Maybe you should stop fixing yourself 短板已死

"What are your strengths?"

Can you easily answer that?

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Today, everyone is talking about strengths, the concept of strengths and weaknesses, and everyone knows they should play to their strengths. However, few can answer the question above. Even if some people know their strengths, they often envy others who seem to have more valuable strengths. Sadly, even when they appreciate their strengths, few truly invest enough in designing their lives around those strengths.

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The concept of strengths and weaknesses, often called the "long and short board theory" or the "barrel theory," originated from the American management guru Peter Drucker. When applied to measuring individual abilities, I believe no one embraces it more actively than the Chinese. This can be seen in the fundamental model of Chinese education, which strongly dislikes errors and weaknesses. Teachers often tell students, "Your math is already good, now focus on Chinese and English." Students spend as much time revising their mistakes as they do on homework, and there are even beautifully designed notebooks called "error correction books" in the stationery market.

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But can success come just from continuous correction? Not necessarily. The importance of strengths and weaknesses can vary greatly for different individuals. Take the writer Ernest Hemingway, for example. He was known for spelling and grammatical errors, yet he became one of the greatest American novelists of the 20th century. After all, the essence of writing lies in profound insights.

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Have you ever noticed how you can easily find a taxi anywhere, but when it rains, it's nearly impossible to get one? What's even more frustrating is when you finally find a taxi, the driver says it's the end of their shift—taxi drivers seem to finish early on rainy days.

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Researchers have studied this phenomenon and found that drivers tend to calculate their work time based on how much they need to earn each day to avoid losses, such as aiming for 500 yuan a day. Once they reach that goal, they stop working. On rainy days, there are more customers and higher fares, so they finish early. During regular days with less demand, they work longer hours.

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The smart approach is actually quite simple: work more on rainy days and go home earlier on sunny days.

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In economics, the "prospect theory" (proposed by Tversky and Kahneman in 2002) explains that we are more sensitive to avoiding losses than to making gains. The motivation to avoid losses is much stronger than the desire to make more money. To avoid losses, we spend more time compensating for weaknesses than we do leveraging our strengths. We are more passionate about fixing our shortcomings than focusing on our strengths. In our "sunny day" areas—where we are mediocre—we work hard, while in our potential "rainy day" areas, we are indifferent. Clearly, this fear of loss rather than the desire for gain has led many to miss opportunities to become stronger, turning most people into mediocrities.

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There was a speed reading experiment where researchers tested the reading speed and comprehension of 1000 readers. Initially, without teaching any methods, the average reader read 90 words per minute, while the excellent reader read 350 words per minute. After teaching them a quick reading method, the average reader's reading speed increased to 150 words per minute, almost doubling. But guess how much the excellent reader who read 350 words per minute increased to? The answer is 2900 words per minute, nearly 10 times more!

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This result surprised almost all researchers because initially, they thought that readers with lower levels would show more improvement. In fact, the greatest return on investment is in areas where one already has an advantage.

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From this, the conclusion is clear:

The personal growth strategy of shoring up weaknesses is no longer applicable. Instead, finding and developing strengths, integrating them into a set of skills with strengths at the core, is the key of competitiveness. Most people do not invest enough time in developing their strengths. Drawing on the training strategy of the Chinese table tennis team: practice deliberately for a long time, focusing on your best trick.The underlying principle is: when your strengths outshine your weaknesses, you become invincible.

When we hover around average scores, our weaknesses stand out, and by addressing them, we may reach 80 points, but we can never reach 100 points solely by doing so. What truly takes you to 100 or even 120 points are your strengths. Perhaps, in Edison's saying about 100 points, the effort of 99 points refers more to leveraging strengths and avoiding weaknesses, rather than just fixing weaknesses.

Some additional points:

1.????? The base is crucial. Without a base, you can't hold water. The larger the base, the more water your strengths can hold. The base represents foundational abilities—learning ability, analytical thinking, discipline, empathy, emotional management, etc.

2.????? Hoops for the bucket. A template isn't set up straight away; there are hoops between the planks to hold the template tightly together. Without these hoops, there would be gaps between the planks, and the wooden bucket would turn into a basket. The hoops represent the connections between skills—integrative ability. Integrating various abilities and resources into a whole, becoming a versatile talent.

