Ask almost any business leader how to most effectively develop people and build teamwork and you’ll hear, “leverage the strengths of employees.” However, when it comes to their own careers, many managers still focus most of their personal development efforts on reinforcing areas of weakness.
Sometimes this is due to well-meaning criticism from superiors. Other times, managers moving up the career ladder try to emulate those who have come before them.
While all managers need to hone their communication and people skills, learning these skills and adding knowledge is simple. Deliberately recognizing, developing and leveraging one’s own strengths is more difficult.
There are many programs available to help the ambitious manager improve performance, but a review of typical business practices points to a common fallacy. Whether it’s individual development plans, performance reviews, or 360° evaluations, efforts to help people improve often focus more on weaknesses than strengths.
From our early years we are programmed to believe that our greatest growth potential is in our areas of greatest deficiency. Think about it. If your child received an A in English and a C in math, where would you focus most of your attention?
This is not necessarily wrong. In fact, everyone can and should develop basic competency in multiple important areas. The problem is that this philosophy can perpetuate the focus on weakness long after basic competence has been achieved.
Social psychologists have found that focusing on strengths leads to higher performance, higher productivity, and greater satisfaction. In fact, honing your skills to their full potential can render your weaknesses essentially irrelevant.
Today’s business environment offers many more opportunities for advancement than ever before. But to take advantage of these opportunities, you need to recognize your areas of greatest competence, work to develop them to their full potential, and then match your strengths with the right challenge and the right role.
To maximize your effectiveness, follow the lead of high-performing organizations. The most successful companies identify their core competencies and then work to develop them in order to maximize their potential. Functions that the organization performs worst are outsourced, markets that do not fit core competencies are abandoned, and divisions that do not add to the company’s strengths or advance its purpose are sold or spun off.
Reaching the next level of performance means identifying and improving your core competencies (your strengths) rather than trying to remedy every weakness. Delegate as many activities as possible that don’t align with your strengths, and only pay attention to the weak areas that get in the way of doing what you do best.
First determine your strengths
While it seems like most of us should be aware of our strengths, we often confuse strengths, what we do well with traits (our personality characteristics) or work habits (the conditions in which we perform). . Many of us also take our strengths for granted. By doing what seems absolutely natural and logical to us, we don’t realize that we are actually creating results far superior to what others might have expected.
Harvard psychologist and Multiple Intelligences pioneer Dr. Howard Gardner points out that people have many more areas of intelligence, or capacities to produce useful results, than previously thought. While traditional IQ tests measure language and mathematical ability, we now know that other skills, such as interpersonal intelligence, the ability to understand and relate well to others, and spatial intelligence, the ability to create or plan across multiple dimensions , can have significant value. .
So how do you determine your greatest strengths?
One way is to examine your own past and present performance and try to discern a pattern of successful behavior. What is easy for you that might be harder for others: negotiating a difficult contract, analyzing financial data, creating an advertising strategy, leading a team?
Or you could use feedback analysis as described by management guru Peter Drucker in his book Management Challenges for the 21st Century. Whenever you undertake a key activity or make a major decision, write down your expectations. Then, a few months later, reexamine your expectations and the actual results you achieved.
Colleagues, family, and friends can also serve as resources to help you determine your strengths. In the January 2005 issue of the Harvard Business Review, management professors Laura Roberts and Gretchen Spreitzer and their colleagues propose a self-reflection exercise, in which you actively solicit feedback from those who know you well. However, it is critical to this exercise that feedback is focused on describing the specific areas in which you have excelled, not the areas where you could use more work.
Match your strengths with your tasks
Once you know your strengths, you need to figure out how best to use them. Before, organizations managed the careers of their people, but today that obligation belongs to each one of us. You have the responsibility to know yourself and determine where and how you would perform best.
Often the difference between success and failure is not learning additional skills, but finding out how, given your strengths, you can adapt to the demands of your specific role.
This is particularly important when the nature of your job changes. Jack was a star sales manager for an educational products company. His ability to form strong connections with his team and develop his people resulted in lower turnover and a significant increase in sales.
Jack also worked well with his colleagues, leading brainstorming sessions that resulted in a new integrated product and service offering, with significant profit margins for the company. Jack’s skills, both in the office and in the field, caught the attention of company executives who saw him as a natural leader. When the opportunity for a significant advancement in his career presented itself, Jack jumped at it.
Jack had the advantage of following in the footsteps of Ellen, an admired veteran. Unlike Jack, Ellen had risen through the ranks of finance. She spent three weeks helping Jack transition into the new role before leaving to head up operations in Europe.
However, a few months into his new job as a regional manager, Jack became increasingly frustrated with his job. His productivity had dropped and his old sense of excitement about going to work each morning was gone.
As we worked with Jack, we began to see that his strengths were largely interpersonal and creative. He shined while working with his team, giving presentations, and coaching his direct reports. But most of his work now consisted of written briefings, formal strategy sessions, and routine administrative tasks that had little to do with Jack’s major remits.
After identifying his strengths, Jack began the work of redesigning his job to better fit his
skills. She began spending more time in the field, visiting clients and prospects to gain a first-hand understanding of their needs.
He used his natural team-building and creative skills in meetings that brought together representatives from the sales and product design departments to brainstorm ways to better meet customer needs. She found an assistant who excelled at report writing and data organization and began delegating these tasks as much as possible.
With this new focus on his areas of greatest competence, Jack found a renewed satisfaction in his job. His productivity and performance improved a lot. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and while there will be many who will encourage you to work on your shortcomings, the key to high performance is to look for what you do exceptionally well and focus on that.
Armed with this self-awareness, you will be better able to determine how you can best contribute, both now and in the next phase of your career.
Your greatest successes will come from putting yourself in a position where your strengths can find opportunities for regular expression. And, as maximizing your strength becomes a habit, you’ll be in a better position to help those around you maximize their abilities, leading to greater productivity and satisfaction for you, your team, and your organization.
© 2007 Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler