The CliftonStrengths ® theme of Harmony ® is often misunderstood and undervalued. Richard Sterry shares how his power strength of Harmony ® navigates conflict and creates a sense of balance within teams. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the meaning behind silence and asking the right questions to foster respectful discussions. Whether you’re someone with Harmony ® in your top strengths or simply interested in understanding how to work better with those who do, this interview is packed with valuable insights to enhance your appreciation of this often-underestimated strength.
Don’t miss out on hearing how Richard turned his initial scepticism about Harmony ® into one of his most powerful tools, and learn tips that can help you or your team thrive by embracing the calm amid the chaos. Ready to discover the true power of Harmony ®? Keep reading or listen in to gain a fresh perspective on how this strength can transform your interactions and your work.
Brandon Miller, CEO of 34 Strong interviews Richard Sterry as part of The Strenghs Whisperer series for CliftonStrengths®. Read the transcript below or listen to the 20-minute recording.
Harmony: A Coaching Conversation with Richard Sterry
Brandon Miller [00:00:07]:
I’m Brandon Miller and you are listening to Coach To Coach.
This weekly series dives deep into the world of CliftonStrengths® and how they impact your daily life. Hear from Certified Strengths Coaches on the ins and outs, quirks and characteristics of all 34 strengths and 4 domains and how they play out in real life. Let’s get started.
Hello and welcome to Coach To Coach season two of the Strengths Whisperer. I am here today with the Richard Sterry. Some part of me wants to say Sir Richard Sterry, but he would not allow that. We’re talking about Harmony ® today. Richard comes to us from just outside of London, UK, and he is the founder of Releasing Strengths.com Some of you know him more by the term Cascade as the founder, originator and saviour to thousands of coaches around the world stuck in the mire of how to expedite the development of their resources. Richard has a marvellous partnership with Gallup, culminating in his product being purchased by them. And today he leads Strengths Resources.com a place where those with licensed Gallup products can put their material to support coaches who are beginning or growing their endeavors.
Richard, welcome to Coach To Coach.
Richard Sterry [00:01:32]:
Brandon, thank you for inviting me and it’s an honor to be here.
Brandon Miller [00:01:35]:
I couldn’t imagine a better person today to talk to us about the strength of Harmony ®. As is our custom, we’re going to dive right in. But before we do, could you just speak a little bit more about what you’re up to? I think our listeners would love to hear just that, here’s the Cascade guy and you’ve spoken to so many of us the world over, you are the most internationally known person in the strengths world. So what are you up to, Richard?
Richard Sterry [00:02:04]:
Well, certainly Cascade did create quite a sort of a shockwave around the universe and people connecting with it. That really helped me to connect with lots of coaches. Then two years ago, Gallup acquired Cascade and its now part of Gallup Access. So I’m then in this unique position where I’m connected with thousands of coaches and I’ve got lots of connections within Gallup, and I’m acting as a go-between, between the two, bringing everyone together. So we can all build the strengths community with one voice.
Brandon Miller [00:02:36]:
I love that. And so one voice thinking about the strengths community, thinking about the vision of our founder, Doctor Donald Clifton, the late entrepreneur, the late venture researcher, sociologist. I think so many terms we can ascribe to psychologists his work around positive psychology, which brought us this language of strengths, 34 unique and distinct themes of strength. And here we are today talking about Harmony ®. As we mentioned before the show, Richard and I talked about this as one of his dominant strengths. So it’s one that I think he might tell us today he relies on every day. And this is one of those fun times where I’m getting to talk about one from my bottom strengths.
Harmony – Seeks to Avoid Conflict
So this is one of the ones that I do not know nearly as well, Richard, you’re guiding us through this conversation of Harmony ®. And so with that said, can you tell us about this strength, Richard?
Richard Sterry [00:03:33]:
Well, certainly. When I first saw the theme of Harmony ®, I wasn’t quite sure what it was on my report, and I saw the words ‘seeks to avoid conflict‘. And that sort of grated with me because that’s what I did and I didn’t like that part of me. I found it very difficult to own that theme. And it wasn’t until I had a coaching session which told me about the power of Harmony ® and what it can do, that it really completely transformed my view of the theme of Harmony ®. And so, Harmony ®, yes, it seeks to avoid conflicts, but not in a way of setting a direction, but more in a way of navigating. So my golden rule is;
Don’t let Harmony ® decide the destination, let other themes decide the destination.
Then let Harmony ® decide the route on how you’re going to get there.
