Focus on your strengths to fix the right weaknesses
Why should Buffon get better at his scoring skills?
Gary Vaynerchuck said it best: success depends on talent and effort. If you’re talented but don’t devote time to grow and improve your game, you’re going to fail. And viceversa: no matter the effort, if you lack talent you’re going to become a mediocre or a B-player at best.
Not being a good salesman has always been a pain point for me,
because to me there always seems to be a great salesman behind a success story and a great leader. But trying to improve my game has been painful, stressful, and too slow. And yet I kept obsessing about it, although it was clear I lacked any talent.
I also suffered at school when I saw my classmates climb a freaking pole during gym hours. I thought my physical weakness was wrong and needed correction (well it was, to some extent, but it wasn’t a health concern that bothered me), but my lazyness prevented me to make any effort. Yet I was so anxious and worried about it.
Looking for arbitrary weak spots to improve is thinking that “to fix” is the way “to grow”.
It’s a negative mindset.
Learning where to focus the effort has been as difficult as the task itself. Some weaknesses need to be addressed. Some others don’t and have a negative impact. It’s a delusion that is often difficult to see or overcome, and that might prevent oneself from executing on where there’s a chance for success.
It’s also a mindset that oftentimes flourishes in company culture.
Performance reviews always have that paragraph to fill: weaknesses. And a lot of time and attention is given to how to improve them in order to perform better in the team. Are the person’s actual strengths taken into account, or is it about some arbitrary metric or standard?
It’s a potential waste of time.
The time, effort and emotional costs are going to be huge and, lacking the talent, improvements will be sporadic and minimal.
Always audit talents and understand when it’s there and people are just being lazy. Talent can’t be created, and it’s a waste of resources to force somebody to get better at something just for some arbitrary reason.
It’s better to have a team where people feel motivated, with strong, A-class players in their field, than one with jack of all trades, where people risk feeling insecure and lagging behind. Yes, the first team will be more risky — what if you lose somebody?— but which one do you think is the likely winner?
So here’s the punchline.
- Focus on strengths. Nurture them and go all-in.
- Carefully pick which weaknesses need to improve. It’s not that it’s a free pass: you’ll really have to work on some things in order to A) be a decent human being or B) support your strengths
- Teamwork: hire the weaknesses. Build teams where each person can flourish and contribute with what they’re excellent at, and let them grow at it. And if something’s amiss, hire somebody that excels in it. If you’re going solo, seek help in other people or in external services.
- Last but not least: know your talents
I want to emphasize last point: self awareness is key. Really, like REALLY, get to know your team’s and your own strengths and talents.
Don’t fool yourself into believing you can be the next X-Factor winner. Talent is a factor in life, pure effort won’t make you reach the top. You might become mediocre, even passable, but try to understand what your peculiar strong field is. Where you really have the chance to be an all-time player. Stop wasting time pretending to be who you’d like to be, and start empowering who you really are.
