April 29, 2025 • 30 mins
In this “Mike on the Mic” episode, I explore how to turn your strengths—and the strengths of your team—into a superpower. I share a personal story that shifted how I lead, define what a true strength really is, and offer practical tools to help you stop wasting energy on your weaknesses. If you're ready to increase performance, reduce burnout, and create a more fulfilled, high-impact team, this episode is for you.
VIA Character Strengths Survey
Thanks for listening! Connect with us at mike-goldman.com/blog and on Instagram@mikegoldmancoach and on YouTube @Mikegoldmancoach
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Goldman (00:02):
if we're spending much of our time working on
weaknesses and not uh honing ourstrengths, developing our
strengths.
What happens is we're stressed.
We're frustrated by working onthe weaknesses.
The strengths actually getstale.
Your strengths get a littleweaker, and you wind up with
(00:23):
mediocre.
You wind up with strongerweaknesses and weaker strengths.
That's mediocrity We don't wantmediocre, we want extraordinary,
You made it to the betterleadership team show, the place
(00:44):
where you learn how to surroundyourself with the right people,
doing the right things.
So you can grow your businesswithout losing your mind.
I'm your host and leadershipteam coach, Mike Goldman.
I'm going to show you how toimprove top and bottom line
growth, fulfillment, and thevalue your company adds to the
world by building a betterleadership team.
(01:04):
All right, let's go.
What would your business looklike if every single person on
your team was spending at least50% of the time on their
strengths?
(01:25):
What would your life look likeif you were spending at least
50% of your time on yourstrengths?
And if you are already doingthat's great.
Let's figure out how to spendmore.
'cause I'd argue the more timeyou and your team spend work
leveraging your strengths,working on things that are
strengths, not only does yourteam performance go up and your
(01:48):
business you know, skyrockets,but.
But it's more than performance.
It's about the level offulfillment that you have that
your team has, the level ofenjoyment you have at work.
I could remember, back a numberof years ago when I owned a
small staffing firm and I hadtwo people working for me.
(02:10):
I had Kim and I had Julianne,where my staffing supervisors
now, the.
Job of the staffing.
Stu supervisor, I almost saidstupid advisor.
the job of a staffing supervisorwas a pretty standard job.
Their job for both of them, forboth Kim and Julianne, their job
(02:30):
was to.
Make sure that they understoodthe requirements of our clients
for what kind of people theyneeded or what kind of person
they needed for a job.
Their job was to recruit thosefolks, make sure they showed up
for work, and then, part oftheir job about.
(02:52):
10 or 15% of their job was dohelping me in doing some sales
for me, doing some outboundcalls to try to get clients
outbound calls to try and get mesome speaking out there to
promote the business.
Well, a few months into Kim andJulianne working together.
(03:18):
I noticed, actually, I noticedthis very quickly, but didn't do
anything for a few months.
Noticed that whenever Kim had topick up the phone to make a
sales call, the phone seemedlike it weighed 500 pounds.
And of course if you've everdone any outbound selling, it's,
(03:39):
you get a lot of rejection andyou get some people that hang up
on you and some people thataren't very nice to you.
Well, for Kim, not only did thephone weigh 500 pounds, but
every time she got any kind ofrejection, she looked.
Nauseous, it was just not good.
And she would, you know, we'dget to the end of the day and I
(04:01):
would check in and see howeverybody did.
and it got to the point that shealways had some fire drills,
some excuse as to why she didn'tget to her sales calls that day.
on the other hand, Julianne,who.
Wasn't as skilled anywhere nearas skilled as Kim was at
(04:22):
recruiting and evaluatingtalent.
Kim was phenomenal at that.
Kim could, you know, spend 20minutes with someone on an
interview man, and she justknew, she knew if we could trust
that person to go out on aninterview, go out and get the
work done.
Julianne was not very good atthat, but Julianne was the kind
of person who could walk in aroom full of strangers and walk
(04:44):
out 20 minutes later with 10 newbest friends.
She was also the kind of personthat had no fear of picking up
the phone and making a salescall, and when she got
rejection, she'd say, fine, youknow, who's next?
So.
It was pretty obvious to me thatwhat I needed to do is leverage
(05:07):
both of their strengths.
Why was I trying to get Kim tospend 10 or 15% of their time,
of her time doing something shewas not any good at?
She had no natural talent for,she hated it.
Literally made her sick, and itimpacted, not only the time she
spent.
On her strengths, but itimpacted those strengths'cause
(05:27):
it kind of brought her whole herwhole mindset down.
It added a whole bunch of stressinto her life.
And on the other hand.
I had Julianne who really likeddoing that stuff, so it was kind
of a no brainer for me to say,Kim, don't worry about it.
You do not have to make anyphone calls anymore.
We're gonna, we're gonna tweakyour role and you don't have to
(05:49):
make any sales calls.
But Julianne, instead of 10 or15% of the time, you're gonna
spend 25 or 30% of your timemaking sales calls.
They were both happy.
They were both leveraging theirstrengths.
I know for me personally, I amso much more productive now that
(06:11):
I have built a team around me todeal with the stuff that I don't
like doing that I'm not verygood at.
The stuff I'm good at is workingwith my clients.
It's things like publicspeaking.
