# Maximizer 完美 Domain: 🟧 Influencing ### Signature Theme Description Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps —all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well-rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding. ### Shared Theme Description People exceptionally talented in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb. ### Additional notes: - On a team, Maximizer will take something good and challenge the team to make it excellent. - Turn this talent on yourself. Use this talent to sort towards where you invest your time and how you invest it. - You will feel like you can thrive and find real satisfaction if you know you're developing your own strengths and really giving that extra coat of polish to drive towards excellence (source: 7 video with Maika ) - Those high in Maximizer love to take A performers and turn them into A+ All Stars. - Maximizers focus on quality over quantity, and would rather do a few things with excellence than be average at a lot of things. - Maximizer also sees focusing on building strengths -- rather than fixing weaknesses -- as the most effective and efficient route to success. (source: 5) - Good enough" is never good enough, and is a concept most Maximizers eschew with gusto. - Taking the easy route is not the road taken when the more difficult path will yield superior results. - Those with strong Maximizer talents tend to evaluate rather than celebrate; after all it could always be better, and improvement is always an option to be followed. (source: 2) - understand when to push and when to move on. Everything is not ready to be maximized. Maximize your maximizer (source: 5) People with **Maximizer** have an impatience with mediocrity that drives their focus on excellence. They're so attracted to excellence; they can't ignore or minimize tiny problems that erode the ever-sought-after top quality. (source: 4) Jim Collison: Whatever is worth doing is worth overdoing (source: 5) Good enough is not good enough for a Maximizer who can see a potential for excellence. (source: 5) ###### How to Aim Your Maximizer Theme For someone with high **Maximizer**, spend some serious and real time practicing your own strengths. Dedicate between 5 and 30 minutes a week to one specific theme, and understand what fires that theme up for you. And how can you find a new way to create that fire on purpose? • Also, find a way to spend less time fixing what's broken. Is there a problem that you haven't been able to solve? For a Maximizer, the longer you work at it, the more it's probably going to drain you. And if you haven't already found improvements that are going to make it excellent, you're likely getting diminishing improvement at this point. (source: 5) Spend time studying excellence. Find someone you admire who defines excellence in your eyes, and follow them if they're alive and on social media, become part of their tribe. If they're not, read about them, really get to know their story -- that kind of investment in understanding that that top level or that the the extreme definition of success speaks well to **Maximizer**. (source: 5) ###### Working with Maximizer People with high **Maximizer** are probably going to be offering gentle nudges toward improvement often. You should acknowledge that these are in service of something greater, rather than as general criticism. Also be clear when you have a final deadline, and when there might be room for tweaking, because they'll probably always be able to offer a tweak. And it'll work best if there's room for it. (source: 5) There's an efficiency drive somewhere inside Maximizer that is a delight to realize when you don't spend all your time bringing the negative up to zero, and instead adding to what's already a positive, (source: 5) ### Helps and Hinders _**Helps**_ - You have a commitment to excellence -- your own, your team's, and your individual teammates'. You push not just to accomplish more, but to achieve the highest quality in all you do. - Sometimes people don't recognize their own star power. You see the best they can become and can inspire them to achieve it. - You are never satisfied with "good enough" and, as a result, you hold yourself and others to the highest standard. You require excellence -- not being average. - Your focus on excellence causes you to gravitate toward projects that are already working well -- and you see ways they can become even better, taking them to world-class performance. _**Hinders**_ - You tend to evaluate rather than celebrate. Rather than celebrating the successful completion of a project, you look for ways it can be better next time. This can cause the members of your team to feel unappreciated. - You tend to be a perfectionist, which can lead to procrastination: Whatever you are working on, it can always use just one more tweak, one more enhancement, one more … . Give yourself time to perfect things or realize that your high standards will produce "good enough" that is close to excellent. And delivered on time. - Because you naturally focus on how things can be better, you don't tend to receive compliments well. As you're being recognized, your inner voice is listing all the ways it could have been better -- and more praiseworthy. Learn to say, "Thank you," and skip the reasons you don't deserve it. - Not only do you not receive compliments well, you have a tendency not to give them either. You don't look at what went wrong, but how it could have been done better. In your mind, this is not a criticism, but advice on how to elevate performance the next time. Praise can be a blind spot for you -- so be intentional about praising the performance of others and highlighting what they did well. This will help ensure the consistent, near-perfect performance you want to see from others. (source: 6) ###### Raw vs Mature - Raw Maximizer is snobbish, never satisfied and closed off when things are only "good." - Mature Maximizer is supportive and points out what is at a higher standard, recognizing where it's been and how it became better. - Mature Maximizer directs its commitment to quality to help other people succeed. It shares the opportunities for excellence to help bring