During a coaching session yesterday we discussed how to help people perform at their best and I found myself drawing this on the flip chart.
The boat represents the person. The sail represents their strengths and the hole represents their weaknesses.
The goal is to get people to play to their strengths as much as possible. Too often managers focus on what someone is not good at and puts them on a development plan to fix the ‘hole’. The strength is taken for granted!
How about flipping this on it’s head and not worrying about the ‘hole’ and breathing as much life into the strength as possible. Make the strength bigger! Give it more opportunity to shine.
Clearly, the hole will need some attention otherwise the damn thing will sink no matter how big the sail….but perhaps someone/something else could be used to fill the hole.
If the weakness is fundamental to your success then it’ll need to be addressed. eg. if you’re in a sales career yet not very good at building rapport then you’ll pretty quickly need to fix that issue or else your sales career will sink!
So, what are your strengths & are you allowing yourself the opportunity to leverage them to the hilt? If not, what do you need to do to change that!
