My fourth skill, as determined by Clifton Strengths is Analytical, which they describe as the following:
People with strong Analytical talents challenge others to prove it. They take a critical approach to what others might quickly accept as truth. They search for the reasons why things are the way they are. They want to understand how certain patterns affect one another: how they combine, the outcome and if the result fits with the theory or the situation. Others see them as logical and rigorous. Some might feel that they are negative or unnecessarily critical when they are simply trying to understand something. They bring an objective and dispassionate examination to things enabling them to find the causes and effects, and then developing clear thoughts based on facts.
My personalized insights making my Analytical unique are the following:
I expect to do your work flawlessly and consistently strive to reach the high standards I have established for yourself. These usually are more stringent and detailed than those set for me by others.
I carefully examine circumstances, opportunities, or problems, sifting through the past to understand the present. I listen to experts discuss current events, and no fact, object, or document is too minor. I figure out how bits and pieces of history explain what is happening today, and grasp the complexity of most situations.
Driven by my talents, I actively seek to be regarded as a believable, competent, and accomplished person, and appreciate being valued for my ability to reason through things. I can use bits of evidence to reconstruct the whole and also can start with the whole and reduce it to bits of evidence.
By nature, I am considered a businesslike individual by most of your teammates and avoid activities in the workplace or classroom that make me appear foolish.
I would largely agree with this analysis, and I often find myself dissecting various situations, tasks, and problems, in order to fully understand them. Beyond individual events, I love to listen to experts speak on topics and I love to study the various information that is available to become informed and come to my own conclusions. This skill has been both very apparent and also very useful so far here at Olin, especially in our freshman year team case studies, with my focus on analyzing the context surrounding the business and study and trying to find the best way to approach each issue.
I would say a downside to this skill though would be that focusing too hard on analyzing can sometimes leave you caught up in the details and actually push you away from what really matters, and having an awareness of that can help me to prioritize the most important or relevant goal. This skill has been both very apparent and also very useful so far here at Olin, especially in our freshman year team case studies, with my focus on analyzing the context surrounding the business and study and trying to find the best way to approach each issue.