn't you do something better? But I have Jillian, who I podcast with every Friday for the CliftonStrengths podcast. Her top five are written down on this sheet right here. That's, yes, that's my handwriting that, but it's in front of me, right? It's in front of me to take notes on, to do some work with. You could have your own.
[00:21:13] Jim Collison: Here at Gallup, we post them at our desks. I've got several things with it. In, in my office upstairs, I actually have my top five in some wall art behind me. It's my family's top five, so it's kind of meaningful to me in that way, but keep it top of mind, right? That's the whole idea. Keep it top of mind so you're constantly reviewing it, thinking about it, asking yourself the question.
[00:21:35] Jim Collison: When you were successful, where did that come from? Like how, where did that come from, right? Secondly, we have lots of podcasts. I've created seven hours on every single theme. So if you're a podcast listener, you can continue the journey by listening. We got written content on as well. You can go out, you can do that as well. You can journal about it. This is not a bad way, like when you have successful moments, write those moments down and then ask yourself the question. What made that successful? Right? What did what? What was that in me that made that successful?
[00:22:07] Jim Collison: I, this is my favorite one. It's a little bit, 'cause I'm influenced by WOO. You can actually like go tell somebody. Hey. I did this because of that. There's some accountability built in when somebody else knows. Right. I think an easy way is get a coach. Have a coach keep you
[00:22:25] Nicole Greer: a great idea.
[00:22:27] Jim Collison: For some of these things. Yeah. That's why we have 20,000 of these certified coaches around the world. Right. And then I think. When a, a great way to really embed it is in a project, before you go into the project or maybe even one you're currently work on, align those themes with some of your work.
[00:22:42] Jim Collison: We have a individual development plan, and in that plan you can spend some time listing what your strengths are, some key words for those strengths, and then to put a goal in there and then filter that goal through those strengths. What am I now going to do? You know, goals aren't goals unless they have action items in them. So the last thing that you do is say, I'm going to do this with that, right? I'm going to, I'm going to make myself a, in my case, maybe I'm going to make myself available to be a spokesperson for this team to, to really promote them and make sure what they're doing is honored and valued. Be a good statement to write on there.
[00:23:16] Jim Collison: So those are some, as you think about integrated. Listen, there's as many ways to do this as there are people on the planet. So I, I hate to get too prescriptive 'cause everybody has their own strengths based way to this. Maybe that's a good way to start. Look at your own top five and say, how could I use my top five to help me work these top five? That'd be a strengths-based approach to it.
[00:23:37] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Okay. So tell me what you said a minute ago about your family's strengths. Will you talk about that? You said, you've got some art on the wall, or you've got it on the wall. Will you talk about that? That just piqued my interest.
[00:23:50] Jim Collison: Yeah, so Wordles, back when Wordles were things. My daughter and I spend a lot of time talking about strengths, and Sammy got, she made sure everybody in the family took that and then we put those themes together in a, in pseudo team grid, so to speak. But then they made a wordle and based on the theme frequency, the, the words got bigger or smaller
[00:24:10] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:11] Jim Collison: strength. And then they colored the, the big ones, I think the top five are of the family are one color, and then it works its way down. Then my themes are in yellow on that, so you can see, in the Wordle, you can see my themes. So it's really, really meaningful. When people ask me about my family, you know, I just point to the art behind me and we can have a conversation about how, you know, 'cause we're a team. Right. My family's a team. Yeah, they're a team. You can have those same conversations, right?
[00:24:40] Jim Collison: My middle son has Adaptability, number one, and I as a father, thought that was laziness because I would ask him that, by the way, that's not one of the themes. Laziness is not a theme. I'd get really angry with him because I'd be like, what do you want to do? And he'd be like, I didn't do anything. I'm like, no, no, no. I need you to tell me what to do. I'm going with whatever you want. What do you want? He is such a go with the flow, so adaptable, so understanding. I mean, and I am just crushing his will because I'm trying to force him into making decisions. Right. Unfortunately, it took me a few years in almost some counseling to figure out I was just beating up that kid's adaptability.
[00:25:21] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And how's he doing?
[00:25:23] Jim Collison: He's doing okay now. He's doing okay now. It took us a while to figure some of those things out, but, but that's a, a real, that's a real world example of, of, you know, in a family situation how those things can kind of work out.