So if there’s conflict straight ahead, Harmony ® previously, for me, would say, go the other way. Whereas now, if there’s conflict straight ahead and I want to get to the other side of that conflict, how can we get around that conflict in the smoothest possible way of doing that?
Brandon Miller [00:04:37]:
Listeners, I hope that you caught some of the wisdom that Richard just gave us in terms of first wrestling with some of the terms that one may not like when they see their CliftonStrengths ® report. I remember seeing Activator ® and often impatient with something that jumped right off the page. I think I swore an expletive at, how dare you call me out like that and call out one area that I worked my whole life to try to be more of. And now you’re just telling me what I’m stuck with this.
Listening with Harmony
And so, Richard, as you looked at Harmony ® and you began to appreciate it as a strength, as near flawless performance, something that you could leverage when you chose to leverage it, meaning Harmony ® didn’t drive, as you said, really well, you could decide when it was most appropriate to put Harmony ® to work. Perhaps you could tell us a story about a time when that seems to have been an area that you knew. My Harmony ® is coming to the fore, and this is its time to shine.
Richard Sterry [00:05:45]:
Well, one thing I’ve noticed with Harmony ®, it is really sensitive to be able to detect where there are points of pain, where there are areas of friction, where things may not be as smooth as they could be. And so what I do, is I tend to listen out for those pieces and then say, okay, how can we make that better? How can we actually alleviate that and make it easier for everybody else?
So, one of the things I recognized in the coaching community was that there are quite a few coaches who’ve created their own products using CliftonStrengths ® under license with Gallup. But there’s no place where you can actually find them unless you know that person or you’re looking for that very specific product. And so one of the things I’ve done with Strengths Resources is to bring all that together. Showcase all the different CliftonStrengths ® resources, products and materials around. So where people have written books, people have created merchandise, that sort of thing, it’s all there in one place. People can then find it.
Brandon Miller [00:06:40]:
So you alleviated the point of pain. You alleviated where there was a space or there was a gap, a place in need. In our journey together, Richard, I believe that you’ve had the occasion of coaching others in their strengths, and probably something that you’ve done, whether you were being paid to or not. As you talk to so many coaches around the world during your years running Cascade. Cascade’s the product, but for years I think you were almost more known as the Cascade guy. Right, the Cascade guy who has Releasing Strengths, but as you were leading that effort.
Finding a Practical Way Forward
And so I imagine you perhaps have had the ability to talk to people with a Harmony ® strength, how to bring the best out of. And so for our listeners today who are strong in Harmony ®, what are some things that we can tell them that might apply to many of them? Things that can help them develop the strength, grow it as something that they can rely on and have become a steady influence in their work?
Richard Sterry [00:07:39]:
Something I’ve noticed with Harmony ® is that it can often get stopped or blocked if it can’t find a practical way forward. It’s a very practical theme, and it’s looking for that practical step of how to go forward next. And sometimes if there’s a blocker, it’s very difficult to identify. How can I get moving on this one? But sometimes it’s just a matter of taking the first step, seeing what happens, and then seeing where the next step is. And by just doing one step at a time, that can be a way of moving forward. If you feel that your Harmony ® theme is actually holding you back on that.
Brandon Miller [00:08:12]:
I like the practicality. I remember listening to the late, great Curt Liesveld talk about Harmony ® in that way. He would say, it’s just so practical, so down to earth. It’s a theme that likes to find the common ground. So it looks and it seeks alignment, it seeks agreement. And I think it might be true to say that when it continually finds a lack thereof, it moves to dissonance. It starts to maybe pull away and you said that earlier in regards to avoiding conflict.
Seeking Clarity with Harmony
Perhaps that avoidance of conflict might really be avoidance of alignment. Harmony ® needing to pull back because it’s clear we aren’t there yet. We’re not in that space where we have unity. So I’m going to pull it back now to perhaps wait or find another place where that can occur. Is that something that in your own development, your own journey, you can start to sense that or feel that when you’re engaging with others?
Richard Sterry [00:09:11]:
I think there are times, because certainly Harmony ® loves the sense of clarity. As in, if you’re asked something, I sometimes need to know a little bit more detail. And a funny story. I was invited to visit some friends one evening and they said, bring a pizza with you. Fine. Okay. Now, do I take a hot pizza, which is going to get cold on the way? Or do I take one that needs putting in the oven when I get there? I just needed to know which. Whether it’s going to be cooked or whether it’s going to be ready to go in the oven. But asking that level of detail helped me and distilled me and made peace in my mind.
