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<h2 align="right">Jay's World of Abstracts 00030</h2><hr>
<div align="center"><h1>Soaring with your Strengths</h1>
from <a href="
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/soar.html">Don Clark</a><br>
Excerpted from a book by Donald O. Clifton and Paula Nelson</div>
<hr>
<i>[Standard disclaimer: The nature of abstracts are that they are pieces of something larger. Not everyone is going to be happy with my choice of abstracts from any larger work, so if you are dissatisfied, I would refer you to the original document, which should be able to be found on the Internet. I encourage others to make their own abstracts to satisfy their needs. I would be happy to publish them here.</i>
<h3>Jay's Introduction</h3>
<p>In the midst of study and research on creating social organizations in our area to meet our needs, I stumbled upon this wonderful piece of work on how to manage strengths and weaknesses. Our culture is pervaded by the idea that we must be well-rounded in a variety of subjects to be competent. This is the philosophy that rules our schools and universities and is the assumption that most employers hire people based on. The idea presented in this abstract is that we should concentrate on our strengths and seek to manage our weaknesses. It is easy to see that many successful people follow this "new" idea and that "failure" in often only our cultural obsession with spending much or our time conquering our weaknesses. The point is to focus on what you are good at and to find ways to minimize your weaknesses. This abstract gives some good ideas of how to do this.</p>
<i>I produced this abstract using time paid for by the Quay County Maternal Child and Community Health Council with funds from the New Mexico Department of Health.</i>
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<h3>Abstracts</h3>
<H2>Let The Rabbits Run: A Parable</H2>
<p>Some forest animals started a school to
develop their children into well-rounded animals by teaching all of them
running, swimming, hopping, and flying.
<P>On the first day of school, the little rabbit excelled in hopping and
running class and he loved school because he got to do what he loved to do
and was good at. When the rabbit went to swimming class, he was afraid of
the water like all rabbits, so he did not swim well. In flying class, he
could not get off the ground. He felt like a failure. When the other
animals laughed at him, he felt even worse.
<P>When he went home, he was pretty depressed. He told his parents he
wanted to quit school. They told him to stick with it since his future
success in life depended on mastering all these skills and getting his
diploma. The next day, he asked the school counselor for help with his
problems. To help him improve in his problem areas, the counselor put him
in extra swimming and flying classes (which he hated) and canceled his
running and hopping classes (which he loved) ....this made him feel sick!
<P>As he left the counselor's office, he met the wise old owl who said,
"Life doesn't have to be this way. We could have schools and businesses
where people are allowed to concentrate on what they do well."</p>
<i>[...]</i>
<H2>Focus On Strengths and Manage the Weaknesses</H2>
<p>To theorize that
"anyone can do anything" assumes that all people are clones, possessing
identical talents. This is false; each one of us is unique.
<P>The winning coach of the Chinese Olympic Ping-Pong team described the
team training regimen as practicing 8 hours daily to perfect strengths.
Strengths that are maximized become so strong they overpower the
weaknesses. "Our winning player plays only his forehand. Even though his
competition knows he can't play backhand, his forehand is so invincible
that it cannot be beaten."
<P>The greatest chance for success lies in reminding people or
organizations of an existing strength, and getting them to rely on their
strengths while instituting a management strategy for their weaknesses.
Individuals are always stronger when they have their successes and
strengths clearly in mind.</p>
<i>[...]</i>
<H2>How To Identify Your Strengths</H2>
<p>A strength is a pattern of behavior,
thoughts, and feelings that produces high satisfaction and pride;
generates psychic and/or financial reward; and presents measurable
progress toward excellence. Here are some signs of strengths:
<ul>
<li><I>Listen For Yearnings: </I>Like an
internal magnet, yearnings pull us toward one thing (a strength)
instead of another, beginning in early childhood and continuing
throughout life. One's life work often begins in yearnings from
childhood. Friendly advice can derail us from our strengths when we
confuse it for a yearning.
<li><I>Watch For Satisfactions: </I>Great
emotional and psychic rewards come from activities we "get a kick
out of doing." Satisfactions are not fleeting pleasures, but form
our intrinsic motivation. Both satisfactions and yearnings cluster
around strengths. Competencies and satisfactions don't always align.
If it doesn't feel good, it's probably not a
strength.
<li><I>Watch For Rapid Learning: </I>If
you catch on to something quickly, you're probably good at it, and
will say, "I feel like I've always known how to do this." A strength
is always characterized by initial rapid learning that continues
throughout one's
lifetime.
<li><I>Glimpses Of Excellence: </I>We see
signs of strength in glimpses of excellence within a performance,
such as singing a song, writing a letter, giving a speech. A
performance is a series of "moments" which provide clues to
greatness.
<li><I>Total Performance For Excellence:
</I>The behavior flows and there are no conscious steps in the mind
of the performer. The performer is acting on automatic, time has
stopped. Total performance is much more than a glimpse; it is the
complete extension of an activity. It happens consistently, and is
repeatable.
</ul>
<H2>Find Out What You Do Not Do Well and Stop Doing It</H2>
<p>For every
strength, we possess roughly 1,000 non-strengths. This ratio says it's a
huge waste of time to even try to fix all of our weaknesses.
