103.How to build a team based on their Strengths w/ Alex Nordlund

ZT (00:00.925)
Yo, yo, yo, what is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the what now podcast. We are joined today, Spencer by a special guest. Who do we got?

Spencer Dupre (00:08.753)
man, dude, I'm super excited. We've actually had this on the calendar for quite a bit. And so today we actually have my friend Alex. I met Alex in the lunch line and we ate lunch together in Nashville at Taylor Welch's event. And it was just really awesome. And from the moment that I met Alex, I said, Hey, you got to be a guest on the podcast because Alex is a strength finders coach.

and she works on helping develop teams based off of the Gallup Assessment Strength Find, the Clifton Strengths Assessment. That's all I know about it. I know I've taken it personally and just from the information that Alex gave me after talking to me about my strengths, I had like so much better insight and I was able to go into the office literally the next day and be a better leader because of it, because I knew myself a little bit more. And so yeah, I'm super excited to have Alex on the podcast. Alex, welcome. yeah, tell us a little bit about.

who you are and what you do and all the things.

Alex Nordlund (01:05.39)
Yeah, thanks for such a warm welcome, Spencer. So fun to meet you too and grill you about what you do because I have little ones. So I love it used to be called Strengths Finder and they rebranded it to CliftonStrengths. So in case there's any confusion there, it's always a little thing to clear up. But yeah, I work with teams. Usually the teams I work with are around three to 15 in size and we take

Spencer Dupre (01:20.437)
Gotcha.

Alex Nordlund (01:35.242)
Strengths Finder. So everyone goes through an assessment, it gives you a top five. So here's, you know, the top five things that you're best at, we kind of have to learn the language of that. But then once that gets into your culture, the whole point of it is increasing your engagement, your employee engagement.

Spencer Dupre (01:56.531)
Yeah. What do mean by employee engagement? how they interact with each other or like how they interact with their roles or both or what?

Alex Nordlund (02:04.172)
Yeah, so it's kind of the difference between someone who shows up off the clock and notices a piece of trash on the ground and says, I work here and I care for this place. So I'm going to pick that up versus I'm not on the clock. So I'm not going to worry about that. Right. So like engage someone who's engaged in their role is going to be excited. They're going to be showing up ready. There's some kind of ownership that they take. Right. So I've done a lot of the

Spencer Dupre (02:15.765)
Mm-hmm.

Spencer Dupre (02:19.509)
Not my job. Right.

Alex Nordlund (02:32.994)
science and trainings and stuff behind engagement because that's what gets me really excited is how can we get teams of people who are happy to be where they work? also when people are happy and they know how to talk about themselves, usually they want to stay in a job longer. Usually your team is a lot more productive and you make a lot more money. So it feels like a root cause in a lot of situations.

Spencer Dupre (02:58.185)
Yeah, what do you mean about engagement? Like what's the science like behind like engagement and all those things?

Alex Nordlund (03:03.116)
Yeah, so are you familiar with Gallup?

ZT (03:06.037)
No.

Spencer Dupre (03:06.377)
I know about the strength finders from Gallup. That's what I know about.

Alex Nordlund (03:08.854)
Okay, so some people are familiar with them because they do a lot of polling. So they're very data driven. Yeah, you'll see like I'm on their newsletters and they'll send out like current state of politics. Here's what people think about this and think about this. So they're pro I would I would guess they're the best if not one of the best of that kind of thing in the US but they have done a lot of research on engagement. And so they've come up with 12.

ZT (03:13.537)
That's right.

Alex Nordlund (03:38.798)
items that can basically tell you how engaged your team is based on thousands of interviews with a bunch of people and then like comparing that interview with how the team, how productive the team is and what is their retention and things like that. So yeah, so what I do is I go through those 12 items of the team. Like the first item is I know what is expected of me at work. Sounds super basic. It's shocking.

how many people cannot rate that as a five out of five, right? So, you know, and they kind of work like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? So if you don't have that number one, if people don't know what is expected of them, it's really hard to build the rest of those engagement items. So usually when I'm working with a team, you know, I've done a lot of just fun strengths things because it's like,

Spencer Dupre (04:12.778)
Yeah.

ZT (04:21.953)
and you can't get them to.

Alex Nordlund (04:35.128)
fun to learn about yourself and it's fun to put words to these parts of your personality. But then when you pair that with, we're going to actually talk about these engagement items and where is our team stuck, where is our team not engaged, then you can start to get, it's kind of like the idea of a bottleneck. If that number one isn't solid,

Spencer Dupre (04:59.135)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (05:02.444)
we have to clear that first. And then that often fixes a lot of other things.

Spencer Dupre (05:06.163)
Right. So what are the, like, just to give a quick rundown, if you have them like off dump, like what are the 12 engagement items like that we should be thinking about, like with our team.

