Opposites Attract
Why understanding your strengths and weaknesses can help you create better teams
Editor's Note: This is an old blog post I did about StrengthsFinder back in 2021. I’ve repurposed it here because I referenced the story in a recent post and I want people to have access to the information. I've left it exactly as written even though it pains me to see how I was hiding being the collective 'we' as the author. As I read it now, I am reminded of Smeagol from Lord of the Rings -- and not in a good way. 🤦🏻♀️This week we want to talk about a management philosophy we stumbled upon around a decade (or two?) ago called StrengthsFinder that we see Gallup has re-branded as CliftonStrengths. At it’s core, StrengthsFinder, or SF as we’ll call it from here on out, is an assessment tool for identifying a person’s innate strengths, i.e., the things they naturally do well. Additionally, the bigger idea behind the assessment tool is that people should focus on leaning into their strengths versus trying to shore up their weaknesses.
How great is that? We wholeheartedly support any management philosophy that essentially focuses on building people up versus tearing them down.
The reason we like SF so much — aside from the obvious point above — is that once someone is aware of their strengths, they are able to simultaneously focus on doing the things they are good at and stop wasting time on the things they are not. Of course, we aren’t advocating (and neither is SF) that success will come to those who ignore everything they are bad at, but, rather, that people stop trying to overcome their intrinsic weaknesses and focus instead on finding other ways to fill the gaps. More specifically, the theory tells us that creating teams of people with opposite, or perhaps more accurately, complementary skills will create an environment where everyone can be more successful. Whoa — opposites really do attract — minds blown!
We know this makes our blog post 100% self-serving, but that last point is honestly what gets us up in the morning. It’s our mission to help businesses of all shapes and sizes succeed, so we absolutely love the idea of bringing other people’s ideas to life by serving as the marketing yin to their entrepreneurial yang. Additionally, we’d like to suggest that if you don’t yet know what you are most brilliant at, you should take the SF quiz and figure it out pronto!
This article was original published by Amy Zwagerman at thelaunchboxus.com/post/