But for the people I was asking it for, well, of course, you bring it hot. That’s what we do. I just didn’t know at the time. So it needs that level of clarity, and it needs something to actually know. Okay. The reason why I want this clarity and the reason why I need this clarity is so that I then don’t cause friction later on. Because I talked about sort of earlier, it can detect friction now. If I turned up for the party with an uncooked pizza, they’d say, oh, we’ve got to switch the oven on. We’ve got to go and cook it! Why isn’t it ready to eat now? That’s what I was trying to avoid.
Brandon Miller [00:10:16]:
I think I would have probably assumed myself. I’m trying to think when I’ve asked that question and I could see where that need for clarity, that need for an understanding with this particular strength, I think we’re going to find because it is one of the more common strengths in the world, you’re going to see this one show up with you on teams and you’re going to experience members of the team.
Don’t Mistake my Kindness for Weakness
I remember one of the very first people that I coached who was a number one Harmony ®, and he said to me, don’t mistake my kindness for weakness. Sometimes people assume because my nature might be less confrontive or my nature might not be as direct or as impending or pushing. He said they assume that somehow that denotes weakness. He said, no, but in reality, I watch, I listen, I wait, I look for the right place at the right time. And so for those of us who are working with high Harmony ®, Richard, how do we bring the best out of them on our team, especially if we don’t share that strength?
Richard Sterry [00:11:21]:
Perhaps the piece you just touched on, in the right place at the right time? Yes. There can be something that needs to happen. I absolutely get that. But we just need to find that right place and find that right time.
So if you’re working with someone with high Harmony ® and there might be a good idea to go forward, feel free to ask those questions. When would be the best time to do this? Or what would be the right sort of situation to do this in? And the person with Harmony ® would then be able to say, well, this would really fit at that point of the day, or whatever the case may be, or this would be best to do at this stage rather than that stage. And then it just gives the whole day a sense of flow and better timing, and you might get better traction and better engagement from other people by having that better timing.
What does Harmony Bring to a Team?
Brandon Miller [00:12:32]:
Today we are talking about Harmony ®. Richard. One of the resources that we give to our listeners, if they request it, is the contributions and needs list, which you are very familiar with. And when we think about the contributions of a person with Harmony ®, I want you to listen to this list, and I’m curious if you can make ticks next to each of these as I work my way down. Perhaps share which ones really stand out. So here we go.
- Maintaining balance
- Creating common ground
- Peacemaker
- Doesn’t rock the boat
- Conflict averse,
- Provides a steady influence
What are some of those that really jump out, or all of them? Could you elaborate a bit on the contribution of someone with the Harmony ® strength?
Richard Sterry [00:13:17]:
I would say balance. Maintaining balance. If I hear one side of the argument, I want to hear the other side first before I can make comments on it. So if there’s a news story about something, all very well, it might be sensational. But let’s hear the other side first, and then we can have a discussion about it and just putting things in context there. And I’m not sure if you mentioned about calmness amongst confusion, but that’s certainly something that I tend to do a lot of if there’s a stressful situation. Okay, how can we pick out what’s really important? Focus on those things, and then the calmness will start to appear and the confusion will start to die down.
Brandon Miller [00:13:58]:
I want to ask this question because – I just added that to the list there, Calmness among confusion – I want to ask the how. So you’re sensing this is clearly a space where there’s confusion. What are some ways that a Harmony ® helps to do what you just described?
Richard Sterry [00:14:18]:
Well, I think in times of uncertainty. When there are so many different variables and so many different moving parts, yes, there’s a lot of moving parts, which is very distracting. Have a look to see which parts are not moving, the ones that are static, the things that you can predict, the things that you know are going to happen, and then build on those pieces. As you move down that journey of building on those pieces, other things will start to fall into place.
So that’s one area of looking at it. Another area is thinking, if there are about three different options, you don’t know at this stage which option is likely to be. So have a rough idea, of what your options are and how you could use them. And then when you get to that situation, you know what you can do. Just do whatever you think is appropriate at that time.
What does Silence Mean?
Brandon Miller [00:15:06]:
Richard, when someone with Harmony ® is in dissonance. So let’s say that they’re in a space where they’re not happy. Clearly, something is not right. But by all appearances, one might not know, because by appearance, it’s a calm but internally there’s a storm. And so for either the person with Harmony ® or the person working with a Harmony ®, learning some of those tells or some of those outlets or healthy ways to not allow that build up, if you will, of feeling that negativity that might be associated with, there is chaos here, there is confusion. It’s clear that we’re not respecting, we’re talking over, not to each other.