I hope you think I'm pretty goodat this podcast thing, but it's
about clients.
It's about.
speaking, it's about thoughtleadership, writing new books.
(06:35):
but man, for a long time I wasdoing all my social media.
I was doing all my meetingscheduling.
I was doing all my bookkeeping.
So since I've delegated that andstarted leveraging my strengths,
I'm way more productive and mybusiness is growing much bigger
than it ever was.
So.
(06:56):
My goal in this episode is tohelp you figure out how to
better leverage your ownstrengths, your team strengths,
and really maximize not onlyperformance and growth, but
fulfillment.
So let me next define what Imean by a strength.
The strength is not justsomething that you are good at.
(07:17):
There are things that we are, wemight be good at, but we hate
doing.
And I wouldn't necessarily callthat a strength because that
activity, while we may be reallygood at it, it depletes our
energy and it can burn us outover time.
So it's not just something we'regood at.
It's also not just something wehave a talent for.
(07:41):
You could have a talent forsomething, but not really be
spending any time honing thattalent, working that talent, and
that talent doesn't reallybecome a strength.
So, so with strength is reallythose two things together.
it's, or maybe it's threethings.
It's having a natural talent.
That you work on.
(08:02):
So it turns into somethingthat's strong, but it's also
something that you are, that'spart of your job or part of your
life.
So it's not just something, it'sa talent.
It's a talent that you'reputting to use and it's
something that you enjoy thatbrings you energy.
In fact, when we're working onsomething, I know when I'm
(08:22):
working on something that's areal talent, things just.
The I get into this flow statewhere all of a sudden two hours
go by and I had no idea.
Two hours went by and I wasincredibly productive for those
two hours.
I know when I am in front of aclient, I have three hour
workshops.
I do, with CEO groups.
(08:45):
I do full day workshops with myclients, full day planning
sessions with my clients, twoday planning sessions with my
clients.
And those fly by because I'mjust in a flow.
Because I'm leveraging a talent,I'm leveraging a strength.
(09:05):
So let's talk a little bit aboutstrengths versus weaknesses and
why we're even talking aboutstrengths.
So the whole idea is to takethese strengths and instead of
spending most of your time.
Trying to fix your weaknesses oras it relates to you as a
(09:28):
leader, spending most of yourtime trying to fix the
weaknesses of your team membersor spending the most of your
time with most of your time withyour weak team members.
All of those things have anegative impact on us as
individuals, on our teams and onour business.
(09:49):
So the problem with spending allthat time on a weakness is
really twofold.
One is very often where we'reweak in something, we're weak
because we have no naturaltalent and because we're weak at
it, we have no natural talent.
(10:10):
It's normally something we don'tenjoy doing.
So by spending a ton of timeworking on that weakness.
We feel stressed, we feelfrustrated, we feel overwhelmed.
And on top of that, there's nota, there's not a great ROI in
doing it because what I haveseen, and I imagine you have as
(10:30):
well, is that when you areworking on something you have no
talent for, you're not gonnatake that weakness and make it a
strength.
it's very rare.
What you're gonna do is you'regonna take that weakness and get
it to the point where you'remediocre, where it's acceptable.
So by working on all theseweaknesses, we take those
(10:54):
weaknesses and we make themacceptable.
That's good.
But if we're spending much ofour time working on weaknesses
and not honing our strengths,developing our strengths.
What happens is we're stressed.
We're frustrated by working onthe weaknesses.
The strengths actually getstale.
(11:15):
Your strengths get a littleweaker, and you wind up with
mediocre.
You wind up with strongerweaknesses and weaker strengths.
That's mediocrity for you as anindividual for your team members
and your team.
We don't want mediocre, we wantextraordinary, and the way we're
(11:35):
gonna get extraordinary is byleveraging strengths.
Now, what do we do aboutweaknesses?
we don't ignore weaknesses,right?
This isn't fantasy land whereI'm saying just work on your
strengths.
Don't worry about yourweaknesses.
There are weaknesses that arepretty important to the job you
need to do.
So you've got some options.
(11:57):
One option.
Like I did by delegating mybookkeeping and delegating my
podcast production and my, mycalendar and my social media is
do your best to delegate yourweaknesses, not just to pass
(12:17):
your crap onto somebody else,but I hope when you look around
you and look at your team, yousee that there are things.
That are strengths for you, thatare weaknesses for others, and
likewise, there are weaknessesYou have things you detest doing
that you're not very good at,but there may be someone else on
(12:38):
your team who loves that stuff,who eats that stuff up, who's
really good at it.
So partner with someone youknow, whether it's a peer,
whether it's someone that worksfor you, try to delegate those
things that are weaknesses soyou don't have to do them now.
If you can't do that, andthere's just some part of your
(12:59):
job that you just have to do,even though you're not very good
at it, well then work at it, butwork with a goal of just getting
to an acceptable level.
Don't try to make it a strength.
I don't want you spending allyour time working on those
weaknesses.
If you spend all, all your timeworking on your weaknesses, all
you're gonna get is tired.
Don't do that.
So you can delegate or, changeyour responsibilities.
(13:24):
Work with a peer partner withsomeone who's strong in an area
where you're weak.
Now there, so there's a thirdoption.
So the first option is partnerwith someone.
