Let me start with a hypothesis: I believe the vast majority of us want to see others succeed. Of course we want to succeed as well, but most of us intellectually understand that success isn’t a zero sum game outside of very infrequent situations. If you can accept those assumptions, then what I have to say could hit home.
As leaders, as friends, and as humans, one of our core opportunities and/or responsibilities is to find talent in those around us. It sounds so simple and straightforward. Almost a given that it would happen all day every day. Who wouldn’t do that, you ask?
The short answer: all of us. I hate to say it, but I’m guilty of not always finding the talent around me. In fact, the majority of us do the opposite – I know I have. It isn’t intentional and it isn’t malevolent. It is largely a factor of our shared experience. Before you get angry for me insulting you, let me explain.
When we are children in school as we grow and learn, we spend the majority of our time on the areas we are weakest trying to be where others are or we perceive we should be. If I struggle in math, I may do extra studying/work online, get a tutor, and/or lobby the teacher for extra credit to help offset my shortcomings. Additionally, I may end up spending extra time doing flash cards, solving problems, and looking for ways to better understand the content. We want to be better where fall short of others.
In sports, we start at an early age training specific skills for specific sports. We drill our minds and bodies to get a little faster or stronger or more consistent. If I am a bad 3 point shooter in basketball relative to my peers, I can spend hours a day practicing shooting 100s of shots to hopefully improve my percentage from X to Y. I may even look for a shooting coach to help me refine my form if repetition doesn’t prove fruitful. We want to be better where fall short of others.
Professionally, most of us at some point have to present information to broader audiences. We all approach the first time (or every time) with a mix of apprehension, excitement, and anticipation (of either getting started or finished). If I struggle to sway an audience the way a sales expert may then I may consult books on how to be more persuasive, Ill chat with peers, and Ill record and relisten to my presentations to see how I could better connect/persuade. Ill take any and all advice that could help. We want to be better where fall short of others.
Hopefully you see my not so subtle theme – we learn early on to identify where we are weak relative to others and try to shore it up. It’s completely human and normal. We do it in our education, in our careers, in our relationships, and in our bodies. So what does that teach us to do when we try to find value and evaluate others? To find their weaknesses and try to help them grow. There is a whole industry around giving “feedback” personally and professionally and SPOILER ALERT…it is largely around helping others identify and improve their weaknesses. Likely, your professional development process at your employer does exactly that. There is another industry around self help for people that may or may not get feedback, but feel motivated to improve X because it is perceived to be lacking.
So where is this going? We’ve largely built a culture around finding flaws and trying to minimize them. As a society, we spend much more time and energy on what isn’t working/doesn’t work, that we miss all the things that are/do.
What we haven’t built is a culture that finds strengths and accentuates them.
If you are sports fan, think of your favorite team. Now think of the best player on that team. If you do a little research (or just think back), I bet you can point out the agreed upon shortcomings that player has – in your mind, the sport, the media, etc. The discussion of those weaknesses is likely to be fairly consistent as if we’ve all agreed on where that person falls short. If you do the opposite (look for the positive), you’ll likely find/recall less conversation and much less agreement on what makes the person special. There will be effusive praise for the greats in any sport, but often not an agreed upon trait or skill that defines them.
For example, I am a Falcons fan and Matt Ryan is undoubtedly the best player in franchise history. The narrative around him is that he is just ok (or not even that): he’s not mobile, he’s too slow, he can’t win the big games, he doesn’t do well under physical pressure, he can’t carry a team (whatever that means). Leaving to the side the validity of the arguments, what do people say is good about him? He’s healthy most of the time? He’s consistent? As a fan, you don’t hear much. That being said, he is EIGHTH IN NFL HISTORY IN YARDS PASSING. All time. Of anyone who has every played. Yet, as a sporting society, we can’t seem to find anything he does well or any way he is special to overcome his long list of shortcomings. I will offer that he does have some skill somewhere that we are discounting. We are so obsessed with flaws that we miss the talent.
Another example: most of us either do use or have used the Windows operating system by Microsoft. Windows made computing possible for the masses. It became the language of computing worldwide, much like English is the spoken language – not everyone uses it, but everyone knows it is the dominant communication tool. For decades, there have been complaints about Windows: the interface, the security, the speed, the monopoly, and so on. Leaving to the side the validity of the arguments, what do people say is good about it? People use it? There are people that can troubleshoot it? Even though Windows largely powered the digital revolution the last 40 years, we can’t find much nice to say about it at all. I offer that we have overlooked the value that having a common operating system has provided. We are so obsessed with flaws that we miss the value.
So with all those long-winded examples, I have a challenge for you as a leader, a friend, and a human: look for the talent that people around you have and accentuate those skills.
Spend less time worrying about what someone isn’t and more time celebrating and building on what they are.
That doesn’t mean you ignore weaknesses or problems. It means you put people in a position to succeed based on the skills/talent/value they have instead of the skills/talent/value you wish they had or perceive they should have.
The reason that Matt Ryan is in the top 8 all time – coaches built systems to accentuate what he does well while minimizing what he doesn’t to keep their jobs (and when they didn’t do the first two, they didn’t do the last). The reason Windows is the force that it is – visionaries learned how to build on top of the foundation that Microsoft built to solve problems that Microsoft couldn’t/didn’t.
If you have an employee that is great at writing but not great at presenting, invest more time and effort in their writing instead of forcing them to become a presenter. Find ways to get all the value possible from the skill they have and minimize the exposure of the skill they don’t. Don’t ignore a weakness…just don’t make it the main focus. It benefits them and benefits you.
You can see that this happens in pockets and it can be incredibly successful: we find talent and value and build on it. It’s just not who we are as a society. I offer that one at a time we can change that. It’s good for you and it’s even better for your employees, friends, and other humans.
View from the Middle 