Work on Your Strengths

It’s not your weaknesses that need strengthening. It’s your unique ability that you should constantly hone to get the most from your business and life

Conventional wisdom (some of it anyway) says we all have strengths and weaknesses, and we should always be working to shore up our weak areas.

That may hold true to a certain extent. There are certain skills a person must have as the price of admission to a job or profession. For example, I wouldn’t get far in my line of work if not competent in writing, spelling, grammar, interviewing. A drain cleaning technician isn’t likely to make it without mechanical aptitude, good driving habits, people skills, business savvy.

So it makes sense to get stronger in all those areas that are essential to our work. But at a certain point, working on weaknesses – as noble as that sounds – becomes almost a fool’s errand. Just as no one is good at everything, very few people can become good at everything. And in fact we don’t need to be, because most of us work on teams.

What we should be doing is working on our strengths. Because a team of people, all operating at peak efficiency with different specialties, can be an amazing force.

Nurturing a specialty

If you’re old enough to remember, think of the old Boston Celtics dynasty. There in the middle stood Bill Russell, a mediocre offensive player at best. But did coach Red Auerbach exhort him to work on his shooting?

No, Russell had plenty of teammates who could score. So he focused on his strength: Defense. It was said that when Russell blocked a shot, he didn’t swat it into the stands. He often tapped it to a teammate to start a fast break. Similarly, no one pushed 6-foot-tall point guard Bob Cousy to focus on rebounding. His genius was passing. So even the best of those Celtics players had big weaknesses – but look at what they did together.

The concept of focusing on strengths is perhaps the most powerful when applied to the owner or leader of a business. Strong management of a business is the sum of many skills: Sales, finance, staff development, marketing, purchasing and more. Who can claim to be good at all of those? The smart owner doesn’t try. He or she concentrates on one or a few strong areas and hires people who are experts in the others.

It doesn’t matter, for example, if you own a business but despise marketing work and are not earthly good at it. You can hire a marketing manager and spend more of your time on other tasks that you enjoy and at which you excel.

Your unique ability

There’s a concept in business that says a person is happiest, most productive and most prosperous when focused on his or her unique ability. This is the area where you perform better than almost anyone else, and where you greatly enjoy working.

Maybe at some time you’ve had occasion to say about your work, “What, I get paid for this? Or maybe you’ve been so engrossed in a project that you work far into the night, until you yawn, and look up at the clock, and say, “Doggone it, I’m too tired, I have to quit now.” At such times, chances are you were working in your unique ability.

The folks at Lifebushido (www.lifebushido.com) put it this way: “The more time you spend on your unique ability, the more you will achieve. Your unique talent is something you are passionate about doing. You want to do it as much as possible. Your unique ability is energizing for you and those around you. You keep getting better at it...

“Your unique ability comes naturally and is easy, fun, energizing and motivating. If you focus your energy on what you love to do and what you do best, anything is possible.”

The mere fact you run a business doesn’t mean you have to give up the things you most love doing to become a full-time overseer. On the contrary, most likely the best thing you can do for your business – and yourself, and your family – is to keep working as much as possible within your unique ability, and let others handle the rest.

And then if you’re wise or fortunate enough to have the people in charge of sales, marketing, training, customer service, dispatching, purchasing and other functions, all working in their unique abilities – well, then your business is a force to be reckoned with. Kind of like those 1960s Boston Celtics.



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