Never Stop Learning: Stay Relevant, Reinvent Yourself, and Thrive by Bradley R. Staats

Author:Bradley R. Staats [Staats, Bradley R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781633692862
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2018-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Challenges in Learning from Strengths

If strengths are such a powerful tool for learning, why don’t we use them more often? Because we focus on fixing our weaknesses while struggling to identify our strengths.

It seems counterintuitive in a book about learning to argue that we should ignore our weaknesses. Weaknesses practically define what we choose to learn. Think about how performance reviews work in most organizations. Whether the data is collected from inclusive 360-degree reviews or from a manager alone, comments are provided as a “feedback sandwich.” A few perfunctory, positive comments are provided at the beginning and the end—the bread—and the bulk of the time is spent focusing on the things that need attention—the employee’s weaknesses—that make up the meat of the conversation.

We tend to dwell on the things that go wrong and want to fix them. But that’s because we believe that we need to excel on all dimensions to achieve long-term success. After business school, I believed that I would have to identify any and all weaknesses and eliminate them to accomplish my objectives. If I could simultaneously be a great strategic thinker, carefully analyze all situations, empathetically interact with others on my team, compellingly share my vision internally and externally, and eventually sell my idea, I would be successful. And it’s true: if I had been able to do all those things at a high level, I certainly would have improved my chances of success. But unfortunately, like most people, I have strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others. Moreover, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, so if I choose to spend time addressing my weaknesses, I forgo the opportunity to further develop my strengths. Finally, in many cases weaknesses are things that one is not only not good at but also unlikely to become good at. Even with attention, they may not improve much.

The same lessons can be true for organizations. Many organizations have no clear idea of how their policies and decisions come together to form a logical set of capabilities. These choices make up an organization’s operations strategy. A good operations strategy is one in which the organization does things in a way your customers value more than your competitors’ approach so that the organization can create and capture value. Examples abound of companies’ attempts to be all things to all people—the lowest-cost, highest-quality, most innovative, ecofriendly, good-health solution in the marketplace! My friend Tom Fishburne’s cartoon, below, captures the idea beautifully.9

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.