Alex Nordlund (05:15.788)
I'm gonna pull them up to make sure I'm getting them right. you know, I wanna say according to Gallup, the language really matters. So people will push back and say, well, what if it's this instead of that? But they have tested those things. And so the specific wording of these really matters. Yes, of the engagement items. what, when we give the, and this is like an assessment through Gallup that I use formally, but.

Spencer Dupre (05:31.551)
the wording of the engagement things, not what people say. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Alex Nordlund (05:43.298)
The engagement items are kind of all over. You can do a bunch of research. There's books about them and stuff. But the 12 items would be that number one, I know what's expected of me. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. So funny. I'm so expressive with my hands and it's always doing silly things on.

Spencer Dupre (06:01.803)
If you guys aren't watching, if you guys are just listening and you're not watching the video, Alex, I'm assuming that you're like on your iPhone.

ZT (06:06.388)
Hehehe

Alex Nordlund (06:07.31)
No, I'm on my computer. I know.

Spencer Dupre (06:11.133)
wow, all right. Either way, something really fun just happened and there's a bunch of balloons. Sometimes like if you do thumbs up, it'll do thumbs up, all the kind of things. Anyway, sorry.

Alex Nordlund (06:20.118)
Yes, I think it's probably a part of my positivity. Like AI just knows and they put balloons out. Yeah, the woo too. Okay, so yes, I know what's expected of me at work. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day. So that's where the strengths start to come in at that point. In the last seven days, very important.

ZT (06:20.609)
Thank

Spencer Dupre (06:23.21)
I think so.

ZT (06:24.063)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (06:26.303)
Yeah, it's a woo, right?

Okay. Anyway, so the 12 items.

Spencer Dupre (06:44.713)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (06:49.398)
wording, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work. My supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person. There is someone at work who encourages my development. At work, my opinions seem to count. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work. I have a best friend at work, probably the most controversial one.

And in the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress. The last one, this last year, I had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

ZT (07:31.286)
Nice.

Spencer Dupre (07:32.021)
That's a lot to think about. That's like, man, like you say all those things and like we have four people that we like formally employ. And then obviously myself and my wife and I'm like, man, yeah, I can, that makes me think like a lot about like our team. That's really cool. Okay. then like, let's go off and like, let's just talk about like, what is the Clifton strength assessment? What are the different strengths and what they mean? And then how do they relate to the engagement?

Alex Nordlund (07:41.08)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Nordlund (08:01.154)
Yeah, yeah, totally. So when you take this assessment, there are 34 total themes and they call them strengths because strengths sells technically their talents, which is a more neutral term. So there's 34 total. And when you take the test, you can get your top five. What I do with teams is go a little deeper and we do top 10 and we'll also that gives you the full 34. So you can also see what's at the bottom, which people love to see what's at the bottom.

Spencer Dupre (08:12.255)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Nordlund (08:31.214)
and so when I, when I say that they're neutral, their talents instead of themes, I'll give you an example. So my number one is woo, which stands for winning others over. So I love meeting new people. I feel comfortable in a crowd of people. I don't know. It's almost like a game and I really want people to like me. However, it can also be a weakness if I haven't grown in it because I.

You know if I don't have the self-awareness I can manipulate people or lie about myself to try to get them to like me or I can be totally taken out if I can't win someone over and I don't know how to process that. Right? So it's interesting when we go through the assessment because we're basically trying to move people from kind of a raw place in that strength to a strong place in that strength where it's really operating as a strength in their life instead of hindering them.

Spencer Dupre (09:12.191)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (09:28.735)
Yeah, man, you got me thinking. Okay, so then are there like, dude, I got all kinds of questions Zach, like you can chime in whenever.

Alex Nordlund (09:39.277)
haha

ZT (09:39.393)
I mean, my, the one question I'm first, have quite a few questions too, but how did you, did you have a background in HR? Like what got you drawn into strength finders and that being your jam?

Alex Nordlund (09:53.292)
Yeah, it's funny. I've never formally worked in HR. I've actually considered like, well, I do a lot of HR and maybe, maybe one day I would do like fractional HRs for hire. That's kind of a dream. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that, we'll, we'll see if I get there, but I actually just started out in ministry. So in the ministry that I was on staff with, I had a coach who was like way ahead of me.

Spencer Dupre (10:04.767)
I was literally just saying that. was like, man, that would be, you've won me over.

Alex Nordlund (10:22.382)
and he coached our whole team. And it was amazing to be able to put these things into words. And at that point I was a college student and there were things I really did not like about myself that I thought I could only see those things from a negative perspective. And then when this test was able to put them to words, but that it was like in a positive way where, oh, like this could actually serve me and this could be kind of a superpower. And then,

Spencer Dupre (10:35.947)
Hmm.

Alex Nordlund (10:50.612)
the culture of that ministry was so solid. I think a part of it was, you know, self awareness is huge. Like if you have a team full of people, and they're all, they have good hearts, and they want to do their best, but they don't have self awareness, you're just, it's still going to be a mess. And so the fact that we were able to kind of have conversations, and we were able to acknowledge like, okay, you and I have this weird tension. But that's, you know, like Spencer, you and I, you're a relator, and I'm a woo.

