Strengths, Weaknesses and George Costanza
Your strengths are only half the story.
If you have been in the corporate environment for more than 8 minutes than you are well aware of personality tests that are designed to help you and your teams. Myers Briggs, DiSC, Hogan, StrengthsFinders, Enneagram, etc. Industrial and Organizational Psychology programs have descended across corporations with the goal of improving team health and, ultimately, net profit.
Overall, I am a fan. Personality assessments can help individuals and teams improve communication and productivity — but only if these endeavors reveal our weaknesses.
Do you really know your weaknesses? Are you willing to discuss them? Have you learned to USE them? Just like economics is about both profit and loss, professional success is about your strengths and your weaknesses.
Knowing your Weaknesses
Individuals can use their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses to shape their personal and professional outcomes. Unfortunately, few people know their weaknesses.
This is natural. Most of us have deep insecurities that we have spent a lifetime running from. Certain situations draw out emotions or feelings. We may respond differently than our peers during situations. We may struggle with certain people when others don’t or we may sputter where others seem to shine.
Most of us are generally a product of our upbringing. And all of us have a lot that we would prefer to repress. For us to truly know our weaknesses means we would have to dwell on something that may be a bit painful. We may have to “go there” — a place we don’t want to go.
But whether or not you are willing to really be honest about your weaknesses, they still exist. In other words, you may not want to “go there” but you cannot hide them. Whether it is your tendency to over-talk, or exaggerate, or an inclination to sound smarter than you are, or your need to “one-up” a story teller, or your inability to delegate — they all come out. Other people may not be able to articulate your weaknesses, but they see them. And they have to deal with them whether you like it or not.
Superman knows his biggest weakness — it’s Kryptonite. The nervous deer in the forest knows its weaknesses so she eats with her head up and her ears rotating constantly. And great baseball players know that they can’t hit a curveball so they work to identify when that pitch is coming.
Do you know your weaknesses?
To be clear, I am not talking about “I am too honest” or “I care too much.” Those are insincere cop-outs. I mean articulated weaknesses that require insight and vulnerability.
Here’s the deal, if you don’t know your weaknesses, you cannot maximize your strengths.
Think about it from the perspective of a business selling a product. It would be helpful to know the weaknesses of your product, right? Obviously knowing what the competition looks like and what product features shine is key to selling a product — we all know that. But knowing, too, where your product is weak is also very powerful.
Take a lemonade stand, for example. I might look down the street and see that my neighbor is serving their lemonade in frosted mugs while I am serving mine in paper cups. And while I might be using real cane sugar and real lemons as opposed to corn syrup and lemon juice, I need to know my “kryptonite” in the market. In this case it is my paper cups.
So when I encounter a potential customer, I can leverage my understanding of strengths and weaknesses to drive sales. (More on that in a little bit.)
I have many weaknesses, but I will highlight two of them: I hate to disappoint people and I tend to take everything personally. And while most of you might feel similarly, you probably don’t get debilitated like I do.
For example, when I was in services sales, I occasionally had clients call me and tell me about their dissatisfaction with the service we delivered. But they also shared that they were disappointed in me, I was crippled. I would have an anxious feeling in my stomach, think obsessively about the conversation, and spend sleepless nights rehashing things in my head.
I dealt with outcomes like these for years before I was able to map them back to my weaknesses. Only then was I able to begin to change the narrative — a process that took more than just an understanding and continues to this day. Eventually, I had to be willing to do something even more uncomfortable — be transparent about my weaknesses.
Weakness Transparency and George Costanza
Knowing your weaknesses is one thing, but sharing them with others is another. In fact, most of us do our best to try to conceal our weaknesses.
But we can’t.
George Costanza from Seinfeld is considered one of the best characters of all time. Why? If you had to boil it down you would say that it is because George’s weaknesses were totally exposed. To be fair, George, a fictional character, did not necessarily willingly articulate or even know his weaknesses. But we know them. We simply had to watch George turn any normal situation into a chaotic disaster. And yet we loved him for it. Why? Because while a perfect person is unapproachable, a vulnerable person is relatable.
I remember an IT services competitor of mine telling me about his first week on the job. To hear him tell it: “I had a stack of ‘IT for Dummies’ books and a list of potential clients to call. I called and called and embarrassed myself for a couple of days before I ended up speaking with a guy named Martin at a client I knew nothing about. When Martin picked up the phone I started in on my pitch before I stopped and just told him the truth — that I have a stack of how-to books, no relevant background in this line of business and no idea what I am doing. Martin offered to help me and soon became my best client.”
Martin liked transparency and vulnerability — most people do.
Use your Weaknesses
I learned midway through my sales career that my weaknesses could be drivers in my success. Motivators. In my case, not wanting to disappoint people helped me prepare better and forced me to pay attention to details. And my natural inclination to take things personally meant that I took ownership of the things I sold. I tried to have empathy on my clients during the entire lifecycle of the sales and post-sales process.
I don’t want to in any way imply that these weaknesses are strengths. They are not. My weaknesses are a problem for me and haunt me in my personal and professional life. My wife will tell you how poorly I take criticism or how quickly I will pout about stupid things.
But my fear of these weaknesses are a huge motivator for me. I am driven to not disappoint people. And I know how childish I look when I take everything personally. I have learned to be transparent about my faults. And my fear of them motivates me.
By the way, using your weakness does not mean magically calling it a strength and forcing others to comply. For example,you bragging about how stubborn you are while pushing your agenda probably won’t help any situation you are in. You haven’t improved things just by “owning” it and thinking that others need to simply understand and accept you being you. Instead, and with an ounce of humility, you need to find ways to be transparent and use your stubbornness to improve your personal and professional life. How? That is your challenge; not mine.
Let’s get back to the lemonade stand. I have identified paper cups as my business’s kryptonite. So how do I use this knowledge to increase sales and beat out my competitor with the frosted mugs? First of all, I would be totally transparent about it. I would probably highlight it during my sales process — I have found customers like this. And customers who won’t like it probably won’t make good customers anyway.
Here’s my lemonade pitch:
“Our lemonade is made with real cane sugar and fresh lemons. Now, we use paper cups, so if you prefer a frosted mug, you will need to go elsewhere — like that dude down the street. But if you prefer something that is disposable and easy to transport, then the paper cups will work great for you. Most of my customers are active and on the go — they don’t particularly like to be forced to drink their lemonade at the lemonade stand or, worse, come back later and return their bulky glass mug. So what will it be? Do you want a single drink or our 3 for 2 special?”
And it’s not just sales. Leaders who know their weaknesses, and are transparent about them, tend to have loyal followers. Meanwhile team members who share their imperfections tend to be more respected than the know-it-alls.
So be brave and know your weaknesses. Be willing to be vulnerable and transparent. Find ways to use your weaknesses (or the fear of them) to drive your personal and professional behavior. Your strengths are only half the story.
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