The Manager - You are strong
Cultivated Management Newsletter - Edition 24
Hi,
I hope you are having a cracking weekend and looking forward to the week ahead.
It's still the Easter holidays here in the UK for the kids, so I'm looking forward to a week with my family to kick back and explore the wonderful Hampshire countryside.
Thank you for all the feedback from the last newsletter about DISC. This week's newsletter is all about part two of my "Career Trinity" - Strengths.
We all have strengths. Therefore we all have weaknesses.
There is a management saying that we should maximise our strengths and minimise our weaknesses.
This is fine if your weaknesses are not holding you back. But if they are holding you back then there is little point minimising them - you need to work on turning that weakness in to a strength.
There will always be weaknesses that we may never turn to a strength and equally, we will have weaknesses that are not holding us back, or causing us challenges in our attempts to achieve our goals.
I had a weakness of standing up in front of people and delivering a talk - so I focused hard on turning this in to a strength. I was weak at dealing with arrogant and rude executives - it would literally make me feel like rubbish when I had to interact with people like that. So I turned it to a strength and am able to work with execs to help them turn around themselves, and their businesses.
But we will always have weaknesses. I am weak with numbers, details and finances - I'm happy with that. I am weak when it comes to remembering dates and times - I'm cool with that - I have built systems to support me. I am not really very good at art, or craft, or engineering, or watching medical dramas or small talk. I have a ton of weaknesses. But any weakness that holds me back, gets worked on.
And this is the same for not only ourselves, but our team. Our role as managers is to understand people's strengths and weaknesses. We can then help people develop their strengths further, minimise weaknesses or turn some weaknesses around.
I like to use Gallup's Strength Finder to discover people's strengths, although there are many other tools. I wouldn't bother with the book - the information is mostly all online and the book just gives you a unique code to sit the assessment. I'd head straight to the website (a bit clunky) and go through the purchase process there. Once complete, you'll receive your top strengths, and of course, your lowest performing strengths, which may be weaknesses.
When I run the Trinity for my clients and team they are amazed at how all three help them discover more about themselves. The strengths section is all about:
Are you using your strengths?
Were you aware of your strengths? (Most people are not)
What could you do to use them more?
How could your manager, or your direct help you?
Do you have weaknesses holding you back?
Do you need to put in place a plan to make some personal changes?
Do any of your strengths stand out and create unique value for yourself in the market place or at work?
What else could you do with your strengths?
I know that when I did the strengths finder several years ago I realised why I was unhappy. My strengths are:
Ideation (I come up with ideas)
Futuristic (I like to set big goals and inspire people about making the future better)
Intellectual (I like to talk about ideas and strategy, not small talk)
Individualisation (I see people as individuals and treat them accordingly - I also have a strong sense of self)
Strategic (I am good at strategy)
I was using very few of these in my day job. I was doing detail work. I wasn't using my strengths. So I moved to HR :)
You can see how powerful all three aspects of the Career Trinity are for managers and employees. Next week we'll cover the final part of the Career Trinity - the Happiness angle - what makes you happy! If you missed the last newsletter you can .
Next week I will also include the downloadable worksheet I use in my Communication Workshop and Cultivated Teams training pack. It includes space to complete the Trinity, Goals, Painted Pictures and 5 personal development ideas.
I hope this is useful. Go forth and discover your strengths. I think Gallup's is worth the expense. Of course, there are other cheaper and free alternatives.
The key thing is to understand what makes you tick at work and what you're good at. Then you can start to build a career for yourself and those in your teams around strengths.
Until next week - have a great week. And by the way - check out the new website!
Rob
Interesting Internet Finds
Here's some interesting reading for your week ahead:
When is conflict likely to occur. Interesting read on how and when conflict is likely to occur between two people. Managers should be all over this.
I don't use Facebook much - I dabbled with it for my business. If you are a user of Facebook - I'd suggest locking down your information and data, especially in light of the recent data challenges they've had. Here's a good guide on how to do it.
If you ever wanted a positive story of how the web is enabling change and growth, then this new project using Satellite photos to detect hidden archaeological sites. I've signed up and am going to contribute - what a great project.
How to quickly summarise long articles - awesome little tool for extracting key points from lengthy articles.