What Strengthens You at Work?
Do you get to focus on your strengths at work? Or, are you caught up in trying to correct any shortcomings you feel you have or have been told by others? Gallup (and many others) have been pushing the idea of concentrating on further developing what you do best instead of spending a lot of time trying to fix what might not be in your native wheelhouse.
Don Clifton was the father of strength finders and it was founded on the principle of -
"What would happen if we studied what was right with people versus what's wrong with people?"
There is a long history behind his desire to help people discover and enhance their strengths. But in 1999, Gallup launched the Clifton Strengthfinders assessment to begin the movement of strength development versus fixing weaknesses. In 2001, the assessment was paired with the book, Now, Discover Your Strengths co-authored by Clifton and Marcus Buckingham.
I would encourage everyone, if you haven’t already, to explore the Strengthfinders concept. Purchase the book, Strengthfinders 2.0 and invest time in completing the assessment and reading the nature of each of your strengths. There are no right or wrong strengths, just ways of categorizing what you are best suited to do. If you have taken this previously, and it has been more than five or seven years, or you have had a major career shift since you last took it - take it again. This is truly an investment in yourself, and then you can choose how or whether you share the results with others. If you lead a team, I would also recommend that you do it as a team and discuss how your strengths can complement and enhance the working environment around you.
On a personal level, it’s not just about finding your strengths. Instead, it’s about what strengthens you because you enjoy or love what you’re doing. In addition to his ongoing work with developing your strengths, Buckingham recently released a book entitled 9 Lies About Work. In this work, he explores what people really want from work. It is not always what the common thoughts are. He dives in deeper to see that most people want what makes them happy. I am oversimplifying that a bit, but boiled down to a very short and simple explanation, that is what I took away.
With that in mind, and coupling it with what strengthens you in your work, here are some ideas to spend more time on what is most important and interesting to you.
What do I enjoy about my work?
Take some time to write a narrative about your work and what you enjoy about it. It is important to think about this in a story format in context with other things. In the next step, you’ll list some specific items that get you really excited. Here, don’t worry as much about each specific item versus the feelings you have as you are thinking about a typical day or week, or any given period of time in your work environment. And, if appropriate, include how it impacts and connects to your personal life.
If a really positive workday translates into a fun and exciting evening at home with your friends or family, tell that story. Connect the dots for yourself. This will naturally lead to some thoughts about the opposite as well. Feel free to capture those as too, but set those aside when you are done and see if the rest of the overall exercise begins to address those. You may find that spending your energy on the strengths and positives that the negatives get eliminated naturally by just doing more of the ‘good’ things.
In general, what gets me really excited and motivated to do something?
Build this list as your ‘love it’ list. These are the things you want to be able to find more time for in your work and personal life. You can keep this portion simple, no stories or explanations needed, unless you want to add it for yourself. When you are done, you should (hopefully) have a lengthy list of activities or outcomes that you value and gain energy from in your work. Some examples might be coaching others, learning something new from my team, having one on one sessions with Tim and Kathy. Don’t overthink this, just capture what comes to mind when you are thinking about what is fun and energizing in a typical day or week.
What drains my energy?
Use this list as your ‘dislike’ list. These are things you want to find ways to move away from in your daily activities. Can they be delegated to someone else who enjoys these types of activities? Can they be eliminated altogether? Can you group them together so you only deal with them on a limited basis? This can be challenging. Some things we may dislike are part of the job or you know cannot be avoided. If you dislike most conference calls, list it. It doesn’t mean you will be able to avoid it, but identifying it may help to look for new ways to engage in them differently in the future.
What do I do because I know I have to, but do necessarily enjoy?
This list may be a subset of the list above. I used the example of conference calls, this may fall into this group. We all have administrative duties that may feel tedious but have to be done. Does anyone really enjoy filling out expense reports? You might be surprised to find that some folks don’t mind it or even enjoy organizing and ensuring it all ties together. This is another list that can lead to items that could be delegated to others.
Pulling your lists together
Once you have your three lists completed, take a look at how they may interact with each other. Are their ways to eliminate the things you dislike? Could you find new ways of working in those areas that could reduce the amount of your time spent on them? The keyword here is your time. There are options available to have other people do some of those tasks for you. It may seem silly or even unlikely that a Store Manager or a District Manager would hire a virtual assistant, but perhaps it would be a valuable option if that opened up more time for you to have concentrating on what you love most about your job. That could lead to better performance and more opportunities for advancement and growth.
Use the lists you create and start with one area to break away from your regular routines. Even if you try it for just a week or two to see what might be possible. Ask yourself what the worst-case scenario would be if you just stopped doing something that you found tedious. (Now, you might not be able to stop going to your boss’ conference call, but maybe you could change the perspective of how you see that call.) It is easy to say we should focus more on our strengths and what brings us happiness. It is harder to complete that in reality. It can feel impossible to break away from established norms or break out of what has historically been ‘necessary parts of the job.’ But, the reality is, we all probably have more control over our time and activities than we believe is possible. We just need to try new things.
What new ideas will your try as you work towards spending more time on the things you love versus what steals your energy?
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