A System For Dealing With Kryptonite
Clifton Strengthsfinders 2.0 is an excellent resource.
There is something incredibly empowering when you know your strengths. Strengths bring out your personal essence. Who you are. While you probably will never be everything you want to be, you can be more of who you are. How you were created. Rather than working on weaknesses, try moving forward in strengths. Start with your talent. Add the skills you need beyond that. I like this mindset.
It’s interesting to look at your strengths matrix and learn how your own brain operates. According to the program, there are four leadership quadrants:
- Strategic
- Thinking
- Influencing
- Relationship Building
- Executing.
My strengths are heavy in the area of strategic thinking. Most of my top 10 strengths fall into that single quadrant. This means that strategy is more or less my superpower. It also means that the opposite of strategy (i.e., execution) is my kryptonite. Most of the execution strengths are at the bottom of my list.
So those are the skills I need to work on. For me, systems for execution are critical.
I don’t need a system for strategy. I tend to live in that realm of strategic thinking. I have systems for strategy because that's natural. Automatic.
I do need a system for executing the strategy; a way to automate action.
Learn your strengths. Build on them. That's who you are.
But after understanding your strengths, figure out where you’re weak. For areas of weakness, figure out a system.
Put it in a system and let the system do the work. Systems thinking counteracts kryptonite.
