What do you "Suck" at? Learning to embrace your weaknesses.

One of my favorite management exercises is to ask people to identify what they “suck” at. I ask this question not to put them down but to make them think. I learned a long time ago that everybody has weaknesses and, rather than trying to fight or defend them, we should really learn to embrace them.

I’m pretty candid about how bad of a Technician I was. I use it in a lot of my sales presentations and am very self deprecating about it but the truth is that I really struggled with it early in my professional career. I wanted to be really good at it but I just….wasn’t. 

It wasn’t until I started to become comfortable in my own skin that I realized that I was good at other things. It also became apparent that I really enjoyed those things that I was good at doing. Talking to people didn’t feel like work to me. The weird thing is that it took me getting to be good at something before I realized that it was okay to “suck” at some things while being great at others.

Warren Buffet is arguably the greatest investor of all time. His brain works differently than others and it’s a beautiful thing. What’s not beautiful is Warren suiting up and trying to play basketball. Even though he was the greatest in one aspect of life, there was zero chance that Michael Jordan was going to be looking over his shoulder at Mr. Buffet as competition on the basketball court.

The same can be said for what we experience in our shops and businesses. I’ve seen Techs that are amazing diagnosticians but actually struggle when it comes to doing mechanical repair or at least in their desire to do mechanical work. Of course, it’s more common to have mechanically gifted people struggle with electrical diagnostics but you get the point. 

It’s the same in our business. I love working with people to have them identify their weaknesses because it can open their eyes. I’m pretty sure that I say that I stink at something on a daily basis. To me, I’ve got obvious strengths and obvious weaknesses. I’m probably not the greatest poker player in the world because you can probably guess where I’m at with something based on my emotional reaction. 

My weaknesses definitely come with organization and following processes, while getting upset when others don’t follow those same processes. Totally hypocritical and it drives me nuts. I’ve noticed similar things with other people that have sales backgrounds as well. Some of it comes down to personality profiles and the way that some of us were raised. I’ve known some pretty wild guys that went to the military and come out as such a different individual. It feels like they are more disciplined and mentally strong than the average person.

Identifying your weaknesses can also help you understand where you need help. In my scenario, I hired people that had different skill sets than I did. From a business standpoint, I feel like that part is important to help protect you from blind spots. 

This same theory very much applies to shops as well. When Managers start to understand that not everybody is motivated the same way and not everybody learns the same way, they can cater their team members needs. 

Conversely, Mechanics can use this exercise to make themselves better in the shop. Understanding what you struggle at and coming up with ways to work around those can be a huge opportunity for you to turn out more work. A common thing that I saw while leading Techs directly was that many of them lacked writing skills. This caused the Service Writer to have to question the Tech on what was included on an estimate or something else that needed to be communicated. Oftentimes, this would mean pulling that Technician off the job to ask them a question. As we all know, once you lose your focus on something, it’s extremely difficult to get back on track. 

Talking about what your weaknesses are also opens up thinking to what you’re great at. I firmly believe that everybody is bad at something and great at something else. I have yet to meet the perfect, all around person...in fact, I think some of the most successful people that I know understand their strengths and weaknesses better than the average person. It’s amazing to me.

My advice is to understand what you “suck” at and embrace it. Own that there are things you’re not as naturally good at as others. It removes a bit of the societal pressure to be perfect that is put on many of us from the start of our lives. It opens you to talk about what you’re passionate about.  

Ultimately, it puts you in a better position to leverage those skills for your own growth...and I love to see when people do that!