Not long ago, I re-read an article written by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great (and other thought provoking books). In the article, Jim paid homage to one of his mentors, Peter Drucker. Peter, of course, has had a huge influence on the world of business and the subject of leadership. One point Jim highlighted was that Peter Drucker always felt results came from building on a strength versus putting all your energy into shoring up a weakness. As I thought about this point, I began to think about how managers often spend an inordinate amount of time on their weakest team members. Think of all the energy that goes into feedback, coaching, corrective actions, performance reviews, and performance plans. Are you focusing on your team’s “weaknesses”? You yourself may be in charge of a team member that can’t seem to “keep up” to the standards you have set. How much of your time is spent with this individual in any given week or month? How much of your “face time” with team members is spent with your poor performers? Is all the time you are spending making your team better? Is it making your poor performer better?
Now think about your good performers, your “strengths.” How much time do you spend with them in any given week or month? Think about how much more productive, efficient, creative, engaged your team could be if you spent more time focusing on your “strengths?” What if you focused more of your attention on developing and challenging your good performers or at the very least, gave each member of your team an equal amount of your time? Even if you gave each member of your team the same amount of time per week (assuming you have more good performers than poor performers) this would ensure you spend more of your overall time focusing on your team “strengths”.
Tags: Beyond the Jargon, Calibra, Executive Coaching, feedback, Good to Great, Jim Collins, Paul Dillenburg, performance plan, performance review, Peter Drucker, strenghts, Talent Management, teams