“你的优势是什么？”

请问你可以轻松地回答出来吗？

今天，人人都在谈论优势、长板原理，人人都知道应该发挥自己跌优势，但鲜有人可以回答上述这个问题。即使有些人知道自己有什么优势，也总是羡慕别人身上“含金量”更高的优势。而最遗憾的是，即使知道、欣赏自己的优势，也很少有人真正投入足够多的精力，以优势来设计自己的人生。

长短板理论/木桶理论源于美国企业管理家彼得德鲁克，他提醒我们注意到了短板对效能的限制。当这个理论用于衡量个人能力的时候，我想没有比中国人更加积极运用的了，从中国基础教育的基本模式就可以看出我们是多么地厌恶错误和弱点。经常能听到老师对学生说的话就是：“你的数学已经很好了，现在要狠抓语文和英语。”学生们会花与写作业同样的时间来温习改错，乃至文具市场上出现了设计精美、专门名为“改错本”的笔记本。

但是持续纠错，就能成功？不一定的，对不同的木桶来说，短板和长板的重要性排序可能是非常不同的。例如作家海明威，他同时以拼写和句法错误而闻名，但这不妨碍他成为20世纪美国最伟大的小说家，毕竟写作的真谛在于真知灼见。

你有没有发现平时哪里都能打到车，但是一下雨出租车总是特别不好打？更加恼火的是，好不容易遇上一个，司机又说要收工——雨天司机收工也特别早。

有学者研究过这个现象，他们发现，司机倾向于通过每天“要赚多少才能不亏”的方式来计算自己的工作时间，比如一天500块，一旦赚够了，就停止工作。雨天打车人多，加价多，所以收工早。而平时活不多，工作时间则加长。

其实真正聪明的做法是：在雨天的时候多干，在晴天早点回家休息。

经济学中的“前景理论”（或展望理论，提出者是特沃斯基和卡尼曼，2002）对此的解释是，我们对于“多赚”和“少得”的敏感程度不一样——我们对于让自己“不亏”的心理动力，远远高于让自己“多赚”的心理动力。为了不亏，我们弥补弱势的时间远胜于发挥优势的时间，我们查漏补缺的热情远远高于关注优点的热情。为了不亏，我们在自己的“晴天”领域——那些乏善可陈的领域拼了命地干，在在我们本可以收获更多的“雨天”领域，则随便对付。显然，这种宁愿不赚也别亏的想法，已经让我们放弃成为强者的机会，大部分人已经变成了庸人。

有一个速读实验，研究者对1000名读者的阅读速度和理解能力进行了测试，第一次，在没有教授任何方法的前提下，一般读者每分钟读90个字，而优秀读者每分钟读350个字。第二次，在教授了快速阅读的方法之后，一般读者每分钟阅读字数增加到了150各个字，接近2倍。但是你猜之前读了350个字的优秀读者增加到多少？答案是每分钟2900个字，增加了近10倍！

这个结果几乎让所有研究人员们吃惊，因为一开始时，他们都以为水平较差的读者进步会更大。事实上，在本身就有优势的领域的投入回报率，才是最大的。

由此，结论呼之欲出：

补短板的个人成长策略不适用了，找到长板、发展长板，以长板为核心整合出一整套的技能组合，这便是竞争力的核心部分。大部分人投资长板的时间完全不够，借鉴中国乒乓球队的训练策略：长时间刻意练习，专练自己擅长的打法。这背后的哲学就是：让优势足以淹没一切弱点，便可战无不胜。

当我们在平均分处徘徊，短板非常引人注目，弥补它，我们就能达到80分，但永远无法凭此到达100分。而真正让你达到100甚至120分的是长板。也许，爱迪生说的100分里，那99分的努力更多的是指努力扬长避短，而不是补短。

其他一些补充：

1、底板很重要。没有底板，装不了水，底板越大，长板能装的水也越多。底板就是底层能力——学习能力、思考分析能力、自律、共情能力、情绪管理能力等。

2、桶箍。模板并不是就这么直接立起来的，板子之间还有桶箍把模板紧紧并在一起。如果没有这个箍，模板之间会有缝隙，木桶就变成了篮子了。箍，就是技能与技能之间的联系——整合能力。把各种能力、资源之间统合成为一个整体，变成复合型人才。