What are you good at and what do you like most about your job? Oxygen focuses on peoples strengths and on learning, instead of shortcomings. In that way, we succeed in matching talent and assignments effectively.
We found the following interesting thoughts from Thomas Oppong that articulate exactly what we mean:
It’s easier to play to your strengths. Don’t compensate for weaknesses.
Chances are you are paying too much attention to negative information. Millions of people are worried and always thinking about how to get rid of their weaknesses.
What if you turn things around and focus on your strengths instead. The bitter truth is, you may never overcome your weaknesses but you could make significant changes to how you live and work if you focus on what you are good at. The key here is that you don’t have to change who you are; you have to become more of who you are.
Play to your strengths!
“Strengths are not activities you’re good at, they’re activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you’re doing it you look forward to doing it; while you’re doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you’ve done it, it seems to fulfill a need of yours.” says Marcus Buckingham (an author and a strength strategist).
By strengths, Marcus means activities that meet the following criteria:
- You are great (not just good) at it;
- When thinking about the task, you are excited — you anticipate the activity;
- When doing the task you find it easy to concentrate and get absorbed in the activity, even losing track of time;
- Once the task is completed, you have plus energy than before.
If the majority of your job involves activities that are your strengths, you are much more likely to:
- Turn out stellar performance
- Enjoy what you’re doing
- Be intrinsically motivated
- Be happier and more pleasant to work with
In a study by Harvard Business Review, it was noted that while people remember criticism, awareness of faults doesn’t necessarily translate into better performance.
It was further discovered that knowing your strengths offers you a better understanding of how to deal with your weaknesses — and helps you gain the confidence you need to address them.
It allows you to say, “I’m great at leading but lousy at numbers. So rather than teach me remedial math, get me a good finance partner.”
Instead of worrying about what you are not good at and trying everything you can to be good at it, why not play to your strengths.