I recently took a âStrengthsFinderâ training at work. This is a ranking system that shows which of 34 different âthinking patternsâ is the strongest when you answer some questions. It was very interesting to compare the results with those of the 20 people who took the training with me, as each person had their own differences, which actually showed up in their behavior and comments during the training.
I was interviewed for an interview at Unexplored Junior before and after, and I talked about how we do not rank the applicants and take them from the top, but match them with each mentor, and I also talked about how Unexplored itself displays different screening criteria for each PM. I thought it would be a good idea to convey the fact that each mentor and PM has a different personality. This is a good opportunity for me to write about the results of my StrengthsFinder.
The strongest of my thought patterns is âIDEAâ. In other words, I am good at coming up with ideas that âmight be related to thisâ or âmight be interesting if connected to this. However, as a mentor, I usually try not to say too much. The reason is that the average 15 year old finds it hard to argue when someone twice his/her age mentions an idea, such as âsuch an idea is boring, this idea of mine is betterâ.
At the boost meeting (a meeting to discuss what to do in front of many people at the beginning of a project) of the Junior Unexplored, creators receive various opinions from many people, but every time I tell them, âDonât try to do everythingâ and âMake your own selections.
I try to be modest with my ideas at first, and gradually increase the number of ideas after I have determined if the person is âtolerantâ of other peopleâs ideas. I donât want to create âworkers who do as they are told,â so if I tell them an idea, I donât want them to follow it. I donât want you to give priority to an adultâs idea when your own opinion conflicts with the adultâs. I donât want you to be able to defend your own ideas. I want you to be able to defend your own ideas on your own.
From the standpoint of coming up with a lot of ideas, individual ideas are just âone of many,â so it is not regrettable to throw them away. We want to have a relationship where we can bounce ideas off each other without worrying about anything, because better ideas are generated by mixing many ideas together. For this to happen, creators need to have confidence in their own ideas.
The next strongest is âstrategicity,â which is a pattern of thinking about what is the best way to achieve a goal from among many options. I feel that I am suppressing this one as well. The reason for this is that I believe that I should not take the steering wheel of a project in the first place, and that the creators should decide for themselves what kind of policy they want to pursue. If a mentor says, âLetâs follow this policy,â creators may follow it without thinking for themselves. Wondering which policy is best is also an important learning opportunity, and we should not deprive them of this learning opportunity by helping them ahead of time.
I think I am, but in discussions with other mentors, I wonder if I am placing too much emphasis on the spontaneity of the creators. In other words, my approach could be described as âleaving things to chanceâ or âthrowing everything at them.
The third strongest thought pattern is âdesire to learn,â that is, âI want to know what I donât know,â âI want to understand what I donât know,â and âI want to experiment. I myself am a mentor for the Junior Unexplored Program largely because of my own learning. I use this pattern all the time in mentoring. When someone says, âI want to buy this book because I want to learn this or that,â I say, âKeep buying! I answer, âKeep buying! (Is there a negative mentor here? (Is there a negative mentor here?) On the other hand, in the case of âIâm not sure whatâs the best way to do it and Iâm having a hard time,â we tend to choose âexperiment and learn from the results,â as in âI canât find the answer by worrying, so letâs have users use the product and observe it as soon as possible.
The fourth strongest thought pattern is âfuture oriented,â and the project itself, Unexplored Junior, is a future-oriented project to nurture future engineers. I think all of the creator projects are future oriented too, since they are creating something new. Maybe Iâm subconsciously passing over the ones that arenât? I myself tend to think and act five to ten years into the future. For example, I wrote âThe Technology Behind Coatingsâ thinking, âI will write a technical book that will not become obsolete even after 10 years. But I donât think they expect that much from the creators of Unexplored Junior. It would be a theoretical exercise to think 10 years into the future when they have only 15 years of life experience. Rather, I would like them to aim for a report on the results of their work in six months, and to properly finish and present their work to the world. When a creatorâs program is troubled by a bug, we do not tell them the cause of the bug. The emphasis is on helping the creator in the process of identifying the cause of the bug, and thereby helping the creator acquire the ability to identify the cause of the bug. Even if the mentors help the students to succeed in the results presentation, it will only give them the experience of âsucceeding with help,â and they will not be able to run on their own after the junior unexplored period ends. The emphasis is on long-term growth, not short-term success in presentation.
The fifth is âintrospection,â which is a pattern of preferring to think things over alone. Often, in mentoring, I come up with an idea and communicate it via chat after the videoconference is over, rather than on the spot in the videoconference.
The sixth strongest pattern is âactive (bio-medical contexts)â, which is a pattern of immediately acting on oneâs thoughts. They tend to say, âI wonât know until I try it, so letâs try it!â and âIâll have to try it to find out! In the âdesire to learnâ section, there was âLetâs experiment and learn from the results,â but even in the same learning process, they tend to say âI donât know, so letâs try it outâ rather than âI donât know, so letâs see if we can find a good book. He is the type of person who does not care much about failure. I think it is also âactiveâ that I am writing this article anyway.
