Playing to Your Strengths

Exceptional achievement and unanticipated excellence await the people and the organizations who accept the wisdom of playing to their strengths. It seems a simple enough principle, and it makes sense on the surface when you hear it, and yet in practice, playing to your strengths is so uncommon that the results appear as real breakthroughs.

We see it in our own team, and in the workforce of client organizations, and we are fortunate to see it every day. And so, even as we are sure of what we are sharing, we also know the need to explain. The story starts with understanding why people don’t see it this way from the beginning.

A New Understanding

Too often we begin in the dark because the nature of organizations is to assemble distinct functions in a sequence that transforms inputs into outcomes. Human nature prompts us to compare our own aptitudes to those around us, and to focus on the differences as if they were lacks or shortfalls, rather than clues to our strengths. The result of this unfortunate tendency is what organizational experts call “systems of inequality.”

As a result, the effectiveness of playing to our strengths often calls for a fresh evaluation of what lights us up and how our own proclivities and passions can transform the work we are devoted to doing. This is no squishy, new-age aphorism, but a dollars-and-cents prescription for efficiency and effectiveness. The only reason it is uncommon is that human comparisons too often take a negative view.

The Proof We See

As technology leaders in financial services, we observed early in the tech revolution that the payoffs of automation depend deeply on where in the operational process the solutions are inserted; what expectations, goals, and measurements are applied to them; and on the people whose work comes before, during, and after the technical application. By extension, the possibilities that those people bring to the process, based on their own aptitudes and interests, become a key factor for success.

It is not a matter of what technology can replace, but rather whose work it can enhance. Providing tech solutions that usher in this enhancement brought us face to face with our own possibilities.

A Different Form of Genius

Embracing these learnings in our organization, we discovered the wisdom of including people with neurodivergent learning and workstyles. Their perspectives are perfect for portions of our service that were previously seen as the most difficult to master and overcome. Bringing order and automation to the avalanche of dissimilar paperwork that used to hold the mortgage industry back in another century, this turned out to be an appetizing field for achievement, when viewed by a neurodivergent workforce.

For example, traits that are sometimes viewed as occurring on the autism spectrum may make the conventional interview process a steep challenge. Yet, for distilling and coding the myriad forms and documents that originate a loan, these same traits become the strengths of focus, determination, and completion.

“I think that getting things in line and making sure everything’s correct and in the right categories is satisfying in a way,” is how one of our teammates described the process of label-coding bank statements and applications for software to read. What might to another person appear to be stultifying or boring is to him like a meditative frame of mind.

Creating a welcoming environment for people with neurodivergent styles has proven to be a distinct advantage in accomplishing our goals for providing clients with the efficiencies of digital automation and financial technology. By extension, we see the benefits on an even wider canvas. These results encourage us to look even more closely at what lights us up uniquely, and to have confidence in the benefits of playing to our strengths.