Strong Life Test for women

The management world is full of tools & assessment to get to know yourself better: MBTI (Myers-Briggs), DISC, EQ tests (Emotional Intelligence), plus countless others. Recently I came across another: Strong Life Test (for women). I am both very skeptical of these assessments, and I love taking them! Like most people I’m incredibly self-interested and love reading about myself, whether it be my horoscope or a !!!!FREE ONLINE ASSESSMENT!!!! (get yours now!)

This one is created by Marcus Buckingham, the Gallup genius who helped create and market First, Break All the Rules, and Now, Discover Your Strengths. These books respectively say – each one of us is an individual and different, and managers should realize that and treat us differently; and people who do best focus on their strengths. The Strong Life Test for Women is a take-off on the latter.

First I took the online assessment, then I went to the bookstore and read the related book in about 2.5 hours (after reading academic papers, most business books are an easy read.)

Is is useful?

Well, it depends. If you’re looking for work, or a new life path, no one test is going to provide you the answer. What it may give you, is some insights into yourself, not because the test reveals your true self, but because you reveal your true self  when you react/interact with the test.

So I took this test. It told me the following:

• Strongest Role: Advisor. I like to ask the question – What’s the best thing to do?
• Supporting Role: Creator. I like to ask the question – What do I understand?

To be honest, I didn’t like that Creator was a supporting role. I’m an artist damn it! Ok, know that we’ve got that straight, we can move on, eh? I read my complete role descriptions and noted my reactions to the descriptions — yes, I like figuring out the answers and the best way to do things — I like being the expert (Advisor). Yes, I like starting with my own insights and finding the pattern underneath life’s craziness (Creator). Yes, I like tests that reconfirm how I think about myself, and make me remember what’s important to me.

The interesting difference

What’s different about this test, is not so much the test itself, but the accompanying literature that asks one important question:

• What are your strongest moments? In your working life, family, marriage, etc.?
• At what points do you feel you are at your best?
• What is is about those particular moments?
• How can you deliberately create those moments?
• Investigate those moments – what is it about them that you like?
• Celebrate and acknowledge those moments?

It is this difference – focusing on strong moments in your life, and the specifics of those moments — that makes this interesting. The most important exercise you can do is find the words to describe those moments.

The test is just a starting point.

Just an FYI – a list of roles as outlined in the book:

1. Advisor
2. Caretaker
3. Creator
4. Equalizer
5. Influencer
6. Motivator
7. Pioneer
8. Teacher
9. Weaver