Saturday, April 30, 2011

Stop Worrying About Your Weaknesses. Focus On Your Strengths

Some years ago there was a brilliant scientist at BBN, the company that built the original Internet, who had an amazing ability to envision the future and invent solutions to problems most people had not yet even anticipated. His list of patents for advanced network technology was so impressive that the company did what companies almost always do. It promoted him to management. Suddenly the scientist floundered, his strengths as a focused and brilliant inventor subsumed by meetings, employee issues and operational reviews. He was given developmental courses to help overcome his introversion, unconventional thinking and lack of business acumen. What had been his strongest assets were now his liabilities. He was notably weak as a manager. As that became obvious, his self-esteem and the respect he had enjoyed at the company melted away, and his value to the organization dissipated. He failed, and he ultimately left.

Business culture has long focused on weakness prevention, with managers and leaders spending untold time and energy trying to address deficits in themselves and their employees. It becomes a quest to fill the gaps where one doesn't have natural capability. Taken to the extreme, it attempts to make people someone they're not.

While we're busy trying to fix ourselves and others, we often minimize or completely overlook our most powerful asset--our strengths. Strengths are a person's innate talents, things they do well naturally. Every person has them, and when identified, nurtured and channeled appropriately, they can have a dramatic effect on job satisfaction and bottom-line performance.

Indeed, research suggests that the most successful people start with a dominant talent and then add skills, knowledge and practice into the mix. In other words, we stand a greater chance of success if we build on our authentic selves--who we already are--beginning with our innate strengths. Perhaps even more significantly for employers, a powerful connection exists between employees' levels of engagement and the extent to which they maximize their strengths on the job.

In 2007 the Gallup organization conducted a poll asking more than 1,000 people to comment on the statement "At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best." Among those who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement, not one reported being emotionally engaged on the job. Other related Gallup studies have shown that people who do have the chance to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs. How does this relate to the bottom line? In 2009 the consulting firm Watson Wyatt released a study concluding that employee engagement is a leading indicator of financial performance. It cited a direct correlation between companies that generated above-average returns and their levels of engagement.

Several factors, however, conspire against our uncovering the true strengths in ourselves and others:

First, all the time constraints and pressures on today's leaders have made management by anecdote--grabbing bits of information on the fly--a popular modus operandi. Decisions about talent are made based on sound bites supplied by others. The problem is that this information is reported through subjective lenses, by people who may or may not be astute judges of talent, who may or may not have agendas and who have only their own snippets of exposure to an employee on which to base their assessments.

At the same time, hardworking employees can become quite adept at their current jobs while never firing on all the cylinders of their true strengths. They may be in roles that fail to leverage what they're really good at, and if they're meeting the requirements of the job, management is none the wiser. Similarly, organizations often inadvertently reward success by setting people up to fail in new roles. Someone who is currently underperforming may simply be in a job that's a mismatch with his or her inherent strengths.

Finally, people are usually unaware of their own strengths. I have seen this truth confirmed time and again in my work with clients at various phases of their careers and with graduate students at Georgetown and New York University. When asked about their strengths, most shrug their shoulders, shake their heads and say, "I have no idea. I've never really given it any thought."

And so the cycle continues. People are not conditioned or trained to recognize strengths in themselves, and that makes it difficult for them to recognize strengths in others. In a twist of irony, this weakness can itself disable managers and leaders from unlocking strengths--and in turn, increased performance--within their organizations. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Among the effective approaches we can start using right away to manage our own strengths and those of our colleagues:

--Have leaders and employees complete objective assessments of their strengths (such as StrengthsFinder 2.0) and use the data in career and development plans.

--Incorporate an emphasis on strengths in your organization's performance management process.

--Beware of judging an employee's strengths based solely on anecdotal evidence.

--Open your mind to the possibility that an employee's optimal role (or your own) might be in a different job from their current one.

--Ask your employees, "Do you feel you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?" Listen to their answers and probe for understanding.

I'm not advising leaders and managers to turn a blind eye to shortcomings that could potentially derail themselves or an employee. Avoiding those crucial conversations, and the corresponding development work, can only lead to bigger problems down the road. As with so many aspects of leadership, it's a matter of balance and emphasis. But as BBN found out, there's a price to pay for trying to force employees into roles that highlight their weaknesses and don't play to their strengths.

Susan Tardanico is executive in residence at the Center for Creative Leadership, founding partner of the Authentic Leadership Alliance, a leadership speaker and a former corporate senior executive. She is an adjunct professor at New York and Georgetown universities.

Thanks to Forbes

 

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