The seventh strongest pattern is âthe egoâ, which prefers to have the spotlight on itself. I hadnât noticed this until it was pointed out to me, but I certainly tend to prefer writing and publishing under my own name rather than working as an organization. I would like creators to have an achievement that is tied to the individual, âI created it. This may be one of the reasons why I emphasize the importance of self-determination of the creators in the progress of a project. It is not cool to say, âMy mentor told me what to do, so I did it. It should be âmy productâ that I thought about and decided by myself. Since I have been involved in many individual activities in my life, on the contrary, I am not very good at managing teams. When someone talks to me in a way that puts the team as the subject, I am tempted to ask, âSo, what do you personally think about this?â I am tempted to ask, âSo, what do you personally think?
The eighth is âbeing intent on making the best of things,â which means to make good things better. Of course, we want to make software better, but it also seems to be a pattern of focusing on personal strengths and developing them.
Paired with this explanation is âgrowth promotion. Surprisingly, âgrowth promotionâ was seventh from the bottom. I asked him for a detailed explanation, and he told me that people with strong âgrowth promotionâ skills teach the same thing three times, and when they make the same mistake, they try to figure out if they did not teach the right way or not. It is true that I do not teach in such a tenacious manner. I select strong people through selection and work to make them stronger.
The ninth is âgoal-oriented,â a pattern of clarifying the objective and acting toward it. In mentoring, the creators themselves confirm what they want to do and how they want to do it. I canât imagine someone who is not goal oriented working on a project⊠In my case, I ask in the interview what the purpose is and what you will do to achieve it, so I wonder if people who canât answer the question are failing.
The tenth is âself-confidence,â which is a pattern of having a compass within oneself and deciding for oneself which way to go without relying on others. Looking back on what I have written so far, I see that I want creators to be âpeople who follow their own beliefs and not be swayed by the opinions of others.
StrengthsFinder focuses on commonly used thinking patterns (strengths), but after writing this far, it seems like itâs just a matter of course when it comes to mentoring. This is because I, as a mentor, have written about the thinking patterns that I often use in mentoring. So, letâs take a look at the âless-often-used thinking patterns.
The lowest is â[punctuality (used almost exclusively in reference to trains, buses, ferries, etc.)â. This is the pattern of following a daily routine, being organized, and following a plan without hesitation. I think itâs a great execution to make a plan early on and then follow through with the plan. In my head I think so, but in my heart I think, âLetâs challenge ourselves more.
The second pattern is âincludeâ, for example, when you see someone who is alone, you try to talk to them and include them in your group. I havenât done that. It is very useful in the long run for creatives to network with their peers, so we encourage creatives to get to know each other (future oriented + strategic). I think so, but I myself have not acted to support it.
The third is âfairness,â a pattern of setting rules that are the same for everyone and trying to strictly follow them. I hate that kind of thinking pattern. The opposing âindividualizationâ ranked in the top 16. Since each individual is in a different situation, they believe that the response should be different for each individual situation. This is a point of disagreement among the mentors. For example, when a mentor wants to approve an additional budget for a project, I would say, âIf the additional budget will make the project better, then we should do it, but we should not hesitate to do it because we are concerned about fairness with other projects.
The fourth is âharmony,â a pattern of thinking that favors everyoneâs agreement. The enemy of innovation. When new things are created, you are always alone at first. If you seek to agree with those around you, new things will not be created. This thought pattern avoids expressing opinions that conflict with others. It is very bad. It is not good to have the sense that âdifferent opinionsâ are considered âconflicts. Different opinions are âsharing a different point of view,â and things are better understood when they are shared.
Fifth is âdesire for achievementâ and I honestly donât understand this one. Why am I perceived as having this low? The detailed explanation seems to be a pattern of making checklists and filling them all in, or persevering and working hard. It is true that my behavior is rather uneven. I am more characterized by a lack of emphasis on following a plan (low discipline) or prioritizing my interests (desire to learn). I think itâs good that creatives have a high desire to achieve. Itâs like, wow, they can do something Iâm not good at.
The sixth is ârecovery thinking,â a pattern of finding the cause of a problem and solving it. This is another good trait for a creator. It is a good move to find a specific problem and then seek to solve it.
Seventh is âgrowth promotant,â which I wrote about in the âTopmost Orientationâ section.
The eighth is âcompetitiveness,â enthusiasm for winning by comparing oneself to others. Hmmm, I see. I donât see anything wrong with competing with rivals as long as you are not overly concerned with winning or losing. Itâs just that Iâm a go-getter who is very âself-confidentâ and doesnât care what others think.
The ninth is âpredestination,â a pattern of thinking that there is no such thing as coincidence and that all events have meaning. Thatâs not true, most things are luck. You may make good software and not get noticed, or you may make nothing significant and still get noticed. Those things are luck and you canât control them, so donât worry about them.
The 10th is âpositiveââŠno, this one should be positiveâŠlol When I read the detailed explanation, it says, âWhen someone is negative, I want to be positive,â which is certainly not the case with me. When someone is negative, I keep my distance so that the negativity is not contagious to me. I guess I donât mind approaching people with strong positivity because it is not contagious.
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