So you're gonna walk into a room and you're just based on your relator, you're gonna be drawn to the people you already know. Let's go deeper with those people. And I'm gonna be like, sayonara, I already know you, I need to go meet all of these new people. But you can see how there can be a relational tension there. Like let's say we show up at an event together, you're thinking we're just gonna hang out the whole time. I'm thinking like, let's go meet these new people.

Spencer Dupre (11:26.175)
Yeah.

ZT (11:33.089)
you

Spencer Dupre (11:42.763)
It's gonna be all these new people.

ZT (11:43.489)
Thank

Alex Nordlund (11:44.44)
So we have that language to be able to talk about that and we can say, okay, what are our expectations? Or we can debrief it if we didn't catch it in the beginning. So that's where I got really excited about it and was like, I have to do this. So then I started diving in and got certified through Gallup. And then I basically was the HR of a business that my husband and I ran for a little while, loved it. But I also found that based on some of my other strengths and how I'm wired,

I really want to see like powerful transformation and then keep going. Right. So I didn't really get excited about, me work with the same team for a really long time. The way I'm wired is like, let me help get you unstuck. Yeah. I want to keep going. And I have an activator strength too. So I love starting things. I'm not always great at follow through. So I want to teach a manager how to do the follow through and then they can do some troubleshooting with me, but that's their job. Right.

ZT (12:25.589)
Mm-hmm.

Spencer Dupre (12:26.645)
That's your woo.

Spencer Dupre (12:42.57)
Yeah.

ZT (12:43.169)
Super cool. And so how does Strength Finders then differ from Enneagram or Culture Index or yeah.

Spencer Dupre (12:52.437)
Dude, that was my number one question I had written down to ask you.

Alex Nordlund (12:57.134)
Cool, yeah. I, you know, it's different based on which thing. And I am, I'm familiar with some of them, but there's so many out there that I kind of just was like, I'm gonna be an expert in this one and I'm not gonna worry too much. So if you compare it to Enneagram, Enneagram is a little more negative in the, well, a lot more negative in the focus. So Enneagram kind of says in your face, this is kind of what you suck at and where you need to grow.

ZT (13:07.221)
There are so many.

ZT (13:22.976)
Mm-hmm.

Spencer Dupre (13:25.355)
Yeah

ZT (13:25.985)
You

Alex Nordlund (13:26.83)
And strengths is saying look how amazing you are. Maybe there's a gap in how that's operating and we'll get you there. So, you know, I think that Enneagram is a more useful tool if you're in like a setting with a spiritual director or you know, maybe working through something with your spouse or something like that. You're doing some deep inner work. I think it can be really useful. However, I've actually found I do that with my strengths too. So it

it can be a little bit of a different angle. And then one thing I like about StrengthsFinder compared to most assessments out there is it's just, it's more dynamic. You've got 34 total themes and they can show up in any order. There's no opposites. So you can have the weirdest combinations. And so there are people who say that they feel put in a box by some personality tests.

ZT (14:12.898)
and

Alex Nordlund (14:23.81)
that have an easier time with CliftonStrengths because, you know, instead of you are a nine and this encapsulates everything about you. It's okay, you've got this one and this one, and you know, there's just a lot more, more pieces of it, if that makes sense.

ZT (14:34.518)
Mm-hmm.

ZT (14:40.663)
Nice.

Spencer Dupre (14:40.873)
Yeah, I'm like, I'm on the CliftonStrengths website right now, looking at like all 34 of the talents. do you feel like people who have like, say once, like, you know, my top one is Relator. You know, but I see like it's in this box of like relationship building, right? Well, three out of my top five are in relationship building. like, is there like a quadrant that you like end up leaning to? So, you know, like I'm...

a stronger relationship builder than I am say like an influencer or an executor. Do you see that trend happen like in people's strengths?

Alex Nordlund (15:14.062)
You're free.

Alex Nordlund (15:19.554)
Yes, I do see that trend and I'm sure there's numbers out there for it. But it's not like I expect that across the board. I've coached people, I've coached somewhere where eight of their top 10 were in the strategic thinking category. And he, this guy, I mean, he was quiet and he thought so deeply about anything and wanted so much time before he made a decision.

And that that's uncommon, but it's possible What I see most commonly is in your top five you have two or three of the four categories Yeah, yeah, so that's pretty common But then yeah, technically you can have any combination so It's kind of wild What I've seen there's times I see a combination I've ever seen before and I reach out to someone I'm like tell me how that works because that's fascinating

Spencer Dupre (15:51.573)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (15:58.815)
in the same category.

Spencer Dupre (16:15.933)
Yeah. Okay. So then like, yeah, go through, like, what is the process of like, when you work, when you're working with a team, what is the process of like working with you like, and, you know, tell us like, how does that like influence a team? How does that, and then what are the things that you're thinking about, like on your end, when you see those.

