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It's Monday morning. You're sitting at your desk with a to-do list as long as your arm. Your calendar is booked with a relentless series of meetings that you're certain will be as dull as toast. Slowly your coworkers start to arrive and a few drop by to chat.

If the truth be known, you'd just as soon talk to your friends as go through another day of dull meetings. You have the fleeting thought, "Do I really want to be here? Yes the paycheck is nice. But this job is simply not fun any more." You wonder if it's possible, feasible, or even wise to make a change.
You're looking for a challenge. You want a project that captures your fancy. You even dream of starting your own business or joining forces with others venturing forth into new territory. It's a gamble you know. But maybe it would be worth it. At least it'd beat staying here on auto-pilot and putting in time. You wonder if anyone else feels like you do. You glance at your watch. Oops. It's 9:00! You're late. Time to run off to your meeting and another day.

If you're having these kinds of thoughts, believe me, you're not alone! Research tells us that 50% of employees feel their jobs are 'meaningless.' Here's the dreary statistics about what's happening in organizations today:

Most leaders want to contribute. And despite frustrations, they're doing an excellent job in their role. Yet many feel, "I have so much more to give! This organization is barely tapping my potential. I'd like to find a place were I can contribute and feel at the end of the day I've made a difference."
How sad so many are walking around with these feelings just under the surface. Especially when our organizations desperately need our talents and full engagement. It's time to ask ourselves as leaders, "How can we access this untapped potential that's bursting to come forward?"

Why Strengths?

In a fast-paced economy, we must collaborate across functional and geographic boundaries to implement strategies successfully. Yet too often, inadequate communication and mistrust erode performance and results. When problems arise, we naturally turn our attention to what's wrong and try to fix it.
Today, a radically different approach is producing astonishing results. Instead of honing in on weaknesses, leaders are focusing on strengths and leveraging each other's best talents.
It's common knowledge that an 'A' player produces 150% to 300% more than a 'C' player. But can you turn a 'C' player into a 'A' player? The answer is YES! Instead of blaming each other when problems arise, it's possible to turn these frustrations into opportunities to bring out the best in each other.
Focusing on strengths is not a Pollyanna avoidance of weaknesses and deficiencies. It's a radical shift in thinking - away from what's wrong and towards what's right. Focusing on strengths helps us welcome feedback and learn new ways we can contribute to business results.

Radical Idea

Play to Your Strengths® is a simple idea whose time has come. But don't be fooled. This simple idea requires a radical shift in attitude and focus. Play to Your Strengths® will revolutionize your career and your interactions with others.
To play, you need to embrace a few basic principles that underlie everything else.
Below are five Play to Your Strengths® principles. Take time to consider how each of these principles will influence and change your actions as a leader.
1. Every individual has unique strengths. Every person is born with a unique set of leadership strengths. The more we use these strengths, the more energy, enthusiasm, and results we bring to the table. Learning how to maximize strengths of others and ourselves is the true engine of business success.
2. We're often blind to our own strengths. Our natural talents and abilities are easy and effortless for us. Consequently, we often fail to see the value we bring. We need feedback and support from others to recognize our unique gifts. Far from bragging, appreciating our talents helps us contribute more.
3. Leveraging our strengths increases job satisfaction and performance. It's obvious when we're doing work that we love. The results are superior. Our enthusiasm and spirit inspire the people around us. Maximizing our strengths and talents helps us grow into new areas. When we're confident in our abilities, it's easier to accept criticism and learn from mistakes.
4. Every strength has a flip side that must be managed. Once we know our strengths, it's our job to manage them effectively. Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. It requires humility and honesty to recognize our weaknesses and take steps to manage these areas successfully.
5. Feedback helps us leverage our strengths. Consistent and supportive feedback helps us develop our strengths. Others see our strengths and weaknesses before we do. The people around us have valuable insights about our abilities and what we can offer. Soliciting feedback helps us put more of our talents to work.

The goal of Play to Your Strengths® is to help you and others contribute your personal best. You start by recognizing your gifts and talents. This involves self-reflection and feedback from others.
Once you have a grasp of your talents, you'll focus on the business needs and discern where you can add the greatest value. You'll identify projects that 'have your name on it.'
You set personal and business goals and ask others to help you maximize your contribution. To stay on track, you solicit feedback from peers, employees, your boss, and customers to calibrate your ideas and ensure high impact.
Adopting Play to Your Strengths® principles requires letting go of a 'one-size-fits-all' mindset about development and turning your attention to what's right about other people and situations.
You must be willing to communicate about difficult issues and see problems as opportunities for yourself and others to contribute more. You'll learn to surface issues quickly and address them from a strengths perspective.
The old ways of managing performance will come up short as you focus on talents and become strength managers -mining untapped resources and talents. You'll see it's your responsibility to help others deliver their personal best.
Finally, you'll develop a deep respect for different kinds of strengths and how each person contributes to success in their own unique way. Humility grows as you realize you have one piece of the puzzle and need the talents of others to play a bigger game.

Topics

• Managing Talents and Career