Richard Sterry [00:15:49]:
Well, I would answer that with a question. And my question would be. What does silence mean? And if you’re talking to someone and they’re absolutely quiet about it, they’re not responding. Is it that they’re not disagreeing? Or is it that they do disagree but they don’t want to share their disagreement? Because that’s going to cause conflict. And it’s by knowing the person, high Harmony ® is more likely to stay quiet and not disagree on something because in some respects it might not be worth disagreeing. Why rock the boat if you don’t have to? Just stay quiet, move on. Whereas someone else might be staying quiet because, yeah, that’s fine. What’s the problem?
Brandon Miller [00:16:31]:
That’s good. So I didn’t know we were doing therapy today, so I want to thank you for that. I just now flashed all of the conversations that I might have with someone with high Harmony ®, where a long silent pause occurs. And I’m on the other side wondering to myself, did the call drop? Did I lose you? What just happened? And I think you just gave perhaps some of us without high Harmony ® a wonderful question. What does silence mean?
Because silence is a form of communication. If we are present together and one is quiet, it’s probably intentional. Even if just for the gathering of one’s thoughts and the space where one might want to give extra room to allow what has been said or what we are trying to solve, to sit for a moment and I find perhaps people with high Harmony, ® that is a part of how that strength might express itself. Would that be accurate?
Richard Sterry [00:17:35]:
Absolutely. On that. And to really add to what I was saying earlier, when the silence finishes, rather than say. Why did you do that? A very confrontational question or very confrontational statement. I perhaps ask a question. What were your thoughts when you created that? In other words. Why on earth have you done it that way?! That is what I’m really saying. But I’m just saying it in a nice, smooth way in terms of taking me through the design process of how you got there.
What does Harmony Need?
Brandon Miller [00:18:29]:
Let’s talk about needs. So, Harmony ®, like every strength, has certain needs that help it to be successful. And we have certainly uncovered several of those. So a calm and respectful discussion. And I like that the word calm already has been brought out balance. And there’s a lot you can unpack with that word. Areas of agreement, willingness to discuss rationally and avoid escalation of conflicts.
So here are some of the needs, and you can color us in on adding more or just a bit about what those needs mean and how they help someone with high Harmony ®, whether it’s you, someone you’re coaching, or a member of your team who works with this strength.
Richard Sterry [00:19:12]:
The one that really stands out on that is finding areas of common ground. So then maybe I’m meeting somebody for the first time, and it may be somebody I wouldn’t naturally connect with, but I would look to see, okay, what have we got in common? Is there a place we visited, which we’ve both been to that we can talk about or something like that? Is there something that we have a similar view, just to get that conversation going and looking for that area of common ground?
Adding to that, certainly in meetings, in discussions and things, when we’re trying to negotiate something or trying to bring something big together, what do we all agree on? Keep going back to the beginning of the meeting. This is what we agree on. These are our principles. This is our vision. This is our focus, and this is where we’re going. Then let’s have a discussion around that. And very often the discussion is kept on track, and you get very few red herrings and things coming from that.
But going back to the need, it’s needing the time at the beginning just to set the scene, to say, this is what we agree on. And this is where we all understand the way forward to be.
Final Thoughts
Brandon Miller [00:20:24]:
By finding areas of common ground, and staying in that space where we build on that, we can support each other with those areas of common ground. Richard, you’ve given us so many great nuggets today. The question what does silence mean? Sensitive to points of pain, finding areas where we can create alignment or agreement, calmness among confusion.
Richard, anything else about Harmony ® that we left off the table today that might be helpful for our listeners when thinking about this strength in particular?
Richard Sterry [00:21:36]:
The biggest lesson I learned with Harmony ® was having a coaching session about it, right in my early strengths days and embracing it and using it, rather than trying to reject it and push it to one side. Lean right into it, listen with it, engage it, and then other people will start engaging with you.
Brilliant, Richard, thank you for your time today.
Acknowledgements
Brandon Miller CEO of 34 Strong https://34strong.com/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-miller-34strong/
Contact Brandon to receive a resource on how to be a great teammate from 34 Strong.
The Strengths Whisperer https://sites.libsyn.com/442167
Harmony: A Coaching Conversation with Richard Sterry https://sites.libsyn.com/442167/harmony-a-coaching-conversation-with-richard-sterry
Richard Sterry owner of Releasing Strengths https://releasingstrengths.com/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsterry/
Strengths Resources https://strengthsresources.com
Discover more about CliftonStrengths ® – How to take the CliftonStrengths / StrengthsFinder Assessment
Learn more about the Harmony theme from Gallup.
Note: Although this is a transcript of the conversation, some of the text has been edited for clarity and readability.