Alex Nordlund (16:35.052)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first thing we usually do, we start with strengths. We get everyone kind of excited. I have to do some amount of teaching to just get everyone on the same page because it's easy to get a report and to see, I'm, you know, let me see. Like for example, Spencer, you have a high positivity in your strengths. So it's easy for someone to look at that and make an assumption based on the English language about what positivity means.

when the Gallup definition is a little bit different. So we go through like, do these actually mean? I kind of lay some ground rules, like you're not allowed to put people in a box. You have to actually act, like don't say, you have positivity. So you must always feel really happy. Turn that into a question, right? How does this positivity work for you? So during that time, I'm also kind of working one-on-one with the manager to say like, what do you see?

as your greatest problems. And we've also done that engagement survey. So I'm giving them numbers and saying, okay, you're, naming this problem as this. Does that match the problems that I'm seeing? Sometimes there's a huge blind spot. Sometimes I've got employees kind of coming to me and saying, Hey, this is the real problem that we see. So, you know, a lot of times a team member is willing to talk with someone else about a manager.

before they're willing to talk with a manager. So that's depending on the safety and the culture that you've built with your team. But really what I'm looking for are where are the bottlenecks and how can we get you unstuck? And so before we're looking at really moving forward in goals, we're just kind of getting unstuck in any ways. And also kind of laying this new foundation for a culture. Let's be a culture where we see the best in each other and we assume the best when there's a misunderstanding.

until we're able to sort it out. You know, it's easy to, we don't realize how natural it is for us in the workplace to get offended, assume the worst about somebody. And then, you know, three months later, you're quitting because your manager did this thing and you didn't understand it. And, you know, there's just all kinds of situations like that. And then by the end of our time together, we're coming up with goals together based on

ZT (18:39.22)
You

Alex Nordlund (19:00.962)
your engagement, but also we look at the very practical issues going on in your team. Like maybe your team is really lagging in sales. So I'm not necessarily a sales expert. My strengths are great at sales, but I can help your team unlock the expertise in them, bring it all to the table and then move forward really productively.

ZT (19:25.826)
That is really cool. Um, and so I don't know if we mentioned this before starting the recording, but I know I mentioned it right before we did start. Um, so I've never done strength funders. I've done any gram human design Myers Briggs. Um, and we're looking to hire a second CA here next month or so. So right now we're a two person team. Um, so we'll be going to three. So I'm assuming first steps are take the strength finders.

Alex Nordlund (19:26.094)
Yeah.

ZT (19:55.968)
assessment and then also have my other employee take the strength binders. And then do you utilize our two strengths to kind of determine our next hire? Is that kind of.

Alex Nordlund (20:07.872)
Yeah, so hiring, I'll just say technically it's a little bit tricky because legally you are not really supposed to use StrengthsFinder to make your hiring decision. And there's some nuance there. So I would say first step for your team is taking your, take this assessment as a tool to have the conversations about where are the biggest gaps in your team.

And then make sure that that job description for that new hire matches where those gaps are. So, you know, the best teams that I work with are willing to have to move things around, change their job descriptions to fit the person. And I know sometimes that's not possible, but the more flexibility you can have there, the better chances you have of high engagement.

And then whether you are using StrengthsFinder for your higher or not, make sure they have the natural inclinations to do that job. what is the, if you had to say like in a short, concise way, what gap are you hoping to fill with that position?

ZT (21:23.522)
someone that's like the face of the office. So this person will be front desk, they'll be greeting, they'll be patient concierge basically. So yeah.

Alex Nordlund (21:30.71)
Yeah. Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (21:33.053)
You need a woo, dude. You need to win all the new people over.

ZT (21:34.934)
Yeah, need a boop.

Alex Nordlund (21:37.3)
Yep. you, so even if, you know, even if you're not giving them the assessment, what I would do is tailor your interview questions to get to the root of do they actually like it? Not could they do it well? Because there's a difference. People, people can sometimes do things well that they hate, but you want to find someone who has that raw talent and it could be woo. It could be communication. It could be some of the relationship building strength. There's a lot of strengths that would fit well into that kind of role.

ZT (21:44.322)
Mm.

Alex Nordlund (22:07.016)
so, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say like, make sure you're looking for a woo, even though that would probably be a good, a good one. but can you ask the kinds of questions that would unlock that? Like, you know, Hey, when you go to a party, do you enjoy meeting new people? Like, you know, those kinds of questions, plug it into chat, GPT, like what kind of questions would I ask someone to determine whether they're going to really enjoy being the face of.

our business. Does that make sense?

ZT (22:39.65)
Makes a ton of sense. It's really cool.

Spencer Dupre (22:41.899)
Yeah. And then so like, okay, so let's say that we have an existing team, right? I'm saying like in a hypothetical in my situation, I have an existing team and I feel like we have a good team, but some like as maybe I'm speaking this just from my own experience, but I feel like as all employers, we all want our teams to be happy, do well and be productive.

