A common mantra for business executives and entrepreneurs in the 21st century is play by your strengths. Only by realizing the potential, skills and abilities that we have, can we put ourselves in the position to capitalize on those strengths and create an enabling environment for success. They say before doing the research for your business or for any work that one may be involved in, one must research themselves. Without knowledge of what one desires, what their passion is and what they ultimately want out of their business, the organization and the person both lack vision; a recipe for failure. A part of doing the foundational research is: understanding oneself.
A successful innovator and entrepreneur has a clear vision and is aware of where their skills and abilities. A clear grip on where their skills begin and where they end provides them with the necessary infrastructure to centre their activities around their goals. However, while successful innovators know what their abilities are, they also know what their capabilities are not. The ‘play by your strengths’ mantra is useful to a large degree however; playing by your weaknesses is equally as important. Socrates once said, ‘the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing’. This is precisely the type of self-awareness that business owners and entrepreneurs need to possess to truly succeed in the marketplace.
A healthy mentality of knowing and understanding where you lack so you can improve in the future is the kind of mindset that helps people and consequently, organizations grow. A recent survey showed that most successful business owners and executives read about 4-5 books each month. While reading is remarkable as a hobby, what this statistic represents is a mindset dedicated to learning and development. This mindset also represents the acknowledgement of the very basic fact that no entrepreneur or business executive can truly be jack of all trades. Entrepreneurs in their commitment to their vision often forget that their brainchild needs a proper organizational setup and there are weaknesses they possess, as does everyone. Understanding that your capabilities are limited allows business owners and entrepreneurs to relinquish responsibility at times and call in specialists whenever help is required.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Raising a business from scratch takes about two. Playing by your strengths is incredibly useful. Research shows that when employees have an idea of their strengths and intend to make use of them, they’re about 8% more productive and around 6 times more likely to be more involved and engaged in the business. However, the self-awareness must extend also to what we do not know. Running a business is nothing short of a learning curve and while playing by your strengths ensures that you make use of all available assets for maximum efficiency, playing by your weaknesses creates an environment where learning is of the utmost priority. With an attitude of self-awareness, entrepreneurs can not only grow and learn more as individuals but can also hire experts and specialists of various fields to bring their vision to life in the shortest possible time with the smallest possible input.
