If, like me, you spent a few years working in a corporate J.O.B., you'll have experienced the annual appraisal, performance review (or whatever it's called now). This was a long anticipated interview, usually with your immediate boss, where you found out how well they thought you'd 'performed' over the previous 12 months and what increase in salary (and bonus if you were lucky) you could expect to receive.
It didn't matter how long the list of achievements and congratulations for a job well done, these were wiped out in seconds by the suggestions for improvement - the 'could do better' part. They were what I focused on, took as criticism and then determined to work on and improve.
After several years of following this cycle, I did indeed improve my performance in previously weak areas, but it was hard work at times.
When I set up in business for myself, I made a list of skills I believed I needed to learn to become a better business owner and booked myself onto lots of training courses - continuing the cycle of working on 'weak' areas. Until I read the book and the penny finally dropped.
Here's what I learned.
No matter how hard we work at improving an area of 'weakness' it's unlikely we'll ever become more than 'adequate' at them. But the danger of spending precious time learning how to become adequate at one skill, is that it takes away time which could be more usefully spent honing our areas of expertise - getting better at what we already do well. Working to our strengths.
When you find out what you're already really good at (happily, it's also usually what you enjoy doing most), work out a plan of action to get even better at it. Ditch the adequate stuff - you can offload it to someone who's already really good at it!
Working to your strengths brings several benefits
1. You'll stand out from the crowd of other 'average' performers.
2. You'll become known as a sought after expert in your field
3. You'll be doing what you really enjoy
4. You'll be able to command higher fees
Isn't it time you started working to your strengths?
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments below - and feel free to share if you enjoyed reading this post!
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