Link Your Strengths To Your Performance

 

Pick one of your Top 5 StrengthsFinder Talent Themes and analyze it this week. In every meeting. With every task. Give it 30 itty-bitty seconds of your time to ask how this talent shows up on you.

 

Your Goal?

 

Watch how that Talent Theme influences your thinking and decision making.
For example, do you think faster than other people? Do you prefer to think alone? Or aloud with someone? Are you immediately decisive, or do you like time to process? Notice how you make decisions compared with others.

 

Now you can apply it at work:

 

  • Use it to communicate expectations. For example, you might say in a meeting, “I appreciate the input. I need to think through this a bit more. I’ll get you my vote in our meeting tomorrow morning” (and then you can do your offline analysis or collaboration). 

    Someone else might say, “My recommendation is that we move forward with the launch” – some people are 100% comfortable making decisions alone and in the moment.

     

    Know what you need terms of time, data, and collaboration. And ask for what you need. For those who need more thinking time, giving a decision date is a great way to get time to think because it’s very definitive.

 

  • Use it in your calendar. For example, if you know you need time to process things, be sure that you block out time to analyze decisions.Or if you know you’re at your best when you make big decisions in collaboration, schedule follow up meetings to discuss decisions aloud with, you know, other humans. 

    Know how you work best and build in time for it. Otherwise, you’ll run around feeling frustrated because you don’t have time to do anything you wish you could do.

 

Does this seem simple? It is. Yet few actually do it. I hear from many frustrated employees who wish people could see things from their point of view. They’re frustrated. They’re time starved. They feel like others just don’t get it.

 

It’s true. They don’t get it because they would have to be mind readers. They have their own talents that are different from yours. They think about the world differently. So to get what you need–to unleash your talents–you need to know how you do your best thinking. And then take it. Take the calendar time. Take the mechanics of it and make it happen so you can be in your best decision-making environment.