The Big Five / Five Factor Model and the Clifton StrengthsFinder®: An Overview

In my post further down, I have outlined my thoughts on the importance of the Five Factor Model (FFM) for all people on their "strengths quest". Now, I would like to offer my purly unscientific thoughts on how the Clifton Talent Themes could correlate with the WorkPlace Big Five ProFile. This is my own opinion and does not represent the views of Gallup or Dr. Howard. I have however found inspiration in an unpublished paper that Dr. Howard shared with me as well as in an unpublished study made by Gallup with 300 college students. Please take it as a discussion basis and let me know your thoughts about it.

The way this table should be read is like this: let's say for example that you have a very strong Ideation and Activator talent, but your Focus, Strategic or Analytical are rather weak. In this case, chances are high that your Big Five ProFile may result in a low value for C (a C- or C- -). However, if you have Ideation, Activator, Focus and Strategic all equally strong, chances are high that you are a C= ("balanced"), and highly situationally so. It means that there will be moments where your Activator may "ride" you in a C- direction and there are other moments where your Focus and Strategic drive you in a C+ direction. It could be for example that you are rather C- ("flexible") in your private life, but rather C+ ("focused") in your professional life; or the other way round.