Assessments Are the Science. Application Is the Art.
I recently had the chance to sit down again with Alan Bennett on the Trust Built podcast — and this time, we turned the tables on each other.
Alan is a business coach and exit planner who uses DISC behavioral assessments with his clients. I use Clifton Strengths with individuals and teams. So we decided to swap: I ran Alan through Clifton Strengths, he ran me through DISC, and then we compared notes.
It was one of the more fun professional conversations I've had in a while. It was also a good reminder of why I believe so strongly in using these tools — not just as a one-time exercise, but as an ongoing framework for how teams understand and work with each other.
But I also want to pull out a few points from our conversation that I think are worth sitting with — especially for nonprofit leaders managing small, stretched, multitasking teams.
Nobody Is Everything..and That's the Point.
One of the things Alan and I kept coming back to is the pressure that leaders — especially nonprofit executive directors — feel to be everything to everyone. The PR expert, the fundraiser, the HR department, the financial analyst, the program director. All at once, on a Tuesday.
Clifton Strengths research makes one thing very clear: nobody is well-rounded. Gallup says people are stars, and stars have points. The things you are naturally good at, you will always be better at than the things that don't come naturally. The goal isn't to shore up every weakness — it's to maximize what you already do well and build a team that covers the rest.
That's not permission to avoid hard things. It's permission to stop pretending you're supposed to be able to do all of them equally.
The Real Value Is the Common Language
I have a team member who has high consistency — she wants processes, she wants rules that apply to everyone, she wants a system. And I have another team member with high individualization — she sees every situation as different, every person as deserving a tailored approach.
In theory, those two strengths could create constant friction. In practice, they make our team stronger than I could make it alone. The consistency person gave us an onboarding process. The individualization person is the one who comes to me and says: “I know this is the way we normally do it, but I think this person needs something different.” And she's usually right.
What makes that work isn't that I manage the tension between them. It's that we all know each other's strengths. We have the language to talk about why we approach things differently, and we've agreed that different isn't wrong. It's just different.
That shared language is what assessments actually give you. It's not a personality label. It's a way to say, “Oh — that's your deliberative strength coming out. Good catch.” And mean it.
Don't Weaponize the Results
Alan brought this up in our conversation, and I want to echo it clearly: assessments are not hierarchy.
In Clifton Strengths, there is no strength that's more important than another, more effective than another, or more likely to produce a successful leader. Top executives in every field have completely different strength profiles. The moment you use an assessment result to dismiss someone — “Well, she's just an S, she moves too slow” — you've missed the point entirely and probably damaged someone in the process.
The D and the S on a DISC profile can be a frustrating pair, yes. They're also a nearly ideal one, if you can get past the friction to see what each brings. The urgency of the D and the steadiness of the S aren't in conflict. They're a balance. Getting there requires the same thing everything in leadership requires: patience and intention.
The Science and the Art
Something Alan said near the end of our conversation has stayed with me:
“The assessments are the science. The application is the art.”
That's exactly right. The instrument gives you data. What you do with it — how you use it to help a team see each other differently, how you bring it into a leadership transition, how you use it to resolve conflict that's been simmering for years — that's where the real work is. And that work doesn't happen once. It has to be sustained, reinforced, and spoken aloud regularly.
Use it or lose it.
If your team has done an assessment at some point and the results are sitting in a drawer, I'd love to help you bring it back to life. And if you've never done one, this is a good season to start — particularly if you're navigating leadership change, a stretched team, or that particular kind of nonprofit exhaustion that comes from everyone doing everything all at once.
That's what Alan and I talked about. And more. Listen to the full conversation here -
Listen to the full episode
Trust Built Podcast with Alan Bennett
https://youtu.be/b0nkIUZQuBo?si=dNgu6jwU_NyMeuRU
Ready to Bring This to Your Team?
If you're curious about what Clifton Strengths coaching could look like for your team — whether you're navigating a leadership transition, building a new team, or just want your people to understand each other better — let's talk.