I've been reading Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham. I recently finished Living Your Strengths by Albert L. Winseman, the late Donald O. Clifton, and Curt Liesveld. These books help the reader to embrace their God-given talents and discuss how in growing those talents lie our greatest opportunities for happiness and fulfillment at work and in our churches.
We certainly understand this on a cognitive level but embracing it as a way of living and working is difficult.
It's difficult because we've been told all our lives to work hard to overcome our weaknesses rather than work hard to get even better at our strengths.
It's also hard because of the way the corporate universe is set up to reward outstanding performers.
Think about it...how do our companies usually reward us for being great at what we do? They promote us to management! This then actually REMOVES US from the work that we performed so well. Managing and leading others requires a different set of skills than we used in our previous jobs. Some people make this change effectively of course and excel in their new role after some adjustment. Others however become miserable and some are even terminated because they performed poorly.
I'd love to see more companies embrace the concept that many people (most people in fact) are happiest doing work they do well and enjoy most.
I'd also love to see people realizze that moving up is not the only pathway for career success. When you think about it...what we probably want most is just more money! Not the administrative stuff that comes with a promotion. But we've been so ingrained with "moving up" as the expectation and definition of success...
What are your greatest talents? What activities bring you the greatest joy and put you "in the zone"? Do you have evidence that you're most productive and contribute to your department's bottom line when engaged in those activities? How can you arrange your job so you can do them more frequently and become even better at your core talents? How can you talk to your boss to modify your current job? Chances are good that there are people in your department who love what you despise and who would be happy to do those tasks.
God gave you a unique set of talents, just as the landowner in the parable about the talents gave "talents' to his servants (Matthew 25:14-30). Just as the landowner called his servants to give an account of how they managed those talents while he was gone, we'll be called one day to give an accounting of how we handled God's investment in us.
Will you hear "Well done, good and faithful servant"?
PS. If you'd like to learn more about identifying and putting your strengths to work, check out the book that started it all: Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham. You'll find a code in the book that will give you access to the Clifton Strengths Finder online assessment that will identfy your key strength themes.
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