Second option is just get to anacceptable level.
The third option, if you have arole where.
80% or 70% of your role is doingsomething that you don't have a
(13:49):
particular strength for.
you may be in the wrong role,and if you are the CEO, the
owner of an organization, wellgood for you.
You get a chance to change yourrole as much or a little as you
want, but if you have a job.
(14:09):
And this is what you need to do.
and a good portion of that jobis something you just don't have
any talent for.
While it's maybe a toughmessage, but you probably don't
belong in that job.
So let's talk about some ways,some specific ways just to be
(14:29):
pragmatic, that you can better.
Leverage your strengths, andit's gotta start with you
identifying your own strengths.
And I'm gonna talk about yourteam members as well.
But whether you are a member ofa team, whether you're the
leader of the team, leader ofthe company, should start with
you identifying your ownstrengths.
(14:52):
two great ways of doing that.
if it's not.
Brutally obvious to you whatyour strengths are, and it's
not.
Sometimes we need someone orsomething to hold a mirror up to
us because those things that youknow, your strengths, your
natural talents and strains arenormally things that come easy
to you.
(15:14):
And because they come easy toyou, you might think they come
just as easy.
For everybody else can everybodydo that?
Isn't everybody comfortablewalking to walking into a room
of strangers and making 15 newbest friends?
No, everybody's not comfortabledoing that.
So sometimes you need someone orsomething to hold a mirror up to
(15:36):
you.
So there are actually twoassessments that I really like.
one is called, Strengths Finder2.0.
That is, is a book calledStrengths Finder 2.0.
really good book to read.
you know, there, it's a quickbook to read.
It's a little bit aboutstrengths, and then it just
defines all these differentstrengths.
I forget how many, there are,30, 40, 50 different types of
(15:58):
strengths that they talk about.
But along with the book, itcomes with an assessment you can
take that I find to be prettyaccurate, to help you identify
what are your top fivestrengths.
And it also gives you some ideashow to leverage those strengths.
The other one I really like,which you don't have to buy a
book for, or buy an assessment,it's a free tool.
(16:19):
is something called VIACharacter Strengths and the
website is calledAuthenticHappiness.Org it's a
website that was created byMartin Seligman, who is the
known as the father of PositivePsychology, which is all about
leveraging strengths.
So taking either one of thoseassessments is I find to be
(16:42):
really helpful.
Tell you what your top strengthsare.
Define them for you, even giveyou some ideas on how to better,
better leverage them.
the other thing is just youcould reflect on your own
strengths by, you know, asking,you know, what's something that
comes easy to you, that othersfind difficult?
What kind of work energizes youthe most?
(17:05):
And then once you identify yourstrengths.
Through an assessment and or byreflecting or, you know, another
way to do it is ask others,right?
Ask your friends, ask yourpeers.
Ask whoever you are reportingto, ask your team members and
they probably have a betterhandle on your strengths than
(17:25):
you do.
And then once you find thosestrengths, start to, Make some
decisions start to brain, wellstart to brainstorm and then
start to make some decisions asto how you could better leverage
those strengths.
How could you get to the pointthat you're spending 60 or 70%
of your time leveraging thosestrengths?
(17:47):
And I'm gonna share an exercisewith you a little bit that's
gonna, that's gonna help youbrainstorm those things.
So.
Let's talk about team members.
so as an individual, understandyour strengths, take an
assessment, reflect yourself,ask others, and then what could
(18:10):
you do to leverage thosestrengths?
What you, what could you do todelegate those weaknesses?
Or what could do your work onthem just to get to an
acceptable level.
Now, if you're a leader, it's awonderful idea to help your team
members.
Identify their strengths.
Encourage them to take, maybe asa team read Strength Finder 2.0
(18:32):
and have everybody take theassessment.
maybe have everybody do the VIACharacter Strengths survey Sit
down with your direct reportsand help them understand what
you see as their strengths.
Maybe ask them what kind of workenergizes them.
Ask them what they love in theirrole, what kind of work causes
(18:55):
them to just lose track of timebecause they're in the flow.
So, so help your team membersidentify their strengths and
then coach them to.
Leverage those strengths, helpthem understand and brainstorm
with them how they might betterbuild on their strengths,
provide opportunities for themto showcase those strengths to,
(19:20):
to spend more time working onthose strengths, you know, work
with them on what.
What you together you might beable to do to modify their role.
So they are better leveragingtheir strengths and not having
to work so hard on theirweaknesses.
(19:41):
The other thing that becomesimportant as you, and again, I'm
thinking of, I'm talking to youas a leader right now, the other
thing that becomes important is.
who you are spending your, whoyou're spending most of your
time with now.
(20:04):
We tend to spend as leaders, wetend to spend most of our time
with the people that need usmost with our lower performers.
That feels like the right thingto do.
Shouldn't we spend most of ourtime with the people that need
(20:26):
us most?
Well, back in 1994, tell you alittle story.
Back in 1994, I was working fora company.
I, got a job was in betweenconsulting jobs with Accenture
and Deloitte, where I spentfirst half of my career.
And I got a job where I went towork for this company where I
(20:48):
had to build a brand newdepartment.
and after a year built a greatteam, built a nice revenue
stream coming in, everything wasgoing well.
and I really wanted that nextchallenge.