[00:25:38] Jim Collison: The good news is I've got great, I still have great relationships with all my kids and we, we spend a lot of time together. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:44] Nicole Greer: Awesome. Yeah, I'm getting ready to go out for a 10 day trip and I'll be with my 32-year-old and my 26-year-old in, in Yellowstone. We're like big buds these days. Adult children are, are awesome, don't you think? Don't you?
[00:25:58] Jim Collison: They're great. They're the best. They're the best By far. 'cause you tell them to get lost, like, get, get away from me. You know? And they have to.
[00:26:08] Nicole Greer: That's right. They put their own shoes on. You're not worried about their flossing regimen anymore. It's fantastic.
[00:26:13] Jim Collison: buy their own food sometimes. Some of those things. But
[00:26:16] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's great. Okay. Alright. So, here's, here's the thing. So I had a gal that was working with me and she was just heartbroken. She got her 34 results back, and, and she couldn't even focus on her top five because her number 34 was discipline and that just broke her heart. She's like. She's like, Nicole, I think I'm very disciplined. Like she couldn't get her focus off that number 34. So, you know, my question would be you know, what should you do about the strengths that are ranked lowest in your results? 'Cause I, I think some people, you know, they agree, yes, let me look at my strengths, but should I be concerned that discipline is my lowest? And she runs like marathons and does amazing work in this world. She's just amazing.
[00:27:05] Jim Collison: It's okay. Listen. The lack of discipline I have it low too. It's 30 for me and focus is 34. It's a miracle I get anything done like I, it, it, it is. It, it's amazing when things actually happen. but I think, listen, understanding, and I can speak to this because I don't have a shred of discipline, I don't have a shred of it.
[00:27:25] Jim Collison: Now, I spent in my early career I was in the military, and so you'd be like, Jim, how did that go? Not having any discipline of being in the military. Terrible. Just to be honest. It was awful. I was probably the, you know, you think about do I get the opportunity to do what I do best every day. Military was probably not the place for me. Now I made it six years. Sometimes this is where I talked about.
[00:27:47] Nicole Greer: Thank you for your service.
[00:27:48] Jim Collison: Thank you. Thanks for your support. I think, this is one of those situations, I didn't have a choice. Like I couldn't just change jobs. Right. And so sometimes you got to tough it out. Listen, I did some things. My first couple years were pretty rough, and then I realized I was really good at these boards. You know, they have these board competitions where you got to go study some things and then say some things and influence people. It's like a contest. Guess who is good at that?
[00:28:13] Nicole Greer: Mr. WOO.
[00:28:14] Jim Collison: I couldn't, couldn't do anything else, but this guy was pretty good at it. And once I got into those kinds of things things got a lot better for me. But when you think about those ones at the bottom of the report, you have to build really solid plans to make sure they're covered when you're not supported by somebody else who has it. In a lot of cases for me, I have focus and discipline very low. I, listen, I love the people who can put all these things together and
[00:28:41] Nicole Greer: me too.
[00:28:42] Jim Collison: right? And so I stick to those people like, let's you and I be friends. Oftentimes you might just need to get it done regardless, like, we're adults, right?
[00:28:52] Jim Collison: So there are moments like, I don't have discipline, but it's okay. I'll fake it for a while. Two, find someone who does have it and use theirs, right? Or three, build systems in to make sure. So for me, if I know I got to get things done, I force myself to write them down on a list. It's not pretty and I don't like doing it, and it's not my natural tendency, but I know if I don't write it down, it's not going to get done. So I tell people here at work, if it's not on my calendar, it's not real. So you have to get, if you want me there, it has to be on my calendar.
[00:29:26] Nicole Greer: Send me an invite.
[00:29:27] Jim Collison: My way of faking discipline. Right. And so you can, you can buy it, you can borrow for it, you know, you can put it on your credit card if you need to, but find a way to get around it so it doesn't become a liability.
[00:29:40] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. All right. So you said you have companies that, you know, pockets here, pockets there. I mean, I'd love to hear about an organization that they really consider themselves strengths based and how they're, you know, like maybe moving the needle on you know, NOI, operating income, revenue all the things we want to do. Their KPIs are where they need to be.
