To Do One Thing Really Well, Do You Fix Your Weakness?
Aug 5th, 2009 by David Svet
Do you remember doing poorly on a subject in grade school? No doubt your teacher told you that you would have to work harder. So, you learned to toil away for endless hours trying to get better at something that was not your real strength. On the other hand, do you remember being really good at something and all of the praise and privilege that came with it? The rewards were awesome, and a little perplexing, because you were simply doing what comes naturally. What a conundrum. Work hard to be average or have fun and be great? What happened to, “no pain, no gain?” Wasn’t all of the guilt from our teachers so that we would fix our flaws? Isn’t that how we attain greatness?
Not really, and if that is part of the baggage that you bring to your professional life you could be making things harder than necessary. In my last SPURspectives post I wrote about eliminating options as a way to gain focus in your work. This is about deciding which options to eliminate. Hildy Gottlieb makes a great point about how to make this decision in her book The Pollyanna Principles. “Pollyanna Principle #5: Strength builds upon our strengths, not our weaknesses.”
That’s NOT what the teacher said. But, it’s true, and as a result there’s a whole lot of wasted time, effort, and resources going into the creation of a whole lot of mediocrity. Stop it. Plain and simple, just stop doing it. If the best you can hope for is to be average then why waste the effort? Seth Godin has made a fine career out of explaining this in books like Purple Cow, The Dip, and Meatball Sundae — be unique, be one of a kind, fail fast and get up, do the one thing that sticks really well. Strength builds upon strength. Don’t waste time building up a weakness when you could be extending a strength. Do the one thing you are good at really well.
Lance Armstrong may be the best bicycle racer in the business. We all know the story of how he overcame cancer to go on to greatness. It’s an amazing feat. But his business is bicycle racing and he got to where he is by building on his strengths. Lance Armstrong is not a great sprinter. He could kick my ass any time, any day. But as professional bike racers go, it’s not his strength. He’s a brilliant climber and possibly the best time trialist alive. As the saying goes, two out of three ain’t bad, and in Lance Armstrong’s case it’s good enough to win. He stays even on the flat races dominated by sprinters only to crush everyone in the mountains and time trials. He plays to his strengths. He ignores the teacher in his head that says you have to work harder at sprinting. He works harder at climbing and time trials — and wins.
Wow, David. I love this post. Especially where you say “Don’t waste time building up a weakness when you could be extending a strength. Do the one thing you are good at really well.”
That is what I am planning to do now in my current situation. I have done what I can to work on understanding and learning how to manage direct mail campaigns, but my real strength and passion is for the Web/social media. I need to go out and embrace this strength into my next job opportunity. Thank you for the inspiration I needed today.
I agree, great article. Nice to see a profound point stated simply and effectively.
But as Ken Robinson notes in his book, The Element, it’s the combination of strength (what he refers to as aptitude) and passion that is the sweet spot. Strength alone isn’t sufficient.
And doesn’t “strengths” as the answer depend on what question we are asking? If the question is “what field can I likely be a top professional in?” then it’s probably a part of the right answer, but if that’s not the question, then focusing too exclusively on strengths might not be the best course of action.
Jeffrey, I like the concept you quoted from The Element where strength and passion combine is the sweet spot for a person. Right on! Ken Robinson always shares insights that are fascinating as you think about them.
Another concept I saw not too long ago was three circles. One circle contained “What you are passionate about.” The second circle overlapped the first and it had “What you can be the best in the world at” and the third circle overlapped both the first and second circles and said “What drives your economic engine.” The sweet spot where all 3 circles overlap is where one can shine in life and make a difference.