The head coach of an NFL football team understands how to get the most from the players on their team. (In other words, they understand talent management). They have an offensive team and defensive team, along with ‘special teams’, a ‘hands’ team, a nickel defense, a short yardage ‘package’, a goal line defense, a ‘prevent’ defense…and 2 different kickers that each play about 8 seconds a game. They understand the value of matching the talent of their players to the situation at hand. Does your boss?
Contrast how an NFL coach operates with how the typical boss allocates work within their team. More times than not, when the boss has additional work that needs to be done they assign it to the first person that walks by their door. Regardless of how well the talents of that person matches the work. As long as the work is assigned, the assumption is that the work will get done. Regardless, of how well it’s done, how long it will take, or how much better and faster someone else on the team might have been able to do it. This may sound silly, but start observing how work gets assigned around you.
When work is assigned based upon how well the person’s talent actually match the needs of the work it’s simply amazing how things change. Think about how much of the time in your job you actually get to do what you do best. It’s surprising how rare that it for most people. Yet think about how much more you got done, how much better your work is, and how fast time seemed to pass. Most likely you felt like you were ‘in the zone’.
I remember in high school watching the junior varsity basketball team consistently defeat the varsity team every time they scrimmaged – when the coach would have the varsity players (who were clearly more talented players) play out of position. A more talented group of players, not positioned to their strengths, consistently lost to a less talent team positioned to their strengths. Yet, few corporate managers even know the strengths of their people, much less think about positioning them to play to their strengths.
So why don’t managers allow the members of their team to play to their strengths?
- The managers don’t actually know (and track) the strengths of their team members.
- Managers don’t recognize the value of having people play to their strengths.
- Managers are busy. They don’t think they have time to match talents to needs.
- They focus only on getting the work done. So their focus is on the work, not on the combination of the work and the talents of the person doing it.
- They don’t see the true cost of not taking the time to effectively match the person to the work.
- They assume everyone is ‘basically the same’ and can equally complete all work.
What’s the value of taking the additional time to match talents to needs?
- Increased performance – with no additional cost. You’re already paying their salaries, so using their talent more effectively costs nothing.
- You’ll often see immediate performance improvement. Unlike training or other approaches, allowing people to play to their strengths instantly improves results.
- Happier employees. Let’s face it, we all feel better when we’re doing something we’re good at.
- You’re leveraging otherwise wasted abilities.
- You create addition capacity – your team can do more – not just increase the quality of the output. (Note: You’ll find highly agile organizations leverage small teams of individuals who consistently play to their strengths.)
Question: How often do you get to do what you do best (apply your strengths) in the work you do? How much better do you feel when you are allowed to leverage your strengths in your work?
