The Frustrating Magnetism of Strengths
“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Abraham Maslow
Your strength is your hammer. If only the world was a nail.
Strengths pull toward “right” solutions.
Comfortable tools are chosen first and most. When faced with issues, challenges, problems, or opportunities, you chose your hammer.
Hammers:
- Protectors solidify gains.
- Promoters run toward the fire.
- Doers yell get busy!
- Adapters say, isn’t this exciting.
- Developers ask, how can we grow the team.
- Empathizers pat people on the back and say, don’t worry.
- Organizers establish structure and process.
- Collaborators form teams.
- Planners choose goals and create maps.
- Motivators set people’s hair on fire and complain about lethargy.
- Activators jump up and shout, when can we start.
- Commanders take charge.
- Administrators assign tasks.
- Competitors challenge teams to win.
- Teachers explain why it happened.
What’s more frustrating than a bag of hammers, when you need a wrench?
New perspectives:
People with wrenches look weird.
Alternatives feel awkward. They don’t feel like hammers. But, the result of hitting everything with a hammer is diminishing returns, coupled with disappointment and frustration. You’re stuck.
Your strengths make you weak.
Find a wrench:
Stop hitting everything with a hammer. Find a wrench.
I spent too much of my career swinging my hammer. It worked at first.
As time passes, success confirms the bias that hammers are best.
Arrogance closes minds.
Choose to listen to someone who succeeded using a wrench. It feels “wrong.” Listen anyway. Wrenches work, too.
Stop passing out hammers:
You wrongly believe that hammers are best. If their wrench has a reasonable chance of working, don’t pass them your hammer.
Leadership grows narrow and small when all you have is a hammer.
How has using your hammer too much resulted in frustration?
How can leaders celebrate and leverage the strengths of others?
Well as the world is evolving and 80% of employees are disengaged at work, 97% of the worlds money is controlled by 3% of the people, 95 to 97% of the people who start businesses online fail to make any money…….many kids TODAY will starve and dehydrate.
With these results what conclusions could I draw from conventional, traditional wisdom? What conclusions could you draw?
My conclusion is these results are TERRIBLE. I see no other conclusion from anyone with a temperature and a pulse.
I say it is time to get out of the front of the canoe, stop staring at the front of the canoe telling yourself and everyone else everything is just peachy.
Stand up, look around, question EVERYTHING.
Find a better way.
I will also add sincerely…..IT IS NOT THE WISDOM…..lots of it is ageless and priceless.
It is the way WE ARE APPLYING IT. Yep WE!
If you consider yourself a Leader……PAL….that means YOU! I have already included me.
You and I are one of two things and two things only.
The PROBLEM or the SOLUTION….you decide.
Now you can consider my manner that of a hammer or anything else you like.
I figure lots of you do not and will not like what I just shared. No worries, I will lose no sleep over your opinion of me. Only opinions I care about are my own and my Makers. Ok my Mommas too and she thinks I am WONDEFUL! I AM!!!!!!!! We three are DELIGHTED with me because I have the GUTS to SAY and DO something. You?
Here is the thing.
How about not deciding if you like it, me or the manner I just shared with you my conclusions.
How about deciding if what I shared is TRUE? Ok some kids will not starve and dehydrate today, people succeed with ease online in mass numbers, 97% of the money is NOT controlled by 3% of the folks.
Go ahead, try and say you disagree with what I shared, go ahead. I suggest Tylenol and Pepto cause lying like that to yourself is gonna cause pain somewhere. Denial is cool like that.
If so, it the Truth pisses you off like it does me…..look deeply into the mirror grasshopper and DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
Our world has tremendous problems, we also have the capacity God gave us to solve every problem.
It ALL STARTS with being HONEST.
My honest opinion is WE SUCK and we need to and can do BETTER.
That make me a hammer???? So be it.
SP
EA great stuff today by the way Dan, very hammer provoking!!! LOL
Thank you, Dan. One of the most satisfying things a leader can do is to find people that “fit” into roles in the organization and help them to develop through training and stretch goals in ways that are satisfying to both them and the organization.
The older I get, the more satisfaction I get from watching people flourish, developing skills and confidence. I love to watch them get excited about making things happen, about contributing meaningfully, and about learning to develop others as well.
People are not interchangeable hammers. Each is a person, with wants, needs, aspirations, background, talent, education, social environment, values, etc. Part of the fun of leadership is helping each one to decide if they want to be part of the collective effort, and if so, in what capacity, then working with them to make them and the organization a success.