people up to a better place. - Mature Maximizer learns how to "choose your battles" and sorts to where it can get the biggest return on investment. ### With other Themes Strategic and Achiever themes are most likely to be paired with Maximizer, while Restorative is the least likely theme to be found in the same Top 5 as Maximizer. ~ Sept 2014 (source: 3) #CS/Ideation🟩 and #CS/Maximizer🟧 How Ideation and Maximizer can work together. **Ideation** conjures up an idea, **Maximizer** runs with the idea (source: 3) ^52a915 #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Competition🟧 Both have a characteristic driven-ness about them. • **Competition** is driven to win; **Maximizer** is driven to be the best. • But it's not beating the competition that drives **Maximizer**; it is the assurance that excellence has been achieved. • Those high in **Competition** compare themselves with others to see where they stand and seek to move ahead of their best competitors; those high in **Maximizer** compare themselves with their own personal bests and look to excellence for comparison. • **Competition** aspires to be number one; **Maximizer** aspires to meet or exceed standards of excellence. (source: 2) ^6a7e28 ![[🟧 CS_Competition#^9b41c6]] #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Strategic🟩 • **Maximizer** is a way of influencing others; **Strategic** is a way of thinking about alternatives. • **Maximizer** influences by raising the bar, pointing out excellence, investing in talent to build strength. **Strategic** considers options, anticipates possible alternatives, creates back-up plans. • **Maximizer** and **Strategic** both have a sorting aspect to them; • **Strategic** sorts between options, while **Maximizer** sorts between good and great. • When **Maximizer** and **Strategic** are combined either in one person or in a dynamic partnership between two individuals, the result can be a focus on excellence that incorporates the best option to achieve it. (source: 2) ^d1a565 #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Restorative🟪 • These two themes are very unlikely to show up together in one individual's Top 5, and for a very good reason: **Maximizer** wants to take what is already working well and make it superb, while **Restorative** wants to take what is broken and restore it to wholeness. • This can create conflict between those who have one or the other of these themes in their Top 5; individuals strong in **Maximizer** can become frustrated with those with **Restorative** -- and vice versa. But if each appreciates the other's talent, these two can work together very productively. • High **Restorative** can help high **Maximizer** to not avoid problems (which Maximizer can do), and high **Maximizer** can help high Restorative **see** when it is time to move on. In other words, they can bring each other balance that improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the team. (source: 2) ^89f2ad ![[🟪 CS_Restorative#^c353ae]] ![[🟪 CS_Achiever#^8c0096]] ![[🟪 CS_Restorative#^96c0c1]] ![[🟪 CS_Belief#^35d1df]] ![[🟦 CS_Developer#^06b3e0]] ![[🟦 CS_Individualization#^1789e4]] ![[🟪 CS_Responsibility#^382bbd]] ### Themes that Moderate  Includer, Developer, Harmony, Relator, Empathy, Consistency ### Themes that Intensify Achiever, Activator, Belief, Significance, Competition, Self-Assurance ### Instagram Posts: ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_3.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_2.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_4.png|220]] Helps and Hinders ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_HelpHinder_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_HelpHinder_2.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_HelpHinder_3.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_HelpHinder_4.png|220]] Working With Maximizers: ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_WorkingWith_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_WorkingWith_2.png|220]] #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Developer🟦 ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Developer_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Developer_2.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Developer_3.png|220]] #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Individualization🟦 ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Individualization_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Individualization_2.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Individualization_3.png|220]] #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Developer🟦 and #CS/Individualization🟦 ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Developer_Individualization_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Developer_Individualization_2.png|220]] #CS/Maximizer🟧 and #CS/Strategic🟩 ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Strategic_1.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Strategic_2.png|220]] ![[CliftonStrengths_Maximizer_Strategic_3.png|220]] ------------ Sources: 1 Theme Descriptions: Rath, Tom. _StrengthsFinder 2.0_. Gallup Press, 2007. 2 [Comparing and Contrasting CliftonStrengths Themes](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/250409/comparing-contrasting-cliftonstrengths-themes.aspx) 3 [Maximizer: Learning to Love All 34 Talent Themes](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/251288/maximizer-learning-love-talent-themes.aspx) 4 [Pairing and Expanding Your Strengths: Maximizer](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/250577/pairing-expanding-strengths-maximizer.aspx) 5 [Maximizer: Highlights From Your CliftonStrengths 34](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/267728/maximizer-highlights-cliftonstrengths.aspx) 6 [The Maximizer Theme: How to Productively Aim Your CliftonStrengths Talent](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/249518/maximizer-theme-productively-aim-your-cliftonstrengths-talent.aspx) 7 [An Introduction to the Maximizer® CliftonStrengths Theme](https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252299/maximizer-theme.aspx) Tag: #CS/Maximizer🟧 #state/published