[00:30:06] Jim Collison: Yeah. So in, in our Called to Coach podcast, I'm, I'm not going to, I'm not dodging this, but I've, I've already done some great examples of this. In our Call to Coach podcast, so it just go out on a podcast player or youtube.com/CliftonStrengths. Any of the organizations that I've interviewed in, in our Call to coach program are going to fit that. If you want a really good example of it we, every year we do a gout Great Workplace Award, and so you can go out there and see who's winning those, who's winning those awards. They submit. Two, they have to reach a certain standard. And there's some, there's some great, there's some great examples of those out there.
[00:30:47] Jim Collison: There's so many good ones. I hesitate to give you one. Because it's like, then others are going to feel bad that they got left out of the conversation. But what, what we find, this goes full circle. What we find that's common in all those organizations is one, they care about their employees, right?
[00:31:04] Jim Collison: So they, they want be a magnet for talent. They want to draw people in. So there are organizations who are thinking about their engagement. These are all the things I said in the beginning. They're allowing folks to, to work and get the opportunity to do what they do best every day and they care about their wellbeing.
[00:31:21] Jim Collison: And so they're spending some time thinking about the whole person on that. And so we've got some great examples out there and some great stuff has been written for it. I won't steal of any of the thunder of all those great folks, but, I'd recommend you go out and watch or read.
[00:31:36] Nicole Greer: All right. Well, we're at the end of the podcast. What last nugget would you share with our listeners? If you were going to just have like a mic drop moment, what, what little nugget would you lay on them to kind of wrap things up?
[00:31:48] Jim Collison: Yeah, well as we record this, it's May of 2025. You know, there's, there's crazy things going on in the world. Everything that's happening globally. And I think there's some folks who are like, oh, it's never been more stressful. It's very stressful right now. And so we've got a lot of work to do if we're going to do this thing together. it's,
[00:32:10] Nicole Greer: Well, my daddy used to say the world's going to hell in a hand basket. I always wondered what exactly where that came from.
[00:32:16] Jim Collison: I don't know, but I, I do know this. We do have each other to help get through this. And so I think if we're going to do anything on this, one is don't wait to start serving people with your strengths.
[00:32:28] Jim Collison: Right? We, that needs to be done right now. We've got opportunities today. You don't have to put it off and be like, eh, start doing that next week. Right? We've got talents that need to be deployed to help other people. Those folks that are around you, they need you. Right?
[00:32:43] Jim Collison: I think, too, don't think you got to go big or go home. It can start small, right? You can do this in little ways. You don't have to go all in. This is not a diet. You don't have to go all in to get it done. Right. You can start small and let that transformation through action be something that you just take a little bit of every day.
[00:33:05] Jim Collison: Right. And then three, I think help others. Sometimes when you say things to people like, you know, like I'll say like, oh yeah, we ought to really get more fitness in our lives, and then I'm wolfing down some potato chips and, you know, not, not doing it. I think we got to lead by example and go out there. We've got an opportunity to help others develop and, and to show that work for us, right? I think some people think it's way harder than it is, and I think it's just a little bit every day. And so we've got a, we got a great opportunity. Yeah. A little bit. Little bit every day. Yeah. You know, maybe one positive thing a day. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Nicole Greer: Right, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I have absolutely adored our conversation. I absolutely adore CliftonStrengths and being a CliftonStrengths coach and a workshop facilitator. So I'm so grateful you came in to my world today and spent some time with me.
[00:33:59] Nicole Greer: Tell us again where we can watch all the podcasts and where we could find you.
[00:34:04] Jim Collison: Well, youtube.com/CliftonStrengths. If you, if you want to get to the center of everything CliftonStrengths, go to gallup.com/CliftonStrengths, and that's really the epicenter. Buried in there is all the work that we do and all the resources that are available.
[00:34:19] Jim Collison: If you've taken CliftonStrengths, you can just log into Gallup Access and all those resources are available for you as well. So that's where I'd start.
[00:34:26] Nicole Greer: Okay. Fantastic. So go to the bottom of the screen right now, where you're at on your YouTube and leave a comment, or if you're on your podcast platform, if you'll press the like button and leave a little love note for Jim and Nicole. I would appreciate it.
[00:34:39] Jim Collison: Thanks, Nicole. Great being on.
[00:34:40] Nicole Greer: Oh, good. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks again, everybody.