Encourage People To Be Better At What They Are Already Good

A freshman athlete in the local high school is a natural at baseball. He has an amazing swing, lightning fast reflexes and he plays well as part of a team. But there’s a bit of an issue -- he’s not a very strong swimmer. He doesn’t enjoy the solitary nature of the sport; it’s just him and the water. His turns are slow and his stroke is sloppy. He’s decent enough, but he will have to train very, very hard if he’s going to be a real competitor.

Why is his swimming ability a problem, you ask? While in high school, he’s hoping to improve as an athlete so he can earn a scholarship for college. What should he do? More importantly, what should his coaches do?

It’s so obvious; it’s almost a ridiculous scenario. The young athlete should focus on strength building. His coaches know they can more easily make a star baseball player out of him, so they will encourage him to quit swimming and focus all his time and energy on baseball. 

It’s so obvious, yet for some reason, we do the opposite at work.

Formal or informal, when our companies give us our performance reviews, they point out our “areas for improvement” (the politically correct way of saying, the things you suck at), then they offer us a development plan to get better at those things. In other words -- if you keep swimming, you’ll get better at it.

We can’t all be good at everything. This is partly the logic behind having a team in the first place, so each role can be filled with the person best suited for that role and together, every job and every strength is covered.

Smart companies are the ones that identify someone’s natural talent and help them become even better at it. The result is a highly motivated employee who feels like the company is really looking after his or her career. In return, they will reward the company with superior performance (partly because they're already good at what they're doing) and because they wants to do right by the company that is doing right by them.

If you want to lead, focus on your own areas of leadership. If you’re a great motivator, then motivate. If you’re a great manager, then manage. If you’re a great organizer, then help others stay organized. If you’re a visionary, then talk about the things you can see. Identify your own strength, build on it and surround yourself with people who are brilliant at all the things you’re not. What you’re left with is a team worth leading.

This article originally appeared in my  Logistics of Leadership column at askmen.com

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Comments

[Discounted penis enlargement pills]

Encourage people to be good and you will be amazed about the results.

[limo in mesa]

Indeed encouraging for us youngsters. Keep posting blogs like this.

[Tamara Jacobs]

Thanks for the post Simon. I read your Inspire Action notes everyday and must say that I couldn't agree more with what you have written here.

Yesterday The Harvard Business Review published an article called 'The Six Habits of a Talent Magnet'. In it they discussed how recruiters and company managers could seek out the best talent. I agreed with their strategies but nowhere did they mention nurturing the talent that they already had- so I addressed it in my comment. "...strong managers are able to develop their staff's talents by encouraging them to understand where they excel and then nurturing that gift. The second best thing to having the best of the best working for you, is getting the best out of those that do."

[Doug Hensch]

Interesting post. I completely agree with a strengths-based approach to development. But, it can be taken too far. And, your example really hits home with me. I think we are doing our kids a disservice by having them focus too much on one sport or activity. Playing several sports, even if two of them won't get you a scholarship gives kids diversity in their activities. In fact, my high school football coach used to get angry with players who quit other sports to "focus" on football. He felt that playing other sports would actually make them better at football. Finally, Carol Dweck's research on mindsets (in my opinion) creates a certain degree of cognitive dissonance for me :) Again, I love the strengths-based approach to development but it is not always the only approach. Thanks!

[Patrick Adkisson]

Activating an individual's strengths is a powerful tool. Levels of mental and physiological arousal increase. Performance improves. Your employees experience a natural high that is much more motivating than pay increases. Engaged employees are those that know and use their strengths in their work. So define the characteristics of the work to be done and then ensure that the work correlates with the employee’s own strength. The Business Logic Team can help understand each employee’s work preference and then organize teams around the types of work and their preferences. www.businesslogicteam.com

[Constance Semler]

Nice post.

If it's a "6" on a scale of 1 to 10, it's a strength and deserves care and feeding.

If everything were a Perfect 10 in our performance reviews, we'd be bored, not to mention skeptical about the validity of the evaluation.

At one company where I worked, employees were evaluated on "integrity". How exactly does a manager help employees strengthen their integrity? A 1-year remedial program isn't going to alter character that's been shaped by a lifetime of small and great moral choices, and I don't see how a person can't "sort of" have integrity.

[David Lecours]

We (humans) have an innate need to solve problems. It's more gratifying to fix something that's broken than refine our strengths. Resist this urge.

For more on this concept of "focus on the bright spots," read Switch by Dan & Chip Heath.

[Charlie Jernigan]

As with all things, there is a balance. Excellent sports teams adjust their play to their personnel, but not having key skills will doom even the best adjusted plans in the world of sports with its simple rules.

I really support the concept of doing more of what you do best for sure improvement, but if you don't have personnel to fill the slots, you'd better do more. In the corporate world, that means that to succeed, you must have enlightened HR integrated into your executive team.

[Dawidgatti]

May theory at why people tend to chose to become better at what they sux is this: if something is to easy, it is not work.

[Steve Martin - theThinkShack]

There's nothing more exhilarating, demoralizing and de-motivating as reviewing all the areas you suck at...ahh, the memories.

Worth mentioning the connection to parenting. Want to see your child flourish? Rather than focusing on things they're not particularly good at, focus on their strength(s) and help put them into situations where they can naturally thrive.