I was about 30 years old.
I wanted that next challenge.
I wanted that next promotion,but the company wasn't growing
(21:09):
fast enough to provide that.
And then my boss, gave me myannual performance review was
time for my annual performancereview.
and on the annual performancereview, I kid you not, were five
words.
Just five words.
Keep up the good work.
(21:31):
Keep up the good work.
I've gotten better career advicefrom fortune cookies.
Keep up the good work.
Didn't cut it.
I needed a challenge.
I needed some coaching.
I needed something.
I was 30 years old and at thatmoment I decided I was, I had to
find another job.
(21:52):
Now I understand my boss.
Was spending a whole lot of timewith folks that needed more
help, that were lowerperforming, and that seemed to
make sense.
But does it, you know, I wantyou to think about this idea of
strengths and weaknesses andequate it also to your higher
(22:15):
performers and your lowerperformers as a leader.
Should you be spending most ofyour time with your.
Yeah, lower performers, yourweaknesses or should you be
spending most of your time withyour higher performers, your
strengths, and I would arguethat the way you are gonna get
(22:35):
the best ROI and the way, theonly way you're gonna create an
extraordinary team is by workingwith, continuing to develop,
re-recruiting, challengingcoaching your best people.
If you're, if you find yourselfnot able to do that because
(22:58):
you've gotta spend so much timewith your low performers, you
may have too many lowperformers.
Now, sometimes the best way totake care of a high performer is
to fire a low performer, asharsh as that sounds.
You should be spending as aleader most of your time with
your best people, because by theway, if they don't grow with
(23:19):
you, they will grow with someoneelse.
They'll leave.
Don't wait for an exit interviewto find out why one of these
folks left.
Have a stay interview now andfind out what it's gonna take so
they never leave.
Spend time with them.
Some other things you could doas a team is, have everyone on
your team take StrengthFinder orVIA character strengths and then
(23:43):
map those strengths as a team.
Where's your team really strong?
where do you have things thatare really important to your
team?
And you have no, no one on theteam with any natural talents or
strengths there.
It may help you understand thetype of folks you need to be
hiring.
Moving forward will certainlyhelp you understand how the team
could better help one another.
(24:06):
The other last thing I'll saybefore I start to wrap up then
an exercise that I like to do, Ipromised you earlier, I would
help you with a way that had anidea of a way to better,
brainstorm how you and your teamcould best leverage your
strengths.
An exercise I do with all myleadership teams is I have them
take one of these strengthsassessments, then they come
(24:29):
together as a team.
And they start out with someself-work.
And the self-work says, for yourtop three strengths, how are you
leveraging those strengthstoday?
That's number one.
Number two, what could you do toget even stronger in those
(24:52):
strengths?
What could you do to furtherdevelop those strengths?
And then number three.
what changes can we make so thatyou're spending more time
leveraging those strengths andmaybe delegating away your
weaknesses?
So, so there's some reallypowerful questions that everyone
on the team works individuallyon, including the leader of that
(25:15):
team.
And then what we do is we coacheach other.
Now, if it's a very small teamof three people, you can just do
this as a team.
If you've got a team of six oreight or nine people, you may
wanna break into coaching Diadsor triads where you're taking
the time to coach each other.
(25:36):
Brainstorm as a group what youcan do to better leverage the
strengths to make yourweaknesses unimportant because
you're delegating them and notreally needing to spend a lot of
time on them.
That I find is a wonderful way.
Not only to brainstorm, get somehelp and come up with more ideas
(25:56):
than you could ever come up withon your own.
but it also comes with a dose ofvulnerability and more trust and
understanding each other as ateam.
And it comes with a dose ofaccountability because now you
can hold each other accountablefor leveraging those strengths
and help each other leveragethose strengths.
So just to recap, absolutely.
(26:20):
My coaching is.
Understand what your strengthsare.
Spend more time leverage your,leveraging your strengths much
more time, leveraging yourstrengths and fixing your
weaknesses.
Whether that's you or that's themembers of your team.
It's gonna lead to greaterperformance.
It's gonna lead to, greaterimpact.
(26:42):
It's gonna lead to higherexcitement, higher fulfillment,
more enjoyability.
you're gonna retain your bestpeople.
I'd quickly give you some bookrecommendations and I'll leave
you with the last.
Challenge.
So some books you may wanna readthat do talk about strains
first.
My first book, PerformanceBreakthrough, the Four Secrets
of Passionate Organizations.
(27:04):
One of the secrets is aboutleveraging strengths.
So absolutely, very proud ofthat book.
I don't talk about it nearlyenough, but very proud of that
book.
I mentioned Strength Finder 2.0,by the, oh, I forgot the name of
the organization.
well, strength Finder 2.0.
Go find it.
and then Marcus Buckingham,who's the first author that
(27:25):
introduced me to Strengths, haswritten some great books.
First Break All the Rules is agreat book.
And then his second book iscalled Now, discover Your
Strengths, also Wonderful bookson that.
So what's one strength of yours?
Maybe as an individual or ifyou're a leader, maybe it's a
(27:46):
strength of your team, butwhat's one strength of yours
that you can better leveragestarting tomorrow, and what are
you going to do to leverage thatstrength?