<P>Weaknesses can't change into strengths, but we can MANAGE them to make
them irrelevant while we develop our strengths. When your best efforts get
you nowhere, redirect the same energy to a strength. Most weaknesses can't
and don't need to be corrected any more than a doctor needs to repair an
enlarged appendix....the best thing to do is take swift action to remove
the weakness.
<H2>How To Identify Your Weaknesses</H2>
<p>A weakness is a pattern of behavior,
thoughts, and feelings that produces low satisfaction or pride; drains
psychic and financial resources; and presents little or no measurable
progress toward excellence no matter how hard we try. Weaknesses reduce
productivity or lessen self-esteem. Here are some signs of weaknesses:
<ul>
<li><I>Feel Defensive about Performance:
</I>Individuals functioning on strength show little or no defensive
behavior. They meet challenges with a doubling of activity, and
progress is the norm, not the exception.
<li><I>Develop Obsessive Behavior:
</I>When the strengths normally used to pursue talents are
concentrated on bolstering whatever we don't do well, we get minimal
improvement despite intense focus. In contrast, working on strength,
we can measure improvement and have a quick learning curve.
<li><I>Experience Slow Leaning: </I>You
just can't seem to "get it" no matter how hard you try. Slow
learning is so significant an indicator of non-strength that it can
never be discounted on the assumption that a person will "get it
someday."
<li><I>Do Not Profit From Repeated
Experience: </I>Some people plod along; they "get" enough of the
activity to be barely functional and then they hang in there, but
lack the basic talent for excellence. No matter how hard/often they
try, there is no measurable improvement.
<li><I>Consciously Think Through The
Steps of A Process: </I>In learning new things, we go through the
steps consciously. In mastering the skill, talented people find that
the steps become automatic quickly. Continuing to think about the
steps indicates a
weakness.
<li><I>Experience A Reduction Of
Confidence From Performing The Activity: </I>Motivation goes away
when we can't do something well. We lose interest and find excuses
not to avoid doing it.
<li><I>Lack Futuristic Thinking About The
Activity: </I>You just want to get this over with. Your task
consumes all your energy, and none is left for thinking about the
future.
<li><I>Suffer Burnout While Practicing
The Activity: </I>We experience resistance when doing something
we're not good at. "I just can't do this anymore." Top producers
report that pressure and stress often create more energy and renew
motivation.
</ul>
<H2>Strategies For Managing Weakness</H2>
<ul>
<li><I>Sloughing: </I>Stop putting
yourself in situations where you're forced to do something you don't
do well, which depresses or angers you. Holding on to something
(activity, relationship) that doesn't work only perpetuates a
weakness that pulls energy away from strengths.
<li>Subcontracting: "Enlightened
delegation" moves a task to a person/group with the skills to do it.
This frees you from the work, and also the worry and guilt which
were byproducts of forcing yourself to do it. Note that this is
different from typical delegation where tasks are reassigned without
regard for skills.
<li><I>Complementary Partnering: </I>Team
up with someone and combine your joint strengths to create a unique
capability that could not be done with one person alone.
<li><I>Support Systems: </I>If you wear
glasses or use an alarm clock, you're already doing this. Find and
use the tools that work best for you to manage your specific
weaknesses.
<li><I>Alternatives: </I>Find different
ways to achieve your goals. If you think in pictures, draw your
ideas for others, instead of talking about them. Try taking a scenic
way home instead of taking the shortest route.
</ul>
<H2>What
Does This Mean To You</H2>
<p>Are we saying that people never change? Or
that weaknesses are constant? Typically, yes. There are always exceptions
and dramatic transformations can take place.
<P>Once you identify a weakness and implement a management strategy for
it, you are virtually free of its negative effect on your life. And, you
have extra energy to devote to building your strengths.
<P>Managing our weaknesses allows our strengths to overpower them,
ultimately making the weakness irrelevant.
<H2>Setting Yourself Up For Success</H2>
<p>The recipe for
success is to empower strengths through the right expectations.
<P>When you know your strengths, you set your internal goals so you can
use these strengths to get what you want and need. Goals remain dreams
until you share them with someone who cares about you. Your expectations
gain power when others embrace these expectations of you and line up with
you.
<P>Don't look to change the expectations and attitudes of others, look for
the right alignment from the beginning. Play to the strengths of others in
picking carefully who to partner with. This is win-win for both of you. An
Olympic hopeful wants to pick the best coach available, one who believes
in his ability to perform at Olympic levels. He would not consider
retaining a coach who thought he did not have what it takes to win....even
if the coach was top-notch.
<P>Your internal expectations and the external expectations of others are
aligned when others expect you to do what you want to do. When these are
not aligned, you feel resistance, fatigue, and stress because you feel
it's impossible to meet those expectations. It's not that anyone is right
or wrong; the expectations simply don't fit you. Nothing happens until
someone expects something of you that you can achieve.
<H2>Food For Thought</H2>
<p>If managing our weaknesses allows our
strengths to overpower them, ultimately making the weaknesses irrelevant
and aligning our expectations with our strengths creates success, then
does failure truly exist, or is it simply an inaccurate match of
expectations and strengths?
<P>Or could it be that people are not successes or failures but simply
functioning in the right or wrong expectation
environment?
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