Rethink your team challenges with this mindset shift

I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. My new employee sat me down and said,

“Let’s talk about our strengths. They might not be compatible. You’re an Activator, and I’m Deliberative I need time to ingest information. So please don’t ask me to make decisions on the spot. Give me time to think, and I promise I’ll come back with decisions that will blow your mind.”

I’ll tell you what: that conversation blew my mind! 🤯

I’d never had an employee communicate his strengths so clearly. It saved us both a world of hurt: once I knew how his mind worked, I could play to his strengths rather than get frustrated that his style didn’t match mine.

That’s why I love the StrengthsFinder Assessment. Do you know your strengths? Better yet — does your team?

A lot of team dysfunction comes from people not working in their strengths.

So before you write off a struggling team member as unmotivated, lazy, or just there to get paid, ask yourself: what are their strengths?

Are they working in their strengths, or am I asking them to work in their weaknesses?

The vast majority of people want to do good work and have an impact. So don’t put — or keep — people in jobs that don’t play to their strengths. Change their job internally if possible, or ask them to replace themselves and help them find another job that lets their strengths flourish.

We have a tendency to assume challenges are personal — our fault or someone else’s. This limits our imagination for disrupting and transforming these challenges.

What if the challenge on your team isn’t about the person, but their role? Or the way you expect them to approach their role?

What would happen if you disrupted your expectations?

“What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths - and can call on the right strength at the right time.”

― Tom Rath, Author of Strengths Based Leadership

My Latest:

• What Companies Get Wrong about Customer Centricity. This is a common affliction — watch yesterday’s Livestream and discover how to avoid it!

• My latest Leading Disruption LinkedIn Newsletter focused on convergence -- what it is and how it can give you a competitive advantage.

• The Transformation Mgmt Office is here to stay. If that makes you shudder, you need to join me live on Tuesday, Dec. 7th at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET. I’ll be streaming from London so catch you on the other side of the pond!

• The latest episodes of my podcast “The Next Rules of Disruption” feature in-depth interviews with Sharon Melnick on leadership power and Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann on scaling leadership. Catch them on your favorite podcast player.

Good Things:

• Good Reads: Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. Published earlier this year by my favorite leadership writers, this book lays out how people in non-leadership positions can be leaders. I highly recommend it for up-and-coming leaders on your teams, for the high school/college students in your family, and for people in front-line positions. Anyone can lead — and this book lays out step-by-step how they can lead well

• Referrals: This is my favorite geeky sustainability habit. 🤓 I take a spoon and fork from home, wrap them in a cloth napkin, and hold them together with a hairband. I bring my own silverware and napkin everywhere to avoid single-use plastic. It’s so easy!

• Resource: Sleep Score helps me optimize my sleep. We all know it: if you don’t sleep well, it ruins everything else in your life! This app is helping me get my sleep on track.