Imagine if you are spending 60or 70% of your time working in
(28:06):
an area of strength.
How would that make you feel?
How productive would you be?
Imagine if your team was doingthe same thing.
So I always say, if you want agreat company, you need a great
leadership team.
I hope I got you closer theretoday.
Talk soon.
if we're spending much of our time working on
weaknesses and not uh honing ourstrengths, developing our
strengths.
What happens is we're stressed.
We're frustrated by working onthe weaknesses.
The strengths actually getstale.
Your strengths get a littleweaker, and you wind up with
(00:23):
mediocre.
You wind up with strongerweaknesses and weaker strengths.
That's mediocrity We don't wantmediocre, we want extraordinary,
You made it to the betterleadership team show, the place
(00:44):
where you learn how to surroundyourself with the right people,
doing the right things.
So you can grow your businesswithout losing your mind.
I'm your host and leadershipteam coach, Mike Goldman.
I'm going to show you how toimprove top and bottom line
growth, fulfillment, and thevalue your company adds to the
world by building a betterleadership team.
(01:04):
All right, let's go.
What would your business looklike if every single person on
your team was spending at least50% of the time on their
strengths?
(01:25):
What would your life look likeif you were spending at least
50% of your time on yourstrengths?
And if you are already doingthat's great.
Let's figure out how to spendmore.
'cause I'd argue the more timeyou and your team spend work
leveraging your strengths,working on things that are
strengths, not only does yourteam performance go up and your
(01:48):
business you know, skyrockets,but.
But it's more than performance.
It's about the level offulfillment that you have that
your team has, the level ofenjoyment you have at work.
I could remember, back a numberof years ago when I owned a
small staffing firm and I hadtwo people working for me.
(02:10):
I had Kim and I had Julianne,where my staffing supervisors
now, the.
Job of the staffing.
Stu supervisor, I almost saidstupid advisor.
the job of a staffing supervisorwas a pretty standard job.
Their job for both of them, forboth Kim and Julianne, their job
(02:30):
was to.
Make sure that they understoodthe requirements of our clients
for what kind of people theyneeded or what kind of person
they needed for a job.
Their job was to recruit thosefolks, make sure they showed up
for work, and then, part oftheir job about.
(02:52):
10 or 15% of their job was dohelping me in doing some sales
for me, doing some outboundcalls to try to get clients
outbound calls to try and get mesome speaking out there to
promote the business.
Well, a few months into Kim andJulianne working together.
(03:18):
I noticed, actually, I noticedthis very quickly, but didn't do
anything for a few months.
Noticed that whenever Kim had topick up the phone to make a
sales call, the phone seemedlike it weighed 500 pounds.
And of course if you've everdone any outbound selling, it's,
(03:39):
you get a lot of rejection andyou get some people that hang up
on you and some people thataren't very nice to you.
Well, for Kim, not only did thephone weigh 500 pounds, but
every time she got any kind ofrejection, she looked.
Nauseous, it was just not good.
And she would, you know, we'dget to the end of the day and I
(04:01):
would check in and see howeverybody did.
and it got to the point that shealways had some fire drills,
some excuse as to why she didn'tget to her sales calls that day.
on the other hand, Julianne,who.
Wasn't as skilled anywhere nearas skilled as Kim was at
(04:22):
recruiting and evaluatingtalent.
Kim was phenomenal at that.
Kim could, you know, spend 20minutes with someone on an
interview man, and she justknew, she knew if we could trust
that person to go out on aninterview, go out and get the
work done.
Julianne was not very good atthat, but Julianne was the kind
of person who could walk in aroom full of strangers and walk
(04:44):
out 20 minutes later with 10 newbest friends.
She was also the kind of personthat had no fear of picking up
the phone and making a salescall, and when she got
rejection, she'd say, fine, youknow, who's next?
So.
It was pretty obvious to me thatwhat I needed to do is leverage
(05:07):
both of their strengths.
Why was I trying to get Kim tospend 10 or 15% of their time,
of her time doing something shewas not any good at?
She had no natural talent for,she hated it.
Literally made her sick, and itimpacted, not only the time she
spent.
On her strengths, but itimpacted those strengths'cause
(05:27):
it kind of brought her whole herwhole mindset down.
It added a whole bunch of stressinto her life.
And on the other hand.
I had Julianne who really likeddoing that stuff, so it was kind
of a no brainer for me to say,Kim, don't worry about it.
You do not have to make anyphone calls anymore.
We're gonna, we're gonna tweakyour role and you don't have to
(05:49):
make any sales calls.
But Julianne, instead of 10 or15% of the time, you're gonna
spend 25 or 30% of your timemaking sales calls.
They were both happy.
They were both leveraging theirstrengths.
I know for me personally, I amso much more productive now that
(06:11):
I have built a team around me todeal with the stuff that I don't
like doing that I'm not verygood at.
The stuff I'm good at is workingwith my clients.
It's things like publicspeaking.
I hope you think I'm pretty goodat this podcast thing, but it's
about clients.
It's about.
speaking, it's about thoughtleadership, writing new books.
(06:35):
but man, for a long time I wasdoing all my social media.
I was doing all my meetingscheduling.
I was doing all my bookkeeping.
