How does StrengthsFinder coaching actually improve team performance?

StrengthsFinder coaching helps teams understand how each person intuitively approaches projects, problems, and people - and how those patterns influence collaboration. Teams see measurable improvements in:

  • Communication clarity

  • Trust and psychological safety

  • Conflict reduction

  • Role alignment

  • Productivity and engagement

By naming strengths, the team reduces misunderstandings and increases appreciation for diverse work styles.

Like any other development program, StrengthsFinder can feel like a flavor-of-the-week attempt at team-building if it’s not approached with the intention of ongoing workshops, coaching, and integration into activities such as on-boarding new employees and using it to guide programming & project decisions.

The Elkins Consulting approach is to begin with a one-to-one coaching session for each member of the team. To employees, this demonstrates a real investment in their professional development and the intention to make the most of the assessment. Employees understand their own talents and how to use them with intention, and when the team gathers for workshops, the majority of the time is spent on understanding team dynamics, expectations for communication, and strategies for feedback and acknowledgment specific to each person.

How is the learning in the program sustainable over time? Can it shift company culture?

How can we use our strengths results in day-to-day interactions?

Teams and managers learn practical ways to apply strengths in real time, such as:

  • Delegating tasks based on natural talent

  • Using strengths as a meeting check-in (e.g., “Which strength will help you most today?”)

  • Anticipating friction based on differing communication needs and planning for it

  • Pairing team members for complementary collaboration

  • Adjusting communication styles to match others’ strengths

Strengths become a shared vocabulary that improves communication among people with significantly different languages. Even when we speak the same language, we often aren’t speaking the same language.

How do we address weaknesses or performance gaps if the focus is on strengths?

StrengthsFinder doesn’t ignore weaknesses—it offers better strategies to manage them:

  • Using dominant strengths to overcome weak areas

  • Partnering with teammates who excel where you don’t, creating stronger teams

  • Setting up habits, systems, or guardrails to prevent failures

  • Aligning roles so each person spends more time in areas of strength

The model focuses on maximizing what works while responsibly managing what doesn’t.

Sarah’s work with 2,000+ individuals and 30+ teams since 2019 makes her uniquely intuitive in her approach to using StrengthsFinder results to predict behavior and nurture an environment of healthy self-reflection and safety.

Using storytelling as the functional backbone of communication, Sarah guides clients in crafting personal stories to strengthen relationships and demonstrate their skills, values and character.

Her workshops are both entertaining and practical, and generate consistently positive feedback about the long-term learning and growth from the experience.

What makes Elkins Consulting’s approach to StrengthsFinder coaching unique?

Typical components include:

  • CliftonStrengths assessment + full report

  • A strengths-based team grid/map

  • Individual coaching sessions

  • 3-hour introductory workshop with interactive activities

  • Tools for ongoing application

  • Optional follow-up sessions or coaching packages

You’ll walk away with a shared language and a more cohesive, energized team.

What should we expect from a team strengths workshop or coaching series?