For me, I think in that order, you I want someone to enjoy their job I want them to do well in that role and in turn I want them to be productive for the business But you know, I don't want them to just be productive for the business and sacrifice their happiness Like I want them to enjoy their role buy into the practice but let's say we have people in these roles and Say, you know, we actually there's a better job description for them, you know What does the process look like to like kind of go through those and kind of?

Alex Nordlund (23:11.394)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (23:21.762)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (23:37.013)
filter all those things out and when do you suggest that like people switch their job description versus we develop these people into their job description, right? How do we know that like, yeah, maybe sometimes we need to change seats or maybe we just grow into the seat.

Alex Nordlund (23:45.43)
Yeah, that's a really good question.

Alex Nordlund (23:55.96)
Totally. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. In that situation, I think my favorite way to go about that, if you've got enough trust on your team where you know that they're going to be really honest, if you say, hey, what part of your job do you hate? A lot of managers believe that their team is at that place and they're not. So.

You know, that's why I always like, yeah, some managers just get it and they know like this is where my team is at and some don't. But if you really know that you know that your team is gonna be honest with you, then I like to have that as a conversation. What parts of your job do you hate? Let's pull out your job description. Does this seem to match? You know, look at those engagement items. They're just online. you know, you can just look at them and say like, hey, how would you rate this number one? Do you know exactly what's expected of you?

Because there is a distinction between, you know, someone who loves what they do, but they feel like they just don't quite have everything they need, or they're a little too busy and you need to clear off some space for them, versus they're doing a task over and over again, and they're doing it well, but it's, it's a grind and they really hate it. So yeah, getting to the point where you can make that distinction and I mean, I

I like to help managers move from the idea of being a boss to being a coach. So if you're a coach, we're a team where, you know, or even like a team captain, maybe as a better analogy, because we're actually all playing this game together. So even though you're technically the one making the decisions, they're going to have to have some really big input on that. So if you can have those as conversations, you know, there are going to be things that your team members say that you're like, no, we definitely can't do that.

So you wanna make sure that you're still affirming, like thank you for sharing your idea, that's a great idea. So I like to start those as an open conversation.

Spencer Dupre (25:53.961)
Yeah, nice. What else you guys have?

ZT (25:55.202)
Nice. What are some of, well, one, guess, how long have you been doing this? Like how long have you been working with teams, strength learners was? Just cause that'll like go into my next question.

Alex Nordlund (26:09.622)
Yeah. Yeah. So I've been it's always really hard for me to answer this question because I've been doing it informally and not getting paid for like 15 years. And then besides that, I've been technically certified in like coaching teams for seven or eight years.

ZT (26:15.97)
Yeah. Okay.

ZT (26:26.13)
So in those 15, but seven to eight years, what are typically some of the bigger, I don't want to say like issues, like things that people maybe have an aversion to when they're like, oh, you're going to determine personality and that's going to determine, you know, how I do on the team and things like that. Like what are the typical objections, if you will, like to.

Alex Nordlund (26:48.832)
Yeah. Yeah, typical objections. You know, the hardest, hardest problem that I deal with is probably managers who don't know their problems or have a huge blind spot and don't want to face it. So

Spencer Dupre (27:02.987)
Hmm.

Spencer Dupre (27:07.445)
What are the most sorry, don't what to continue to train a thought. are the most common things that you see go unnoticed?

Alex Nordlund (27:15.404)
Yeah, one of the most common ones is having a really toxic employee, but not letting them go. So someone, you know, if you've got someone on your team that has a really negative attitude, is doesn't have a growth mindset, you know, they're showing up, they're checking the list. So they're getting their job done, but they're dragging, you know, it's 2025, they're dragging down the vibe, right? Like things feel bad. So

ZT (27:39.074)
Mm.

Alex Nordlund (27:42.274)
they're actually really causing a significant downward shift in engagement. A lot of times a manager does not want to let them go. So that's maybe the number one issue that I run into is, know, and then the reality is replacing someone who knows how to do their job is really difficult. And so it's kind of ironic because I'm also kind of selling retention because if you up your engagement, then you up your retention.

Sometimes you have to let somebody go first to have that culture shift.

ZT (28:14.966)
Nice.

Spencer Dupre (28:17.547)
And then like, what do you see any, like to answer Zach's question, because I know it kind of took you off track, but the objections to like working for strength finders or do you ever have people say like, I don't feel like that applies to me.

Alex Nordlund (28:17.666)
Yeah, that's.

Alex Nordlund (28:23.789)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (28:33.118)
Yeah, like with like their test results. Is that what you mean? Okay, yeah. So, yeah, I do. I have people that will take the test and say, that doesn't resonate with me. And, you know, we'll have a conversation about it, maybe 60 70 % of the time, if I can just talk them through the definition and ask them some questions, then we can shift that there are times to where

ZT (28:36.044)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (29:00.992)
This is my own personal opinion. This is not Gallup's opinion, but I personally believe that if someone lacks self-awareness in a certain area, they may not take the test correctly. So their results could be a little bit off. according to Gallup's data, 70 % of the time, your strengths are going to be in the same exact order, even if you take the test again a second time. So that's really solid. So they don't really strongly recommend retaking it.

