Are you familiar with Clifton Strengths? Perhaps you use it in your coaching or consultancy business? Clifton Strengths, formerly known as StrengthsFinder, is a talent assessment tool developed by Gallup. It identifies an individual's 34 talent themes, categorised into four domains: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking.

The assessment helps individuals understand their natural talents and how to leverage them to achieve personal and professional success, by focusing on building strengths rather than solely correcting weaknesses.

The Clifton Strengthsfinder test consists of 177 paired personality statements you are required to rate. In each question, you are asked to choose one statement out of the two presented to you that describes you the best.

Here is an example of a possible question:

"Strongly Describes Me" on the right-hand side of the scale indicates that you seek to understand patterns and connections logically. Positions requiring research or a deep understanding of data, such as analyst or academic researcher, benefit from this strength.

Choosing "Strongly Describes Me" on the left-hand scale presents a more outcome-driven approach that benefits positions that require results like sales and marketing.

The challenge posed by questions in the CliftonStrengths test is picking between two statements that represent different values or qualities, that seem unrelated at first sight. You will have to make this choice in 20 seconds or the test will automatically move on to the next question.

These binary-choice, label-driven models rest on simplistic, static assumptions that CDT actively challenges and elevates. Here’s a full deconstruction and CDT-based reconstruction:

The Limitations of the System

1. Binary Choices = False Dichotomies

• Ignore nuance or contextuality
• Force participants into reductive preferences
• Promote premature identity formation

CDT Perspective: Binary thinking is indicative of AQ4 or lower—basic cognitive awareness with little tolerance for complexity, contradiction, or polarity.

2. Fixed Personality Labels Reinforce Ego Constructs

• Encourages identity ossification
• Ignores how people construct different selves in different contexts
• Leads to label-dependence rather than self-awareness

CDT Response: Labels are heuristic constructs, not truths. Awareness grows as individuals learn to choose how to construct their Thinking Style, not be governed by fixed types. CDT introduces the idea of flexible construction through Intention, Awareness, Choice, and Response (CAIR).

3. No Developmental Trajectory

CDT Enhancement: Introduce Awareness Quotient (AQ) levels: showing how a person’s use of Cognitive Intentions evolves as their self-awareness and developmental capacity increases.

A “Promoter” at AQ4 is unaware of their persuasive tendencies; at AQ7+, they may construct or discard persuasion depending on ethical intention and context.

How CDT and DI Transform This Framework

Element in PI/Clifton System	CDT/DI Improvement
Binary-choice answers	CI profiling reveals 50+ cognitive heuristics in active interplay
Fixed personality labels	Dynamic Thinking Styles shaped by context and CI combinations
No path for growth	AQ4–AQ10 developmental trajectory guides deliberate evolution
Role alignment focus	Choice-based self-construction to match context, not label
One-time assessment	Ongoing CI tracking + Thinking Style evolution

The Cognitive Intention Advantage

Instead of saying, “You’re a Controller,” CDT might reveal:

• High scores in Own, Influence, Internal, Activity, and Things
• A Thinking Style based on assertive decision-making from a personal locus of control

But CDT would then ask: “Are you aware of your preference to take control, and is it serving you in this moment?”

And more importantly: “Can you not use that CI when it’s inappropriate? Can you construct another?”

Example of Reframing One Label

Predictive Index Type: Analyzer — described as task-oriented, reflective, reserved.

CDT Reframe:

• CI indicators: Team-Player versus Individualist. High Observer, Internal, Information, Things, Caring for Self
• TQ score may reveal a TQ2 or TQ4 depending on disequilibrium or awareness of polarity
• AQ could help determine whether this person is reflexively analytical (AQ4) or able to construct or deconstruct analysis based on need (AQ7+)

Replacing Static Traits with Dynamic Thinking Styles

CliftonStrengths: Identifies 34 fixed talent themes (e.g., Achiever, Learner, Relator) that are treated as innate or unchanging tendencies.

CDT: Views identity as constructed in the moment and based on Cognitive Intention (CI) combinations.

CDT Improvement:

• Replace “top 5 strengths” with a person’s most-used CI combinations
• Track changes in Thinking Style over time as awareness increases (AQ movement)
• View strengths not as traits, but as habitual constructions of cognitive heuristics

Introducing Developmental Levels (AQ)

CliftonStrengths: Offers no vertical model of development—no sense of growth in awareness or maturity.

CDT: Introduces Awareness Quotient (AQ), a developmental model mapping how consciously one constructs their self, context, and response.

CDT Improvement:

• Add AQ overlay to determine awareness of strengths and their context-dependent application
• A Learner at AQ4 may mindlessly collect knowledge; at AQ8, they construct epistemology in real-time

Contextual Fluidity over Role Fixation

CliftonStrengths: Encourages using the same strengths across situations (“lean into your strengths”).

CDT: Emphasises Dynamic Intelligence (DI)—constructing the most appropriate response based on Intention, Awareness, Choice, and Response.

Beyond Positivity Bias – Embracing Constructive Tension

CliftonStrengths: Marketed as a positive psychology tool—avoid weakness, focus on strengths.

CDT: Sees developmental value in tension, polarity, disequilibrium, and contradiction.

From Labelling to Constructing

CliftonStrengths: Labels people, often leading to identity ossification.

CDT: Explores how labels are constructed, deconstructed, and reassembled with awareness.

From Assessment to Development

CliftonStrengths: Offers an assessment snapshot but no pathway for developmental movement.

CDT: Provides a path from AQ4 to AQ10 with tools to measure AQ, TQ, and CI combinations.

To Sum Up

Feature	CliftonStrengths	CDT Enhancement
Core concept	Fixed “strengths”	Constructed Thinking Styles (CI combinations)
Developmental model	None	AQ4–AQ10 vertical development path
Flexibility	“Leaning into” fixed strengths	Choice and adaptation via Dynamic Intelligence
Contextuality	Minimal	Central – context determines cognitive response
Limitation awareness	Avoids “weaknesses”	Explores polarity, overuse, disequilibrium
Progress tracking	Static report	CI score evolution + AQ/TQ tracking
Coaching value	Strengths application	Conscious construction and re-construction of the self

Clifton Strengths and their PI offer static portraits and give people a flattering mirror.

CDT gives them a construction site—a dynamic space where they can unpack, rebuild, and elevate their cognitive functioning in real time.

In my opinion, looking at tests like the Clifton Strengths Finder, it is apparent why the Identity Compass is as detailed as it is, and how it deconstructs your thinking is so important so as to capture the entirety of your Thinking Style. The other systems cannot come close to this.

You don’t discover who you are.
You construct who you’re being, moment by moment, CI by CI, with Awareness.