Monday, August 1, 2011

Should You Focus On Your Strengths At Work?

A lot of people talk about coming from your strengths and working at a job that capitalizes on your strengths. There are others that speak about remediating your weaknesses. What is right? What is practical? The reality is that neither focus is completely right. Why do I say that? Well, because I work with people in my coaching and consulting practice and I know that this is not the reality of most people’s work situations. Jobs are not usually designed around a person’s strengths. They are usually designed around business needs. Besides, if you polled every working person, most would admit that they all have elements of their jobs that don’t play to their strengths AND they cannot necessarily turn over those aspects to another person. Some aspects of their jobs have required them to stretch beyond their comfort zone and gain skills and strengths that they were unaware they had.
On the flip side if you focus only on what you need to remediate, it can be very self-defeating and counter-productive. The balance is in understanding what is required in your job, what you are good at (strengths), what you are not as good at, what the job and environment requires of you, and what do you need to do to successfully navigate your career.
There are tools to succeed at work – some that you may currently not give the level of import that is necessary to progress up the ladder. While there may be other competencies that might not be as obvious to you that if you understood – you would devote time to. Over the next number of months I will write/blog about the Tools to Succeed.
Join us over the next number of months in this journey as we explore together the Tools to Succeed and take charge of your career applying the right tools. In the meantime, leave a comment, ask a question, and check out our website to sign up for email updates.

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