What Are You Good at?
…and what are your weaknesses
I recently read an article Peter Drucker wrote for HBR in 1999. Great article and very insightful about our current reality.
In the article he states the following, “Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at- and even then more people are wrong than right.”
Let us break that apart…
People have a belief that they are good at something. This is common. We are all good at something. Maybe it comes natural to us. But notice that according to Peter often we are wrong in our assessment of whether we are good at that which we claim to be good at.
So how do we fix this?
Peter recommends that we must get feedback AND that we analyze that feedback. You make a decision and write down what you expect to happen. After some period of time,6–12 months, you stop and review the actual results that you obtained vs. what you expected to happen.
For example, suppose I believe that I am good at writing books. I believe that I can write a book in 9 months. I write down those statements and 9 months later I dissect the reality. Did I write down what I am good at? Did I start the book? Did I write it? Be brutal with the analysis.
This simple write it down, review, and analyze the good and the bad will over time show you what are your strengths. Notice that this process could take years to learn about yourself. AND this effort takes work.
Be careful when on this journey to study your strengths. Human beings tend to allow their intellectual arrogance to create disabling ignorance.
How to overcome it?
Be humble to realize that life is a learning journey and that the skills and knowledge you will need to fully realize your strengths will take time and lots of work. You will never know enough until the very end. If you don’t know enough then it is not the end.
The second part of Drucker’s admonition is that we are just as bad at what we believe we are not good at. Be careful to realize that these weak links in our chain can break the chain BUT you can not spend all of your time fixing your weaknesses. You need to minimize their ability to inhibit your effectiveness and ultimately your performance.
In both building on your strengths and reducing the weaknesses you must have a plan. A plan on how you will success at doing both.
BUT remember that, “bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should do the work.” You must learn that the work does not stop once the plan is completed.
Ultimately the the areas where we have no talent or skill we have a very small chance to become anything but mediocre. You might be wasting your energy trying to move from incompetence to mediocre. That energy might be better served in moving your strength from good to great to remarkable.
My four cents…