So since I've delegated that andstarted leveraging my strengths,
I'm way more productive and mybusiness is growing much bigger
than it ever was.
So.
(06:56):
My goal in this episode is tohelp you figure out how to
better leverage your ownstrengths, your team strengths,
and really maximize not onlyperformance and growth, but
fulfillment.
So let me next define what Imean by a strength.
The strength is not justsomething that you are good at.
(07:17):
There are things that we are, wemight be good at, but we hate
doing.
And I wouldn't necessarily callthat a strength because that
activity, while we may be reallygood at it, it depletes our
energy and it can burn us outover time.
So it's not just something we'regood at.
It's also not just something wehave a talent for.
(07:41):
You could have a talent forsomething, but not really be
spending any time honing thattalent, working that talent, and
that talent doesn't reallybecome a strength.
So, so with strength is reallythose two things together.
it's, or maybe it's threethings.
It's having a natural talent.
That you work on.
(08:02):
So it turns into somethingthat's strong, but it's also
something that you are, that'spart of your job or part of your
life.
So it's not just something, it'sa talent.
It's a talent that you'reputting to use and it's
something that you enjoy thatbrings you energy.
In fact, when we're working onsomething, I know when I'm
(08:22):
working on something that's areal talent, things just.
The I get into this flow statewhere all of a sudden two hours
go by and I had no idea.
Two hours went by and I wasincredibly productive for those
two hours.
I know when I am in front of aclient, I have three hour
workshops.
I do, with CEO groups.
(08:45):
I do full day workshops with myclients, full day planning
sessions with my clients, twoday planning sessions with my
clients.
And those fly by because I'mjust in a flow.
Because I'm leveraging a talent,I'm leveraging a strength.
(09:05):
So let's talk a little bit aboutstrengths versus weaknesses and
why we're even talking aboutstrengths.
So the whole idea is to takethese strengths and instead of
spending most of your time.
Trying to fix your weaknesses oras it relates to you as a
(09:28):
leader, spending most of yourtime trying to fix the
weaknesses of your team membersor spending the most of your
time with most of your time withyour weak team members.
All of those things have anegative impact on us as
individuals, on our teams and onour business.
(09:49):
So the problem with spending allthat time on a weakness is
really twofold.
One is very often where we'reweak in something, we're weak
because we have no naturaltalent and because we're weak at
it, we have no natural talent.
(10:10):
It's normally something we don'tenjoy doing.
So by spending a ton of timeworking on that weakness.
We feel stressed, we feelfrustrated, we feel overwhelmed.
And on top of that, there's nota, there's not a great ROI in
doing it because what I haveseen, and I imagine you have as
(10:30):
well, is that when you areworking on something you have no
talent for, you're not gonnatake that weakness and make it a
strength.
it's very rare.
What you're gonna do is you'regonna take that weakness and get
it to the point where you'remediocre, where it's acceptable.
So by working on all theseweaknesses, we take those
(10:54):
weaknesses and we make themacceptable.
That's good.
But if we're spending much ofour time working on weaknesses
and not honing our strengths,developing our strengths.
What happens is we're stressed.
We're frustrated by working onthe weaknesses.
The strengths actually getstale.
(11:15):
Your strengths get a littleweaker, and you wind up with
mediocre.
You wind up with strongerweaknesses and weaker strengths.
That's mediocrity for you as anindividual for your team members
and your team.
We don't want mediocre, we wantextraordinary, and the way we're
(11:35):
gonna get extraordinary is byleveraging strengths.
Now, what do we do aboutweaknesses?
we don't ignore weaknesses,right?
This isn't fantasy land whereI'm saying just work on your
strengths.
Don't worry about yourweaknesses.
There are weaknesses that arepretty important to the job you
need to do.
So you've got some options.
(11:57):
One option.
Like I did by delegating mybookkeeping and delegating my
podcast production and my, mycalendar and my social media is
do your best to delegate yourweaknesses, not just to pass
(12:17):
your crap onto somebody else,but I hope when you look around
you and look at your team, yousee that there are things.
That are strengths for you, thatare weaknesses for others, and
likewise, there are weaknessesYou have things you detest doing
that you're not very good at,but there may be someone else on
(12:38):
your team who loves that stuff,who eats that stuff up, who's
really good at it.
So partner with someone youknow, whether it's a peer,
whether it's someone that worksfor you, try to delegate those
things that are weaknesses soyou don't have to do them now.
If you can't do that, andthere's just some part of your
(12:59):
job that you just have to do,even though you're not very good
at it, well then work at it, butwork with a goal of just getting
to an acceptable level.
Don't try to make it a strength.
I don't want you spending allyour time working on those
weaknesses.
If you spend all, all your timeworking on your weaknesses, all
you're gonna get is tired.
Don't do that.
So you can delegate or, changeyour responsibilities.
(13:24):
Work with a peer partner withsomeone who's strong in an area
where you're weak.
Now there, so there's a thirdoption.
So the first option is partnerwith someone.
Second option is just get to anacceptable level.
The third option, if you have arole where.
80% or 70% of your role is doingsomething that you don't have a
(13:49):
particular strength for.
you may be in the wrong role,and if you are the CEO, the
owner of an organization, wellgood for you.
You get a chance to change yourrole as much or a little as you
want, but if you have a job.