And for my own personal coaching, I say if you've taken it when you were kind of in your early 20s or before that, your brain is still developing a lot. So let's take it again if it's been a while. Or if you've gone through like something really, really significant, like my husband had lost a wife before we got married and that's a huge thing to go through.

Spencer Dupre (29:40.619)
You

Alex Nordlund (29:56.462)
So when we were talking about him taking the test, I was like, I really think you should take it again because a lot has really shifted and changed within you.

ZT (30:07.317)
And then, so you, you've come in, you've started to implement strength finders. Like, what does it look like from maybe a manager side? Is that like, are we checking in on our strengths on a weekly cadence? Like on our weekly meeting? Is that something we're quote unquote, checking off? Like, what does that look like to implement on a weekly and monthly basis?

Spencer Dupre (30:25.631)
Yeah, same with the engagement survey.

Alex Nordlund (30:25.966)
Like as a manager with your team or yeah, so if you were gonna use strengths with your team I think the best place to start is kind of that educational piece So what I always kind of recommend is that gallop has really short concise videos for each strength They're like two to three minutes. So in a team meeting you can do this weekly. You can show them the Relator video and it'll tell you know a really short snippet

ZT (30:30.231)
Yes.

Alex Nordlund (30:53.55)
And then just ask a couple of questions like who has this for those of you that don't have this, what does that feel like to you? How do you see this in these people? Um, that'll give you 34 weeks to go through, you know, if I did, I would do two with my team that I was leading, like, um, where I was actually the HR leader. And, um, so we went through them a little quicker and then, yeah, but just starting out with getting the language in and giving people the ability to kind of talk about themselves can really open up.

that in the beginning. With the engagement survey, I'm hesitant to recommend that unless you're doing it anonymously. So you can actually pay for that assessment where it goes through Gallup and it's anonymous. Because even, know, from, yeah, if you're just asking people those questions, it's really hard to say straight to your manager, you know, yeah, I'm gonna answer this a two out of five.

ZT (31:53.89)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (31:54.613)
So yeah.

Spencer Dupre (31:54.761)
Yeah, we give like a culture pulse anonymous survey every quarter, like before our quarterly meeting, just because that's going to tailor what we're doing in the next quarter. If the vibes are low, then we're not going to be like, we're going to really push hard to grow the office and stuff like that. We need to kind of look inwardly and do those kind of things. But if the vibes are high, then like, hey, let's take on some extra projects and do all those kind of things. And that means the team has enough energy because we're not trying to burn out our team.

Alex Nordlund (31:58.412)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (32:11.242)
Yes.

Alex Nordlund (32:22.986)
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. That's good that y'all do that.

Spencer Dupre (32:26.399)
Yeah, okay, well that's, that's affirming. But we don't necessarily do the 12 one, but I think that would be something really good for us to switch to. We just kind of like made up one on our own, you know, like on a scale of one to 10, how fulfilled do you feel in your job? Like that's kind of where we're at. But like you said, like after you saying those 12 points of engagement, the words really do matter and those are good. So I know we talked a lot about a, like a lot of hypothetical, like some different questions and stuff, but what I thought like gave me a ton of insight is really like.

ZT (32:28.258)
You

Alex Nordlund (32:28.27)
Thank

Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (32:35.384)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (32:39.265)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (32:43.905)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (32:53.641)
when you did an analysis of the strengths. And so to kind of put a pin in our episode, as we kind of wrap up in the next five, 10 minutes here, you have my strengths. so, because since Zach hasn't taken them, but from a leader standpoint, because a lot of our listeners are going to be the Kairos that are running their offices leading the team. From a leader standpoint, when you see

Alex Nordlund (33:14.028)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (33:17.535)
these strengths, like using mine as like the example, what do you see like in my strength profile for my top five? And what would you say that I need the most support in and where can I lean into my talents? And then where can I ask my team for support based off of my strengths, if that makes sense.

Alex Nordlund (33:27.127)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (33:32.778)
Yeah. Yeah, great question. And I'll just I'll say this is all going to be so general because we don't have time for me to go deep and make sure it's exactly right. But if I didn't know you and was forced to make assumptions just based on your strengths and not knowing any of the other context. Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (33:39.624)
Yeah.

ZT (33:40.907)
Mm-hmm.

Spencer Dupre (33:43.294)
Sure.

Spencer Dupre (33:48.211)
Yeah. Yeah, like just when you look like at a glance, like obviously this is going to be a thing that you want to know, like on my background and my leadership style or what are my goals and visions and all those things. But just to give people like a rough idea of what it's like to work with a strength coach specifically, like that's what.

Alex Nordlund (33:56.551)
Yes. Yes.

