We looked yesterday at the various indicators of whether or not we are operating in an area of strength or weakness. This is only the first step though. We need to move beyond this to reorienting our jobs around our strengths.
If you are like 80% of the population, your work environment will not be giving you that much opportunity to truly play to your strengths. (Yes, only around 20% of people say that they truly get to utilise their strengths in their work place.)
But what can or should we do about this? Does this mean we’re in the wrong job? Is it our employers fault or our own?
There is so much that could be said here. The first thing that should be said though is that changing your job should be at the bottom end of the list and not the top. It is all too easy to go from job to job and for nothing to change. A new job does not guarantee that you’ll get to play to your strengths.
Linked with that, it is important to understand that certain types of strengths do not automatically suit certain types of jobs. Research on top CEO’s shows that, rather than having particular strengths in common as you might expect, the thing that makes these CEO’s great is that they are playing to their strengths, whatever they may be. Essentially, these people are fulfilling similar roles using very different strengths.
In light of all this, here’s a few things to think about:
- What are your strengths? (Can you name them? Specifically?)
- What is causing you not to utilise them fully in your work place?
- How could you reorientate about how you go about your tasks in light of your strengths (i.e. not changing what you do, but how you do it.)
Inevitably there will be some tasks that, no matter how we approach them, we just don’t flourish at them. This is okay providing that these kinds of tasks don’t make up the majority of your job. And this is where it is good to have a conversation with your boss/team. We need to find the balance between building how we do our jobs around our strengths whilst at the same time managing around our weaknesses.
And, guess what? This highlights the importance of teams! We need each other.
A healthy team should be all about helping each individual play to their strengths and then taking up the slack where they are weak.
Again, there’s an awful lot more that needs to be said here, but time and space mean that’ll have to wait.
If you have comments or questions though, do leave them below.
[Enjoy this post? Check out the Living the life of your dreams series.]
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