Peter Drucker wrote that though most people think they know their strengths, they are almost invariably wrong. Yet, building on strength is of great importance. Focusing on a minor strength and missing a major one or spending too much time in eliminating a weakness, which is unimportant and irrelevant can cause us – in the common vernacular – “to miss our calling” or at least to miss the opportunities that often lead to success.
How to positively identify your strengths
Drucker said there was only one way to identify your strengths. He called it “feedback analysis.” He said that in a short time you would be able to identify your own specific strengths. Moreover, he promised that you’d be surprised to discover what your strengths actually are by using his methods.
Drucker’s methodology was simple. Whenever you must take an important action or make a major decision, write down the outcome that you expect from the action or decision you have made. When whatever results are achieved, compare them with those you had expected and wrote down. If expected and actual results are the same or close, you have a definite strength and you should exploit it and make it even stronger.
This system works because you will almost always be able to predict an outcome accurately if you demonstrate a strength in performing this action. Continue to do this when you perform similar actions and after a while, a clear picture confirming your strengths will emerge.
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Confirming knowledge regarding your strengths
Drucker maintained that this knowledge, which he termed “action conclusions,” would result in determining your genuine strengths. Drucker identified potential action conclusions that lead to success. Here are a few:
Recognize unexpected achievements
You achieved something spectacular that was unexpected and greater than your already developed skills in another field.
Beautiful and well-known movie actress of the 1930s and 1940s, Hedy Lamarr, was born in Vienna, Austria. Her real name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler. She had fled to Hollywood to escape the Nazis. She made lots of films both in the United States and Europe. However, Ms. Lamarr discovered that she was also a math prodigy. She became co-inventor of wireless technology used in both Bluetooth and the cell phone. She was even inducted into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
Ms. Lamarr made 32 films and she was beautiful, and one of her films won several Academy Awards. However, her considerable technical abilities and the technology she invented was amazing and won her as much fame as a scientist as her acting abilities on the Silver Screen. Only she would be able to answer the question as to whether she chose wisely in spending time in science over acting, but the results she achieved in her career as a scientist were considerable. It is estimated that her invention of what became known as “frequency hopping” was worth $30 billion, and it helped the United States in the war. Her technical work was also the foundation of modern-day WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems.
Strengthen your strengths
Steve Jobs didn’t turn his computer genius and imagination into party games. Many do. He surpassed computer games and his imagination, business, and leadership abilities led to computers gaining more and more capabilities. He never stopped, and his abilities had a lot to do with starting a new industry.
Avoid intellectual arrogance
Drucker warned that overwhelming knowledge in only one area to the exclusion of all else sometimes psychologically blocks intellectual developments in other areas. Drucker said such people with unknown strength in many fields frequently demonstrated limited performance in only one field because they excluded knowledge from other fields needed to supplement little used strengths that they never exploited.
Remedy your shortcomings or bad habits
If you have serious problems, fix them. If your best work isn’t done because you have a drinking problem, get help. Or if being out of shape limits your success, take the actions you need to put things right.
Prioritize social skills
How many bright, knowledgable people fail to achieve what they can because they ignore simple social graces? Drucker called manners the “lubricating oil” necessary for best practice and needed for getting others for full support in your activities. Don’t ignore them!
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Know your limits
Don’t take on assignments for which you are not yet competent or qualified. Don’t act as a Chinese interpreter, unless you speak and understand Chinese. A no-brainer? Yet, how many ambitious managers without the requisite knowledge or experience, use office politics to get ahead by going after every opportunity, ready or not. They may succeed in getting a good job, but their incomplete knowledge or experience frequently result in less success than they might have attained and to move ahead less rapidly than if they were better qualified or developed abilities they should have attained first.
Focus on gaining a competitive edge
Don’t waste time and effort raising your performance in areas that do not give you a significant advantage. Jack Welch grew GE 4,000% during his tenure as CEO, not by squeezing small change out of every profitable business, but by selling off or closing every GE business, including those that were profitable but could not become number one or two in its industry.
Use your imagination and dream
Prepare, and then take action. I was fortunate enough to meet and become friends with world-famous entrepreneur E. Joseph Cossman. He was the inventor and promoter of Cossman “Ant Farms” and many other unique toys and gadgets from which he made a fortune. Like thousands of others, he entered the Army for World War II. With no college education and working in whatever job he could during the Great Depression, which preceeded the war, he was assigned a job in the Army based on abilities but limited experience.
When the war was over and he was discharged, all he had was this experience and his imagination and dreams. However, he took a course in writing to prepare himself for getting a job in the import-export field. On discharge, he wrote and prepared a brochure addressed to companies in his hometown area that were engaged in world trade.
His competitors for a job in world trade potentially were as high as 16 million fellow veterans. However, I think you will agree that that the following description of himself was totally unique, even if competitors seeking a similar job in world trade had attended one of the country’s best business schools. No one else wrote anything like this:
DO YOU WANT180 LBS OF RAW MATERIAL?
Now ready for civilian service
RELEASED BY THE ARMY ONLY TWO WEEKS AGO
Ambitious – Able – Capable
THIS ITEM COMES IN ONE-SIX-FOOT LENGTH
and has been
SEASONED FOR TWENTY – EIGHT YEARS!
Operating expenses shared by
G.I. BILL OF RIGHTS
No Strings Attached
NO OBLIGATION TO YOU!
You can get immediate delivery
MAIL ENCLOSED FOR FREE INSPECTION!
Thank You!
Needless to say, Cossman was soon hired and it was only one year before he began his first successful business venture exporting an unexciting product in short supply in Europe and Asia at the time - laundry soap. I liked this short ad that he wrote so much that I ask him to include it in a book we did together called “Making It!” published in 1994 by Simon and Shuster.
References
A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher by William A. Cohen (AMACOM, 2008)
Making It! by E.Joseph Cossman and William A. Cohen (Simon and Schuster, 1994)
Peter Drucker’s Way to the Top: Lessons for Reaching Your Life Goals by William Cohen (LID, 2019).
How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order – and you can too! By E. Joseph Cossman (Simon and Schuster, 1963,1984).