Using your strengths to produce results
March 8, 2009 by Vauna Beauvais
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Yesterday I took a little thin, unread, book down from my bookshelf and decided to read it. My bookshelves are full of unread books (as well as books that I have read). I find they so much come in handy when I have a weekend with no engagements planned, nothing on the TV, and I am slightly tired, anyway. Its like having a fridge full of brain-food at the ready.
It wasnt just that “MANAGING ONESELF” by Peter F Drucker looked like it could be read in an hour or so, but it was the title that appealed to me also.
“I could do with a bit of self-management”, I thought. I have recently identified a way in which I would like to be living my life differently, and I need to do things differently (obviously) to bring this about. “So maybe this little book will inspire me”, I thought.
I hadn’t realised that the book was written by a business managment guru. A bit synchronistic really, since I am currently a delegate on a Leadership and Management training course, as you know. (I had expected it to be one of those simple little self-help booklets that you get free when you give your email address on a good website).
So flicking through the internet I found that Drucker taught generations of managers the importance of picking the best people, of focusing on opportunities and not problems. In those days that was ‘out -there’.
Apparently, Warren Bennis, a management guru himself , asked Drucker how he came up with so many original insights. The reply was, “I learn only through listening,” he said, pausing, “to myself.” (I’m also a big advocate of intuition, and trusting in myself, so I liked that).
Because Ducker was born into a highly educated professional family, in Austria in 1909 (which was a time of a cultural and economic hub) his family mingled with people such as Sigmund Freud. Perhaps Druckers worldliness and style of expression is as a result of him first having met Freud at the age of eight years old, and the fact that his parents would entertain Freud, and other members of the Vienese intellectual elite, regularly in their home.
In fact, for me, the comparison with Freud could be stretched further when I read that Drucker’s most famous text, The Practice of Management, published in 1954, “…laid out the American corporation like a well-dissected frog in a college laboratory”. (Freud began by dissecting frogs in his shed at home!).
Anyway. Back to my little book. In this book, ‘Managing Oneself’, Drucker talks about managment in terms of ‘enhancing performance’. “Well, that’ll do”, I thought, “If I need to do things differently, then I can enhance my performance and see if my life is different”.
So, I’m going to share with you the bones of the book, and how I have interpreted the bits that are relevant for me - and hopefully, you too. (If you really want to, you can read the whole book in this PDF file ).
Drucker says that a person can perform only from strength. And that most people think that they know what they are good at, but they are usually wrong.
“One cannot build performance on weakness”, he asserts, “let alone on something that one cannot do at all.”
I’m not sure that I totally agree with that. And I am not convinced that I am ready to say it is not true, either. I have an open mind about those statements. With anything like that, its a case of asking myself, “How useful is it to operate as if this were true?” (See the NLP Presuppostions for more like that).
So, lets assume that this is true, because believing this will be useful. “A person can only perform from strength”.
Drucker also states that, “We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong”.
Again, according to our man, Drucker, the only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.
So, lets go now, on to discovering our strengths. This is the process that he reccomends us to use:
Take a key decision (or a key action)
My decision is ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Write down what you expect will happen:
What I expect to happen is………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
9 or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.
Instruction: Go to your outlook calendar, or your mobile phone, PDF, or whatever, and pop a reminder alarm in for you to review your expectations with actual outcomes.
I have now done this to remind me on…………………………………………………………………….. (date)
A very simple exercise isn’t it? Not very satisfactory now, I grant you, because you wanted results straight away, didn’t you? Sorry.
This method, long as it is, does have merits. You are using proper measurement. A quote from Drucker, “What is measured improves”
You are taking the guesswork out of knowing where you need to improve. If you do this across the board (i.e. with everything that you want to do / change/ become) you can see what it is that you are doing that is at the root of your failures (remember the presupposition there is no failure only feedback?) You are seeing where you are not particularly competent. You are also seeing what are your strengths (ah at last!).
Drucker is known for believing that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure. (Sounds reasonable to me, if you have an outcome in mind, and want to control the results, at least. There is also a case for not trying to predict, and just benefit from unpredictability, but that still doesn’t mean that you act without thinking).
So, now that you have the results of your feedback analysis:
- put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
- put your energies on working on improving your strengths
- improve skills or aquire new ones
- gain knowledge (in areas other than your expertise)
- remedy your bad habits (the things that you do or fail to do that inhibit your effectiveness and performance).
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Drucker states that what we should NOT do is spend (waste?) a lot of time on improving areas of low competence.
Instead of using energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity, use time and energy to improve from good or first rate, to excellence. Turn yourself, then, from a competent person into a star performer.
Additionally, Drucker states in this little book, that we should
- work out how we perform,
- know what are our personal values
- be aware of personal your ethics system
- find out where we should belong
- understand what we should contribute
- take responsibility for relationships
Knowing all of this enables you to choose actions by thinking.
You can then say to an offer or to an assignment,
”Yes I will do that. But this is the way that I should be doing it. This is the way that it should be structured. This is the way that relationships should be. These are the kinds of results to expect from me and in which paticular time-frame, because this is who I am.”
Now, Drucker becomes aligned with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in saying that successful careers (and lives?) are not planned, they develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know thier strengths, their method of doing things, and their values. Knowing where one belongs … can transform an ordinary person into an outstanding performer.
A star performer in life.
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