(14:09):
And this is what you need to do.
and a good portion of that jobis something you just don't have
any talent for.
While it's maybe a toughmessage, but you probably don't
belong in that job.
So let's talk about some ways,some specific ways just to be
(14:29):
pragmatic, that you can better.
Leverage your strengths, andit's gotta start with you
identifying your own strengths.
And I'm gonna talk about yourteam members as well.
But whether you are a member ofa team, whether you're the
leader of the team, leader ofthe company, should start with
you identifying your ownstrengths.
(14:52):
two great ways of doing that.
if it's not.
Brutally obvious to you whatyour strengths are, and it's
not.
Sometimes we need someone orsomething to hold a mirror up to
us because those things that youknow, your strengths, your
natural talents and strains arenormally things that come easy
to you.
(15:14):
And because they come easy toyou, you might think they come
just as easy.
For everybody else can everybodydo that?
Isn't everybody comfortablewalking to walking into a room
of strangers and making 15 newbest friends?
No, everybody's not comfortabledoing that.
So sometimes you need someone orsomething to hold a mirror up to
(15:36):
you.
So there are actually twoassessments that I really like.
one is called, Strengths Finder2.0.
That is, is a book calledStrengths Finder 2.0.
really good book to read.
you know, there, it's a quickbook to read.
It's a little bit aboutstrengths, and then it just
defines all these differentstrengths.
I forget how many, there are,30, 40, 50 different types of
(15:58):
strengths that they talk about.
But along with the book, itcomes with an assessment you can
take that I find to be prettyaccurate, to help you identify
what are your top fivestrengths.
And it also gives you some ideashow to leverage those strengths.
The other one I really like,which you don't have to buy a
book for, or buy an assessment,it's a free tool.
(16:19):
is something called VIACharacter Strengths and the
website is calledAuthenticHappiness.Org it's a
website that was created byMartin Seligman, who is the
known as the father of PositivePsychology, which is all about
leveraging strengths.
So taking either one of thoseassessments is I find to be
(16:42):
really helpful.
Tell you what your top strengthsare.
Define them for you, even giveyou some ideas on how to better,
better leverage them.
the other thing is just youcould reflect on your own
strengths by, you know, asking,you know, what's something that
comes easy to you, that othersfind difficult?
What kind of work energizes youthe most?
(17:05):
And then once you identify yourstrengths.
Through an assessment and or byreflecting or, you know, another
way to do it is ask others,right?
Ask your friends, ask yourpeers.
Ask whoever you are reportingto, ask your team members and
they probably have a betterhandle on your strengths than
(17:25):
you do.
And then once you find thosestrengths, start to, Make some
decisions start to brain, wellstart to brainstorm and then
start to make some decisions asto how you could better leverage
those strengths.
How could you get to the pointthat you're spending 60 or 70%
of your time leveraging thosestrengths?
(17:47):
And I'm gonna share an exercisewith you a little bit that's
gonna, that's gonna help youbrainstorm those things.
So.
Let's talk about team members.
so as an individual, understandyour strengths, take an
assessment, reflect yourself,ask others, and then what could
(18:10):
you do to leverage thosestrengths?
What you, what could you do todelegate those weaknesses?
Or what could do your work onthem just to get to an
acceptable level.
Now, if you're a leader, it's awonderful idea to help your team
members.
Identify their strengths.
Encourage them to take, maybe asa team read Strength Finder 2.0
(18:32):
and have everybody take theassessment.
maybe have everybody do the VIACharacter Strengths survey Sit
down with your direct reportsand help them understand what
you see as their strengths.
Maybe ask them what kind of workenergizes them.
Ask them what they love in theirrole, what kind of work causes
(18:55):
them to just lose track of timebecause they're in the flow.
So, so help your team membersidentify their strengths and
then coach them to.
Leverage those strengths, helpthem understand and brainstorm
with them how they might betterbuild on their strengths,
provide opportunities for themto showcase those strengths to,
(19:20):
to spend more time working onthose strengths, you know, work
with them on what.
What you together you might beable to do to modify their role.
So they are better leveragingtheir strengths and not having
to work so hard on theirweaknesses.
(19:41):
The other thing that becomesimportant as you, and again, I'm
thinking of, I'm talking to youas a leader right now, the other
thing that becomes important is.
who you are spending your, whoyou're spending most of your
time with now.
(20:04):
We tend to spend as leaders, wetend to spend most of our time
with the people that need usmost with our lower performers.
That feels like the right thingto do.
Shouldn't we spend most of ourtime with the people that need
(20:26):
us most?
Well, back in 1994, tell you alittle story.
Back in 1994, I was working fora company.
I, got a job was in betweenconsulting jobs with Accenture
and Deloitte, where I spentfirst half of my career.
And I got a job where I went towork for this company where I
(20:48):
had to build a brand newdepartment.
and after a year built a greatteam, built a nice revenue
stream coming in, everything wasgoing well.
and I really wanted that nextchallenge.
I was about 30 years old.
I wanted that next challenge.
I wanted that next promotion,but the company wasn't growing
(21:09):
fast enough to provide that.
And then my boss, gave me myannual performance review was
time for my annual performancereview.
and on the annual performancereview, I kid you not, were five
words.
