Strengths vs. Weaknesses
By admin | August 30, 2007
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
Should you play to your strengths or shore-up your weaknesses? If you pose this question to a group of professionals some will answer play to your strengths, some will answer shore-up weaknesses and others will answer both. The truth is that they are all correct to a degree…The real answer lies in understanding context, environment and priority. Continued professional growth leading to increased performance over time is what separates the good from the great. Rapidly evolving markets demand that successful business people have a fluidity in their approach to professional development. However many executives and entrepreneurs focus on the wrong areas, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons in their efforts to refine and improve their skill sets. In today’s post I’ll share insights on how to prioritize your professional development efforts…
Focus needs to be applied to areas that can have the greatest impact on your performance. It is nothing short of foolishness to waste time, energy or capital on improving weaknesses that don’t matter. Unless a weakness creates a barrier between you and the completion of your mission, or impedes you from utilizing your strengths it is not really a weakness that needs to be addressed.
As an example, if you are a CEO with poor interpersonal communication skills which prohibit you from being able to articulately and persuasively sell the corporate vision you should immediately go to work on improving your communication. By way of contrast, if you’re a CEO who has poor administrative skills who cares? It is likely that as CEO you have unfettered access to administrative support to which you can delegate activities that are not highest and best use to begin with, so why worry about how fast you keyboard, filing nomenclature, naming conventions or how to work the scanner?
It is critical that you understand it takes much more dedication, determination and energy to go from poor to mediocre than it does to move from good to great. It is also important to check your motivation and interest level in determining which areas you desire to improve upon. If you’re not passionate about something it is difficult to be motivated and without motivation it is virtually impossible to maintain any interest. As a busy executive or entrepreneur you only have so much time in a day so don’t waste it on areas that do not add value or create leverage.
Those of you who are familiar with my philosophy understand the importance of focus. However as important as focus is, of equal or greater importance is what you choose to focus on. As mentioned above focus needs to be brought to bear on issues that stand between where you are and where you want to go. Understanding how to identify barriers is mission critical to your ability to succeed in business. Barriers are best identified as things that can be removed though acquiring knowledge (training, continuing education, self-learning, etc.), improving skills (training, practice, focus) and gaining experience (broadening roles, more tenure, being mentored, etc.).
Bottom line…Focused professional development requires: 1) Motivation to improve; 2) the ability to identify barriers; 3) determining the proper method of removing the barrier by improving skill sets, acquiring knowledge or gaining experience, and; 4) Conducting a cost/benefit and risk/reward assessment to determine whether the barrier needs to be addressed immediately, over the mid-range or the long-term.
Topics: Leadership, Talent Management |
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