Marcus Buckingham- Author of “Now Discover Your Strengths”

Definition of a weakness = any activity that weakens you.

• Just because you are good at something doesn’t make it a strength. If you dislike it and it deflates you than it is a weakness.
• Build on your strengths and manage your weaknesses.

Identifying strengths:

1. Success – when you perform your strength you feel effective.
2. Instinct – You look forward to it.
3. Growth – While doing your strength you feel inquisitive and focused.
4. Needs – After you feel fulfilled and authentic.

4 ways to manage your weaknesses:

1. Stop – If you stop would anyone care or notice?
2. Team up – partner with someone strengthened by what weakens you.
3. Offer up – Offer to help using your strengths not weaknesses.
4. Perspective – Look at your weaknesses from a different angle. Can you turn it into one of your strengths?

• Example: Rudy Giuliani is terrible at addressing a crowd from behind a podium but really good at debating and arguing a point. He’s turned all his speeches into question and answers to dialog with his crowd. When there isn’t an opportunity to dialog he poses questions in his speech and then argues with himself! He turned a weakness into a strength.

Concentrating on your weaknesses is a “wasted strength” like a sundial in the shade. - Marcus Buckingham

My takeaways:

I found Marcus’ ideas on weaknesses very interesting. Working at LC.tv you find your strengths and learn to build on them. I never thought of the fact that things I am good at could actually be a weakness!

For example- I’m good at pulling a project off, for some reason I can piece together all the right pieces to make it happen. With that I’m usually given whole projects to coordinate from beginning to end. I suck at the “beginning” stage. I’ve realized I’m not good at coming up with the original idea – but I am good at implementing and improving an existing idea. So for my next project I’m going to use someone who has the strength/creativity of coming up with the idea and then I’ll work on making that concept happen.

Do you have something you thought was a strength but is actually a weakness that depletes you?