Just five words.
Keep up the good work.
(21:31):
Keep up the good work.
I've gotten better career advicefrom fortune cookies.
Keep up the good work.
Didn't cut it.
I needed a challenge.
I needed some coaching.
I needed something.
I was 30 years old and at thatmoment I decided I was, I had to
find another job.
(21:52):
Now I understand my boss.
Was spending a whole lot of timewith folks that needed more
help, that were lowerperforming, and that seemed to
make sense.
But does it, you know, I wantyou to think about this idea of
strengths and weaknesses andequate it also to your higher
(22:15):
performers and your lowerperformers as a leader.
Should you be spending most ofyour time with your.
Yeah, lower performers, yourweaknesses or should you be
spending most of your time withyour higher performers, your
strengths, and I would arguethat the way you are gonna get
(22:35):
the best ROI and the way, theonly way you're gonna create an
extraordinary team is by workingwith, continuing to develop,
re-recruiting, challengingcoaching your best people.
If you're, if you find yourselfnot able to do that because
(22:58):
you've gotta spend so much timewith your low performers, you
may have too many lowperformers.
Now, sometimes the best way totake care of a high performer is
to fire a low performer, asharsh as that sounds.
You should be spending as aleader most of your time with
your best people, because by theway, if they don't grow with
(23:19):
you, they will grow with someoneelse.
They'll leave.
Don't wait for an exit interviewto find out why one of these
folks left.
Have a stay interview now andfind out what it's gonna take so
they never leave.
Spend time with them.
Some other things you could doas a team is, have everyone on
your team take StrengthFinder orVIA character strengths and then
(23:43):
map those strengths as a team.
Where's your team really strong?
where do you have things thatare really important to your
team?
And you have no, no one on theteam with any natural talents or
strengths there.
It may help you understand thetype of folks you need to be
hiring.
Moving forward will certainlyhelp you understand how the team
could better help one another.
(24:06):
The other last thing I'll saybefore I start to wrap up then
an exercise that I like to do, Ipromised you earlier, I would
help you with a way that had anidea of a way to better,
brainstorm how you and your teamcould best leverage your
strengths.
An exercise I do with all myleadership teams is I have them
take one of these strengthsassessments, then they come
(24:29):
together as a team.
And they start out with someself-work.
And the self-work says, for yourtop three strengths, how are you
leveraging those strengthstoday?
That's number one.
Number two, what could you do toget even stronger in those
(24:52):
strengths?
What could you do to furtherdevelop those strengths?
And then number three.
what changes can we make so thatyou're spending more time
leveraging those strengths andmaybe delegating away your
weaknesses?
So, so there's some reallypowerful questions that everyone
on the team works individuallyon, including the leader of that
(25:15):
team.
And then what we do is we coacheach other.
Now, if it's a very small teamof three people, you can just do
this as a team.
If you've got a team of six oreight or nine people, you may
wanna break into coaching Diadsor triads where you're taking
the time to coach each other.
(25:36):
Brainstorm as a group what youcan do to better leverage the
strengths to make yourweaknesses unimportant because
you're delegating them and notreally needing to spend a lot of
time on them.
That I find is a wonderful way.
Not only to brainstorm, get somehelp and come up with more ideas
(25:56):
than you could ever come up withon your own.
but it also comes with a dose ofvulnerability and more trust and
understanding each other as ateam.
And it comes with a dose ofaccountability because now you
can hold each other accountablefor leveraging those strengths
and help each other leveragethose strengths.
So just to recap, absolutely.
(26:20):
My coaching is.
Understand what your strengthsare.
Spend more time leverage your,leveraging your strengths much
more time, leveraging yourstrengths and fixing your
weaknesses.
Whether that's you or that's themembers of your team.
It's gonna lead to greaterperformance.
It's gonna lead to, greaterimpact.
(26:42):
It's gonna lead to higherexcitement, higher fulfillment,
more enjoyability.
you're gonna retain your bestpeople.
I'd quickly give you some bookrecommendations and I'll leave
you with the last.
Challenge.
So some books you may wanna readthat do talk about strains
first.
My first book, PerformanceBreakthrough, the Four Secrets
of Passionate Organizations.
(27:04):
One of the secrets is aboutleveraging strengths.
So absolutely, very proud ofthat book.
I don't talk about it nearlyenough, but very proud of that
book.
I mentioned Strength Finder 2.0,by the, oh, I forgot the name of
the organization.
well, strength Finder 2.0.
Go find it.
and then Marcus Buckingham,who's the first author that
(27:25):
introduced me to Strengths, haswritten some great books.
First Break All the Rules is agreat book.
And then his second book iscalled Now, discover Your
Strengths, also Wonderful bookson that.
So what's one strength of yours?
Maybe as an individual or ifyou're a leader, maybe it's a
(27:46):
strength of your team, butwhat's one strength of yours
that you can better leveragestarting tomorrow, and what are
you going to do to leverage thatstrength?
Imagine if you are spending 60or 70% of your time working in
(28:06):
an area of strength.
How would that make you feel?
How productive would you be?
Imagine if your team was doingthe same thing.
So I always say, if you want agreat company, you need a great
leadership team.
I hope I got you closer theretoday.
Talk soon.
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