Shape your role around your strengths

To be at our most effective and happy at work we must make the effort to shape how we work around our strengths.

Many people are doing the opposite, unfortunately. For example, my first job in investment banking was analysing credit risk of other banks. I hated the job because it was all analytical, with no room for creativity or building relationships, things I was good at. I struggled for months until I convinced the boss to set me free.

When I was let loose on clients I tried to copy the styles of bankers I admired. One guy, a former barrister, was very serious and technical. Listening to him was like being in court. But trying to copy his style with my clients was disastrous. I did not have his disciplined, methodical thought process. When I finally allowed myself to be creative and relational with clients I did much better.

And sadly, many people work for managers who don't care if their staff are working from their strengths. It's so disempowering.

It is possible, however, to shape our roles to our strengths. It helps us own every aspect. How do we do that?

My partner has a client who’s the local COO for a global not-for-profit. It’s a demanding role involving the coordination of staff, volunteers and boards all over the country, and working closely with the global organisation.

She thought being COO involved a lot of ‘doing’. But she was exhausted, and unsure how she was going to cope with the ever-increasing workload.

She discovered from the Clifton Strengths Assessment from Gallup she has a lot of thinking talents, and not so many executing and 'doing' talents. Thinkers need to take time to think because when they do, things start falling into place. They see patterns and strategies and then act on them. But she was rarely if ever taking time to think because she was so busy executing, checking tasks off a seemingly never-ending list.

A thinker who is too busy doing to take time to think will be miserable. This COO's courageous act was to trust in her thinking strengths, take time out to think each day about her role, priorities, processes, and key interactions. Her role changed to far less doing and much more thinking, and both her performance and happiness improved.

Part of the change was to negotiate away some responsibilities to make sure nothing was dropped. But the whole organisation is now better off for her having shaped the role to her strengths.

If you want to talk about how to shape your role to your strengths, or design a completely new role, please get in touch. I also made a video about this, you can check it out here.

Until next time – live your strengths.