How do you create great materials for your strengths training course? You want to look professional with elegant reports and handouts for the participants. Here we look at making a Workshop Power Pack containing the reports for a team.
When delivering a CliftonStrengths® workshop, there can be a lot of pieces of paper to juggle. There are the individual reports, the team reports, various exercises, and pages with additional information. Before the delegates get overwhelmed in a mountain of paper, Antonia Milkop describes how she makes her Strengths Power Packs. The pieces of paper are held within a professional looking folder, adding value to the training course.
Preparing for a Training Course
Deciding what course materials to hand out depends on the style of your training session. Some coaches like to provide everything, which at first can appear overwhelming, where others take a more minimalist approach. The simple advice is to make every piece of paper count.
A strengths training session will often include the individual CliftonStrengths® reports from Gallup Access and some reports from Gallup Cascade. You may have sheets containing exercises and a table tent for their name and top strengths. Here Antonia Milkop shares how she creates her Strengths Power Packs to wow the participants.
Antonia’s Strengths Power Packs
Each person on my Strengths Training Sessions receives a folder containing all the course materials. In addition to their own strengths reports, they can add further sheets after completing the exercises. I call these my Strengths Power Packs. They act as a handy ‘go to’ pack for them to refer to well after the workshop itself. The helpful folder also features my company branding and my contact information for future reference.
The presentation folders are custom printed where there are many online and local print houses available. Include your logo, a strapline, website address, contact details and anything else to give it a professional look. You may be able to have a slot to insert your business card. Keep the format generic, so you can use the folders for the range of strengths courses you offer.
What to put in the Strengths Power Packs
Well before a training course, each team member completes their CliftonStrengths® assessment. Exporting the profiles of their 34 themes from Access, I import them into Cascade to create the reports. It is a good idea to share the assessment codes well in advance – one or two weeks before – so there is time to resolve any issues before your team workshop. This gives you time to prepare your workshop reports and resources.
Including several professional reports in the folder will make it look impressive. You may have asked them to print their assessment results in advance from Access, or you can provide them here. These are the reports I print from Cascade for individuals.
- Personal Insights – deep dive snapshot on on your Top 10 talent themes
- Brings & Needs – the top 10 contributors and energisers.
- My 34 Themes – one page report showing all their 34 themes.
- My Domains – the distribution of their themes across the four domains.
- Name Tent – fold these and display on the tables next to their Strengths Power Packs. It’s also a very handy way as a facilitator to remember everyone’s names and strengths during the workshop itself. You might also like to make lanyards or badge labels in Cascade for this same purpose.
As an extra touch, you could create the Workbook Cover in Cascade to show as the first page of the folder.
Printing the Reports in Cascade
Fortunately, Cascade makes it easy to print a set of reports for a whole team. For a training session with 10 people, you don’t need to print each report out 10 times, use the Whole Team option. Follow these steps to create individual reports for each person in your workshop.
- Select the people for your workshop in the Cascade Team Grid.
- Set up the personal reports with the desired options. For example, the number of themes to show and any special configuration for the Name Tents.
- In the Cascade Menu, select Whole Team. The heading in the green section changes slightly and it shows how many people are in the team.
- Using the buttons in the Menu, click on the Print or PDF icons next to the reports you want to create. This will print the reports you need for each person in the Team Grid.
In Summary
Firstly, choose carefully the reports you want to provide for your training course. Then present them in a professional folder which will add value to you and your brand. The course delegates will appreciate receiving your Strengths Power Pack and hopefully refer to it long after your session.
