Discovering your unique ability

My coach has me on a journey to discover my innate ability.

Innate ability is that which comes naturally to us. It is our preferred mode of operation; it is instinctual. We do it very well and we get a great deal of satisfaction from work performed in this mode. However, because it is instinctive we tend to take it for granted – until someone points out how valuable it is.

Some of you may remember a book “Now Discover your strengths” by Buckingham and Clifton. The premise of the book is that we should build on our strengths and if we do we will be successful.

In reality we often train our weaknesses which means that we end up with mediocre weaknesses. Why not train our innate strengths for excellence! Imagine our organizations full of people employed for their strengths and trained to become outstanding in the areas where they have natural talent. Sports people do this all the time – with obvious rewards.

It’s a “win win” when employees are operating in their natural mode. They are happy and more productive and the organization gets the benefit of an employee who does a darn good job with passion. I had coffee with a woman yesterday who used to work for a large financial institution in town. She found her passion for facilitation quite by chance and realized where she wanted to spend the rest of her working life. She is now busy, and happily, pursuing that career elsewhere because the bureaucracy she worked with had her pidgeoned in a box she no longer wanted to be in.

Because we have certain innate abilities doesn’t mean to say that we aren’t good at other things. I’m pretty good at administrative stuff - when I have to be – but it is not on my list of favorites things and I do tend to avoid it. On the other hand, I love to work with groups and help them move toward a stated goal in a creative fashion that engages them. And the more time I spend doing this the happier, and more productive, I am.

Your innate abilities and those of your staff may surprise you. My coach had me ask my clients what they thought my abilities were. None of them told me I was a great trainer or a fabulous creative writer, but all of them mentioned my ability to communicate effectively and get people on board and behind a project - which might explain why I do so much work in the area of change.

You might want to figure your innate abilities, as well as those of your team members. This is the kind of information that you can use to focus people on activities that will make them happy and your organization more successful. One way to do this is by taking an online assessment. I recently completed the Kolbe A Index www.kolbe.com . The Kolbe looks at four action modes; information gathering and sharing, arranging and designing, dealing with risk and uncertainty and your best way for handling space and tangibles. The results were pretty surprising. My scores showed me to be very high on conceptualizing and risk taking. Again, skills that are important if you work in the area of change. The Kolbe is around $50 for each person.

Another option is the Strengths Finder from Gallup. Purchase the book “Now Discover your strengths” by Buckingham and Clifton and you will get access to an online profile and find your five top strengths.

A lower cost strategy is to get together as a team and focus on what you consider the other team members unique or innate abilities might be. Try and be as specific as possible, focus only on positive attributes. For example I’m a risk taker. This could be seen as negative but the Kolbe highlighted it as very positive for example it allows me to initiate change, improvise solutions and options and create a sense of urgency. You get the idea of why working for change is good for me!

Here are five steps you and your team can take to identify and take advantage of your unique abilities:

1. As a team consider one another’s unique abilities. Summarize the findings. If you prefer do online assessments.

2. Circulate everyone’s unique abilities – give people time to celebrate how they are perceived or assessed.

3. Come together as a group – celebrate the great strength you have as a group

4. Consider how you can support one another to ensure each individual is spending more time on his or her unique ability.

5. Review your training strategy. Train your unique abilities.

Nicky Fried is the principal of Nicky Fried Consulting Inc. She helps organizations to translate strategy and change so that employees understand where the organization is going and how they support it through their daily actions. Learn more about us at http://www.nickyfried.com/.