Time Mastery: How to Build on Strengths to Accelerate Results

Adapted from the book: The Talent Advantage by Dr. Alan Weiss and Dr. Nancy MacKay, published by Wiley.

Success is about getting what you want out of life. Building on strengths is the path to fulfillment and achievement in life. Fostering a culture of building on strengths is the path to accelerating performance.

Research from the Gallup Organization shows that:

• 87% believe that fixing weaknesses is the best way to accelerate performance
• Only 17% of the workforce believe they use all of their strengths on the job
• Only 20% spend most time on strengths during performance reviews

The following three strategies will help you build on strengths to accelerate performance.

1. Identify your strengths.

• Strengths Finder (e.g., Achiever, Relator, Learner, Self-assurance, WOO) (Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie)
• Emotional Intelligence is a 26% predictor of job performance (self awareness, interpersonal, stress, adaptability, mood)

2. Rate your top 30 activities.
List your top 30 work-related activities. For each activity, assess your ability to do each one based on the descriptions below:

• Masterful: extraordinary ability; passion; gives you energy
• Excellent: superior ability; no real sense of passion
• Competent: adequate ability; boredom; little improvement in performance over time
• Incompetent: inadequate ability; failure; stressful

3. Delegate your competent and incompetent activities.
Spend 80% of your time in areas of mastery and excellence to achieve extraordinary results.