Know Your Greatest Strengths

Know Your Greatest StrengthsKnow Your Greatest StrengthsResearch says those who capitalize on their inherent strengths are mora profitable and more productive. Find out which are yours and how to put them to use.Each of us has particular strengths talents in thinking, habitual ways we approach problems that give us energy to solve them. Research of more than two million people by the Gallup Organization has shown that organizations that capitalize on individual strengths are more likely to be profitable and productive than others.Can your work be more productive (and lucrative) if you leverage your strengths?Focusing on fixing individual weaknesses creates mediocrity instead, recognizing varied talents, encouraging them through training, then leveraging them to overcome challenges is the basis for excellence and fulfillment. Heres a perfect exampleSteve was a high-powered executive in the energy industry who recently was laid off. When we examined the reasons he was let go and compar ed them with an assessment of his talents, he realized that he had failed to bring to the job one of his greatest strengths - empathy.Raised in a British boarding school, Steve had been taught that it was weak to be so feelings oriented. In the workplace, however, understanding colleagues feelings can be an important quality that lends cohesion to a team. Its also a useful warning gauge when a company is in trouble.I knew what everyone was feeling and so could have positioned myself better, but I ignored the information, Steve admitted. If he had leveraged his empathetic talents, he might very well still have a job.Recent discoveries in neuroscience help explain why different people solve problems so differently. When were born, our brains have the potential to fire in any direction. Through relationships, experiences and genetics, they begin to fire in certain patterns. Because the brain cells that fire together wire together, they begin to make pathways the next time you think, y oure more likely to think again in that particular sequence. Then, during puberty, your brain sheds the capacity you havent used. By the time youre an adult, your brain is wired to think in certain ways, which is why using your talents creates excellence because you can do it faster and better than people who havent been thinking that way their whole lives.However, as Steve discovered to his detriment, we often cut ourselves off from our own special abilities. We may be focused on our flaws and unable to perceive our strengths. Or we may take them for granted. Or, like Steve, we may harbor pre conceived ideas of the right way to think and therefore disable ourselves.What are your strengths?There are many ways to understand your strengths. At Professional Thinking Partners, we often focus on domains of competence, which describe four broad categories of thinking. (Once you hear what they are, its pretty easy for you to intuit which your mind typically uses.) Research by Herrmann zwis chenstaatlich of a sample of over half a million people has found that 60 percent of us have two of these four 30 percent have three 6 percent have one and only 4 percent, all four. They areAnalyticConcerned with data, facts, and numbers focused on being logical and rational. With money, concerned with ways to count. With time, concerned with the present.ProceduralConcerned with processes, operationalizing, logistics, tactics. With money, concerned with ways to save. With time, concerned with the past, with how things have been done previously.RelationalConcerned with feelings, morale, teamwork, helping people grow. With money, concerned with ways to help. Time isnt so important.InnovativeConcerned with newness, possibilities, strategy, big picture. With money, concerned with ways to spend to do exciting new things. With time, concerned with the future.Notice your strongest domain(s). Which are your concerns in any given situation? Are you, like Ruth, energized by change, bored by n umbers and routine, highly innovative and have no use for people problems? Shes one of the 6 percent of the population strong in just one domain (in her case, the Innovative one). Or are you more like Dan great at numbers and following routines and highly uncomfortable with feelings and newness (analytic and procedural)? There is no right or wrong. Just notice whats true for you.Your dominant ways of thinking are the raw materials you bring to every situation in which you find yourself in. The more you put yourself in situations where theyre needed, the better youll be at the task.For instance, you probably dont want me to be the brainstorm person in product development, as I lack innovative thinking. But Im great at partnering with people who come up with the big ideas and helping them bring the idea into reality with my analytic, procedural and relational talents.Stuck?When youre stuck, ask yourself If my strength in ____ were a person, what would s/he advise right now?When Steve did this self-analysis, he realized that he was extremely strong at relational thinking but had been trained to avoid it. In effect, he was cutting himself off from his greatest capacity. He began to give himself permission to use his strengths and quickly found a job using his amazing capacity to relate to others. Now hes using those strengths to excel in a very challenging job fraught with all kinds of cultural and religious sensitivities in the Middle East.