Have you mastered that skill yet?
A recent face plant on the slopes of Banff gave me more than just a bruised ego - it delivered a powerful lesson about mastery and professional development.
As an intermediate skier who typically ventures out just once a year, I found myself watching in awe as another skier effortlessly navigated moguls that would have sent me tumbling. It was a humbling reminder that even activities we've done for years don't automatically translate to mastery.
This got me thinking about how we approach skill development in our professional lives. I've always been an advocate of leaning into strengths rather than obsessing over weaknesses. But here's the catch - even our strengths need continuous refinement and investment.
Let me share a perspective from my high school swimming days. I wasn't the fastest swimmer, but I could finish even the most grueling events. My coach recognized this strength and, instead of trying to transform me into a sprint champion, helped me perfect my endurance. He also knew most teams can't fill all their lanes so having a reliable "lane filler" actually served to score team points.
Sometimes, mastery isn't about being the best at everything - it's about being exceptional at your unique contribution.
So how should we approach skill development?
The next time you're assessing your development goals, ask yourself: Are you spreading yourself too thin trying to improve everything? Or are you ready to commit to true mastery of your strengths?
Remember, in a world that often pushes us to work on our weaknesses, sometimes the boldest move is to double down on what we do best. After all, it's our strengths, not our weaknesses, that set us apart and create unique value.
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What strength will you double down on today?
#ContinuousLearning #StrengthsFinder #ProfessionalDevelopment #SkillMastery #LeadershipDevelopment
About the Author
Bo Lora is a Principal Design Technologist and pragmatic futurist who seamlessly blends user experience expertise with cutting-edge web technology. With over 20 years of experience at industry leaders like Amazon, Dell, Travelocity, and USAA, Bo has established himself as a trusted expert in driving innovation and delivering exceptional user experiences across large-scale products and applications.
As a strategic leader, Bo guides cross-functional teams toward cohesive solutions that balance user needs with operational excellence. His vision extends beyond individual projects, shaping industry best practices through his active participation in the LinkedIn community and mentorship of UX designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers.
Bo embraces AI not as a replacement for human ingenuity but as an "exoskeleton" that empowers professionals to unlock productivity levels never seen before. His pragmatic approach seeks to harmonize human interaction with intelligent systems, removing inefficiencies while maintaining a user-centric focus. In the last two years, Bo has focused on the healthcare and life sciences industries, specifically clinical trials, which he believes are ripe for modernization. Bo's unique ability to identify opportunities, simplify complex challenges, and foster consensus empowers organizations to stay ahead of the curve, continuously evolving their digital offerings to meet the ever-changing demands of the modern landscape.
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1 个月Great read Bo Lora !!
Senior UX Researcher | Driving User-Centered Innovation
1 个月I like this perspective, Bo. Having worked with you at AT&T, I know firsthand how you practice what you preach. Having been a Mixed-methods UX Researcher from about the time the last Yugo was made (ok…well, maybe a few years after that. That was my first career lol), I focused primarily on honing my ethnographic and behavioral elicitation skills. I became very proficient and adept at connecting with study participants. Let the participant lead to help me better understand the hows and whys behind the decisions and actions they would make toward a desired outcome. Your practical understanding of how minor affordances of a design structure could greatly influence the how’s and why’s behind every choice a participant would make helped me to better understand the reasons behind why those choices were made. The key point here is that our combined knowledge and skills were enormous assets toward developing solutions that were to spec, on time, and within budget. You would hone your designs by leveraging results of observations and learnings we gleaned throughout each stage of research. We worked in a very complimentary manner, and encouraged learning and evolving in the areas each of us knew best.