Welcome to this week’sDiscuss HR, the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK.
There are many and diversedisciplines of HR, yet one aspect that is common in most is the requirement toidentify strengths and weaknesses in others in order to develop employees anddrive performance. However, as is commonwith such practices it can be very difficult to turn the tables on yourself. Today, Jill Hart-Sanderson explores a recent experiencewhich illustrated her strengths and led her to make a major decision. (Ed Scrivener)
Knowthyself
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| Finding your strengths |
Whatis the secret to success? Now there’s something to ponder! What makes somepeople so successful at what they do, whilst others strive for something, butnever quite get there? Do you recognise your talents or are you concentratingon the things you are not good at, and need to improve?
Byswitching our efforts to our natural talents rather than focussing ourweaknesses we may just find the success we crave. By using skills, knowledgeand practice it is possible to improve, but when this is used in an area inwhich you have natural talent the improvement is much more dramatic. This canbe summed up in the following formula*:
talent (a natural way ofthinking, feeling or behaving)
X
investment (time spent practicing, developing yourskills, and building your knowledge base)
=
strength (the ability to consistently providenear-perfect performance)
Itcan be very difficult to look at yourself objectively and ask ‘what are mynatural talents’? In the quest to find this out for myself, I recently did theStrengthsFinder online assessment. There are countless assessments and testsout there, and no - I’m not working on commission, but I found the results impressive.By replying to some obscure questions I discovered my talents which included:
- Lovingthe challenge of meeting new people and winning them over; derivingsatisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person
- Beingintrigued with the unique qualities of each person
- Havingthe ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation
- Agift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively
Allvery flattering, but I was amazed at the detail, and how much could beuncovered by asking the right questions. Armed with this information I’m nowable to look at my natural tendencies and understand what works for me and whatdoesn’t.
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| Is this what is meant by SWOT analysis? |
Byfinding out others’ talents we’re also able to select the best people for thetask or understand the best way of working with them. It may just be that I’m ‘intrigued with the unique qualities of eachperson’, but I truly believe that by recognising that everyone is differentand by knowing and sharing our natural strengths we can improve the way wework.
Iwonder how many of us take the time to get to know ourselves or our colleagues.By knowing who we are and what is really important to us we can make choicesabout how we work, where we work and who we spend time with.
Interestingly,as a result of all my navel gazing I’ve even decided to leave full timeemployment and to focus on my natural talents to drive me to my personallong-term goals. Do you know your strengths? Do you know the strengths of yourteam and how to make the most of their natural talent? What are your thoughts?
*StrengthsFinder 2.0, Tom Rath
Aboutthe author
Jillloves working with the team at Rambutan helping people to think, lead andcommunicate brilliantly in order to achieve business, team and personalgoals. Her previous management experience in both the public and privatesector means she has seen how great HR can make a real difference to individualmanagers and organisations as a whole.
*****
DiscussHR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIngroup for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 29th September and weare delighted to welcome our next guest writer, career coach Paul Goring.
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