It seems almost natural for people to avoid their weaknesses. None of us want to fail, or do we very often knowingly walk into a situation that will fail. Most recent leadership and developmental literature will recommend that you focus on your strengths. Do you know your strengths?
If you don’t know your strengths, I recommend you get the book, Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. You will get a code that will let you take an online survey, and provide you the top 5 strength categories that fit your profile.
Why is that important? Not only can you focus on your strengths, but you can learn a lot about situations to avoid. Let me give you an example.
One of my top 5 strengths is “Learner”. Basically this is a category of people that love to learn. We love the process of learning, not just the knowledge we gain. Learners thrive in an environment where we are continually challenged with new information, new challenges, new processes, or new situations. For a learner, the learning journey s more important than “getting there” or becoming the subject expert.
So from knowing my strength area, what can I learn about my weaknesses or situations I need to avoid? Here is some of things I have concluded:
1. Avoid stagnant environments. Learners are avid about change. Change is not a barrier to a learner. Learners enjoy the challenge. But learners also hate situations that do not change. Routine without challenge will drive learners crazy.
2. Avoid situations where we force change upon others at the fast rate that we enjoy. We are not all learners. Change is accepted at a different pace by different people. It is easy for learners to get frustrated when people drag their feet on a change for no apparent reason.
3. Avoid situations where learning is not supported. Some organizations are learning organizations, other are not. Learners should avoid organizations that do not see value in education.
4. Keep the goal in front of you. Since learners love the educational journey, sometime they lose site of the objective of the organization. Learners should keep the goal in mind and must force themselves to continue to deliver results in spite of the research.
This is not an exhaustive list of potential weaknesses for learners. I am sure there are more. But the process of examining your strengths in depth to understand how your strengths also create weaknesses, can give you opportunity to really understand how best to leverage your strengths.