Alex Nordlund (34:03.314)
Mm-hmm. Yep, for sure. For sure. Yeah, we can do that. So you're a relator and developer there at the top, and that means you're probably gonna be very interested in having really deep relationships with the people on your team, and you're really interested in helping them to take the next step of growth, however small that is, and you genuinely love that and celebrate that with them. So that's like really big.

For your people that are more vision motivated, they want to see where are we going? You've got that futuristic and that strategic, but I would probably ask you a lot of questions to make sure that you are communicating your vision and you're communicating those things are gonna get everybody excited. And then something to also, with strategic, you can super quickly come up with solutions.

And most of the time they're going to be right. Strategic is like, you can think so fast. And if someone does not have high strategic, like, you, it feels unsafe. Cause you're like, wait a minute, you just decided we're going to do this. And your futuristic is going to kind of supercharge that. So making sure you have a way to explain your decisions to people and having someone help break down. Cause a lot of times it happens so fast in your brain that you can't even explain why, why this is the best way forward.

ZT (35:09.634)
You

ZT (35:13.228)
You

Spencer Dupre (35:26.035)
and it's just a idea.

Alex Nordlund (35:27.488)
It's just like, this is the best way forward. Does that resonate with you?

ZT (35:30.594)
You

Spencer Dupre (35:31.093)
That's so funny. Yeah, because, okay, so the other day, like now we have three doctors and we have like a shared office. So like we'd see like all the patients and there's not always like a way like if I'm saying like, so and so broke their arm at their football game or something like that. Like people need to know that because sometimes like, you know, say my wife will go and see him. Like, I didn't know that two weeks ago. So and so broke their arm. It's like, actually, well, they told me that. And they're like, we need to come up with a system to do that. And I was like,

Alex Nordlund (35:46.636)
Yeah.

Spencer Dupre (35:56.135)
I can just create this little automation. You press this button on your phone, you talk to it, it'll text the office phone, and then we can make those notes and go over them. And I like put that together in like 10 minutes. And I was like, we should just start doing this. This makes so much sense. It's scalable. It's easy. We'll know exactly who it's coming from. You can talk. There's no texting. We don't have to open up a channel or anything like that. We should do that. We come up to our quarterly meeting and I'm like, Hey, as like the founder and the visionary for the practice, like how can I support you guys better? And, Brittany,

one of our, one of the people on my team, she was like, when you have an idea, let's just bring it to the Tuesday meeting instead of just trying to implement it like right away. Cause sometimes it gets kind of overwhelming when you're like, we should change now. And I was like, man, that, but that was good feedback. Cause I didn't, to me, it seems simple, but to everybody else, it's like, man, that's big change. And so when you say that, I was like, yeah, this actually just happened.

Alex Nordlund (36:37.208)
Yes.

Alex Nordlund (36:43.636)
Yes, that's really good. That's a great example.

Alex Nordlund (36:49.41)
Yep, that's awesome. you know, the way you're wired, it's like, why would we wait, you know, but then the way someone else is wired, it like, especially if they have something like deliberative or intellectual, you know, something that's going to really slow them down, and they're going to want to think, well, this will have to, this will affect this other thing that I do, and it'll change this and I have to think about this differently. So

Spencer Dupre (37:08.169)
Yeah, and in my brain, it's like, well, it solves our problem for the long haul. it solves the problem at scale, no matter, like, and that's like how I'm thinking is like, okay, like it could solve the problem today, but like, what about tomorrow if I had to do a thousand times? It seems like a lot of work. So, okay. Yeah, that's great.

Alex Nordlund (37:10.53)
Yes. Yes. Totally.

ZT (37:12.076)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Nordlund (37:17.345)
Yes.

ZT (37:17.474)
you

Alex Nordlund (37:21.422)
Totally. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's good that I'm really glad that you're asking those questions. That's really, really good for your team to say, you know, give me some feedback and then you accept that feedback. That's huge. It's really huge. The other thing that I'm thinking of too, and I'm curious about, I want to hear your thoughts on this. So, strategic wants to get wherever you're going as fast as possible.

There are other strengths they're gonna say, okay, well, let's hold on, let's slow down because here's an issue. So, you I like to the example of like a pothole in the road. I have a high restorative strength, which is like a problem solving. I wanna stop and fill in the pothole. My husband has high strategic. He's like, we just go around it, it's fine. Yes, yes, so.

Spencer Dupre (38:07.665)
That's exactly what I was about to say when you're like, there's a puddle or you just drive over it. Like you just go around and dismiss it.

ZT (38:11.105)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (38:13.91)
Restorative isn't the only strength that would want to stop and patch it, but then when you partner your strategic that's gonna want to go around the problem with your positivity, positivity can have a tendency either to truly ignore problems or to just be perceived like you're ignoring problems. Does that make sense? So even if you're not truly ignoring problems, if you're too excited and that your team is sensing a problem, they're going to think you are avoiding the problem.

Spencer Dupre (38:32.757)
Yeah.

