In one of my previous posts I mentioned a question from a
recent grad about making a difference at work, and I’d like to follow-up with a
statement that I find Millennials (born 1981-1999) to be the generation most
engaged in the pursuit of meaning and in redefining personal and professional
success. I’ve come to think about them as the generation in search for meaning.
In coaching conversations, Millennials often point out
that “we,” their parents, teachers, and coaches, have lied to them when we kept
saying that as long as they put their mind to it, they could be anything they
wanted to be. In all fairness, this message is delivered with the best of
intentions to encourage our children to dream big and to set ambitious goals.
But the truth is that none of us can do
anything we want. Only a select few reach upper-echelon status in business,
science, sports, etc. There were less
than 500 players on the 2015-2016 NBA opening-day roster. I can say without a doubt, I could never be
one of them, nor a prima ballerina for that matter. It’s not in my genes. To further
illustrate this point, let me quote Professor Scott Trappe, Human Performance Lab
at Ball State University, who says that if you want to be a world-class
sprinter, you’d better choose your parents wisely. His research shows it’s all
about having just the right muscle fibers to be either a sprinter or a marathoner. And even when we are genetically endowed to pursue success in certain
fields it would typically take years of practice and hard work.
So how about we stop telling our children they can be
anything they want and just allow them to be themselves? Let’s help them
uncover and develop their natural gifts, talents, and joys and grow to be all
that they can be. Perhaps it’s time to re-define success as making the most of
our opportunities?
We all face real limits but also have great strengths.
Should we focus on improving our weaknesses or building on our strengths to
seek and achieve greater success?
I first started pondering this question when attending Marcus
Buckingham’s presentation at the Society for Human Resource
Management (SHRM) annual conference in San Diego in 2010. He started his
presentation telling us about a school conference where he and his wife saw the
beautiful drawings created by their son’s classmates whereas their son’s art
work consisted of a hastily drawn set of stick figures. He shared that his
first reaction was that of embarrassment, shame, and guilt that his son was
lagging behind at age 5. He was seriously considering getting a private tutor
to help their son improve until the teacher told them their son had superior
math skills. His story struck a chord with me. My son’s preschool drawings were
beautiful, but it turned out each one was a collaborative art project, my son
not included. He would ask the girls to do his work while he was out playing in
the yard. I had a light-bulb moment and vowed to switch my parenting
style from nagging for improvement to recognizing and rewarding strengths. And
I applied the same principle to work refocusing performance conversations on areas
of greatest potential and on capitalizing strengths.
I highly recommend “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus
Buckingham & Donald Clifton. The message is very powerful: we would only get marginally better if we
keep focusing on improving on our weaknesses. Spending our days putting much
effort on work for little gain is not fun. We are better off focusing on what
we do well at optimal capacity. Once we commit to playing to our
strengths we may not be anything we want, but we can become someone we are
proud and happy to be.
Note: we can’t discuss limits and strengths without
addressing the issue of self-imposed limitations – more on the topic in my next
post.
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