Success in leading people is first about values, then mission, then individuals, and (far behind) the leader’s goals.
Thanks, Dan, for this post. Its message is profound, and touched me deeply.
Thanks Marc. I respect your insights and kindness.
Love how you focus on finding fit. Everyone wants to fit in and make a meaningful contribution. But, we can find the meaningful contribution until we find the place where we fit in.
I’ve been guilty, in the past, of diminishing the value of a good wrench. But, today, like you say, it’s pure joy to be part of helping people find their place. In order to do that, I had to stop trying to make everyone a hammer!
Thanks, Dan.
One of the less pleasant parts of finding fit is helping people to figure out if their values and goals are aligned with organizational values and mission. If they are not, it is better and kinder to convince them not to join the organization, or to separate early than to attempt to make them change and be untrue to themselves. The higher performing the organization, the more difficult it should be difficult to become a member. The screening out process for Navy Seals, Delta Force, and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, for example, is very rigorous. There are many elite marines who don’t make the cut to Navy Seal – and that is fine. There are people who aren’t qualified to be marines, but who make fine upstanding citizens.
My point is that being selective and exclusionary is not discrimination, but is vital for organizational performance – and essential to the satisfaction of its members.
There are far too many people working in places they don’t fit, wasting their lives doing things they hate or things that they wouldn’t actively support if they weren’t paid to do so. We all need salaries, but nobody likes getting paid to do something they hate. When people’s values are aligned with those of the organization, and what they do brings them satisfaction, then pay is only part of the equation, they can weather the frustration of obstacles, and they grow.
Organizations thrive when they have as few people as possible, working hard to get things done, trained and motivated to be efficient, and loving what they do. One of the advantages of having few people rather than more is that compensation can be increased for each, since it is spread across fewer people. To work in this mode, cross-training is vital, for there are fewer backups and less reserve capacity to handle sickness, unforeseen circumstances, and variations in work load.
Marc…well said!
KaPow!
You must be a techie! I have a leatherman … so as a leader … you have to see yourself as a tool (not the foolish analogy … lol). Each day you have to adapt as a leader to fit the job in hand. If you’re a leatherman tool you can make small adjustments in your leadership skills to lead you team effectively with each challenge. What is frustrating are hammer-heads that insist that there is only one kind of fix. As a “techie” you learn quickly that there is often more that one way to approach a problem so inherently we have the capacity to adjust our leadership styles more easily than “non-techies”. My opinion … I could be completely wrong and a “tool” for saying this.
You are exactly right.
Love the hammer-head illustration. 🙂
Hi Dan,
I love the description of the tool box of different kind of people that you describe. Especially the adaptor who says ‘now isn’t this exciting’ (I imagine in a very scientific man-sees-new-bug kind of way). I have a good mix of hammers, wrenches, one sawzall, and suspect they all have leatherman type secret attachments too. Your post inspires me to make sure we are looking at strengths and situations the right way and when the time comes to expand, we’ll know what we lack or want more of.
Cheers
Thanks Catie. The sawzall comment made me chuckle. But, the truth is, there are situations when a sawzall is a perfect.
Tools make the job.
I suppose that leaders who allow their team to suggest alternatives and actually listen and take action based on contrary advice are the wrench-makers.
Successful leaders are wrench-makers!
Fabulous guidance here! Love that you opened with that well-worn truism and turned it on its head
>
Thanks Roy. A good word feels good. 🙂
amen!
Seeing the world through the eyes of a wrench makes every one seem nuts! 🙂 (sorry, i couldn’t resist!)
Going back to success paths makes good sense, they are practiced, tried and true, comfortable, and the costs (risks) are known… the difficulty is when they become our ONLY paths. None the less a lot is built on familiarity, witness the iPhone — iPad — Macintosh formula.Breaking that chain is difficult requiring a leader who is secure enough to trust anothers judgement patterns. When these patterns are vastly different from our own the temptation is to step in before the process is complete.
Often ego steps in too… many who are leaders also desire the focal spotlight role.
You’ve given us a lot to think about.
Thanks Ken. Great comment and your opening line drives me crazy! 🙂
Trusting another’s judgement is a crucial leadership moment. After all, I think what I think because I believe it’s right. I like to call this, learning to go with someone else’s gut. Maybe we’ve reached a leadership milestone when our gut tells us it’s ok to go with someone else’s gut. Cheers!!
My favorite so far!
Sent from my iPad
Thanks Kelly!
You hit the nail on the head right there! 😉
someday I’m the hammer someday the nail