Alex Nordlund (38:43.618)
So having a way to make sure that your team is able to bring up those problems, you're probably not gonna be the one that is like bringing all of the problems, right? That doesn't maybe energize you in the same way that someone with a restorative or deliberative or something else would. Does that make sense?

Spencer Dupre (39:01.963)
Yeah, no, mean, that's exactly kind of how it is. People are like, well, this is kind of an issue. like, well, I mean, it's really not that big of an issue. And I was like, we could, like, OK, well, here's three ways that we could solve it at scale. And it's good that we caught it early, because, hey, now we can fix this problem. But I don't know everything. Like, oh, man, this is such a big issue. this patient was rude to me. And it's like, well, maybe they were having a bad day.

Alex Nordlund (39:14.733)
Mm-hmm.

Spencer Dupre (39:27.773)
You know, like that's kind of, and they're like, no, like that's not acceptable for them to be rude. Well, I mean, we'll just always look at the best. Like that's, that's exactly how I feel. And so like you saying that is very validating, but it also like is kind of sobering too, to know that like, you know, maybe I'm like looking at things, not necessarily with a blind eye, but from a place of my own perspective. And so then when it comes to leading my team, it's like, I really do have to think about these things. And then that kind of gives my like strategic and like my developer kind of thing.

Alex Nordlund (39:27.788)
Yeah.

ZT (39:28.002)
Thank

Alex Nordlund (39:34.677)
Yes.

Spencer Dupre (39:56.223)
better because it's like, okay, well, I should ask these people and I should deepen my relationship with them so that they know where I'm coming from and I know where they're coming from. So that's really good. It's a lot of insight.

Alex Nordlund (40:02.338)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I'm glad to hear it.

Spencer Dupre (40:06.699)
That's good, Zach, you got your wheels turning.

ZT (40:09.354)
Yeah, I'm excited to take the test. It's going on my to-do list for today.

Spencer Dupre (40:13.395)
Yeah, but that's the thing is like, think it's so different, like, because I took the test and I read the answers and all of those kinds of things. But here in like having like someone like Alex, like mediate that conversation. That's where I feel like, because same thing, I'm, I'm reading the, I'm reading the assessment with my relator lens, with my positivity lens with that. And like having that outside perspective, like is huge. Like I wouldn't even consider it like, you know, maybe somebody would have.

I'm like, well, this is kind of how I am. This is what it's going to be. So I think it's good to have somebody mediate it. That was really helpful.

Alex Nordlund (40:44.631)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm so glad to hear it. Yeah, and if you're gonna take it or...

Zach, if your team's gonna take it, let me know. I'll make you a team grid. They're really helpful. It's where you get everybody's strengths, all 34 and all the numbers, so you can kind of look at them all together. So happy to do that for your team too, Spencer. It unlocks some really cool conversations. Like if you can look at your team and say, wow, I have futuristic as number three and my whole rest of my team, it's in their late 20s and 30s, then you can automatically say, this is gonna be an area we're gonna have to focus on somehow.

Spencer Dupre (40:59.957)
Wow.

ZT (41:16.62)
you.

Alex Nordlund (41:22.2)
dynamics around that.

Spencer Dupre (41:23.615)
Yeah, cool. Okay, so as we wrap up the episode, I have two questions. One, when would you advise someone who leads a team to do this whole assessment, like go through the whole process? When do you feel like is the right time for people to do it and slash or the wrong time? And then what is it like to work with you and how can people get in touch with you?

Alex Nordlund (41:43.33)
Yeah, so my favorite time to work with teams is in transition. So when you have a new hire or when you're needing to let someone go.

Or if you can just feel, you can feel something is not where it needs to be. Something is often you can't quite pinpoint it. That's my favorite time to work with the team. The only times I would really advise against is like, you're in an incredibly busy season. You're the kind of business that really fluctuates and, you know, it's tax time or something. Like that's when I would say, this is probably not the time. And yeah, the best way to get in touch with me is actually through LinkedIn.

or my email so alex at Braveheartstrengths.com Alex Nordland, that's me.

ZT (42:24.727)
Nice.

Spencer Dupre (42:26.975)
That's great, awesome. Cool, Zach, any closing thoughts?

ZT (42:27.424)
Awesome. Awesome. No, this has been great. I really appreciate it. Learned ton and look forward to seeing my team grid here in a little bit.

Alex Nordlund (42:36.201)
Awesome. Okay.

Spencer Dupre (42:36.309)
Great. Cool. Guys, thanks so much for listening to the this episode of the What Now podcast. Alex, thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate it. And yeah, I just know that like just our short brief conversation that we have has made me a better leader. It's made me more insightful. And so, guys, if you guys are trying to lead your team, if you're trying to be productive, if you're really trying to create a culture of impact in your community, that's what we're all trying to do in our practices. You should definitely be reaching out to Alex or someone like Alex to help you do that. Right. Like.

we would never tell our patients to adjust ourselves. And so we should lean on Alex's expertise as well. So, hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the show, share it with a friend and we'll see you guys next time. Peace.