First, capitalize on your strengths! Why? Peter Drucker answered that question this way: “It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”
As an individual, or for an organization, the greatest success will come from capitalizing on strengths rather than through efforts to overcome weaknesses. Likewise, success is greatest by pursuing opportunities rather than solving problems. Knowing oneself—understanding your strengths—is the first step toward career success, optimum income, and wealth accumulation.
In writing about Managing Oneself, Drucker places a great deal of importance on the need, particularly for knowledge works, to understand “how you perform” best.
Are you a reader or listener? Fail to understand which you are and then relying on the wrong one and you will not perform or achieve excellence. Drucker points to Dwight Eisenhower who learned by reading and excelled as Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe when supplied with written briefs. But when he stepped into a new roll as President and attempted to follow the oral briefing methods of Truman and Roosevelt, both listeners, he appeared ill-prepared and equipped in front of the Press. The opposite was true of Lyndon Johnson, a listener, who inherited his predecessor’s staff. Kennedy was a reader. Johnson never effectively absorbed written briefs.
Some of us (I’m one and you could also be) do not learn by either reading or listening. We learn by writing. As it was for Churchill and Beethoven; neither reading nor listening is enough. I must write about it to learn. I must write about it to develop the idea or craft the strategy, the solution, the transaction, the opportunity, etc. We are sometimes mislabeled as people who have to “sleep on it”. We make our best and most creative decisions after we have found a quiet corner and written about it.
Just as listening and reading are not enough for writers, there are those who learn by hearing themselves talk. They need people in the room listening to their ideas and explorations. Drucker, himself a talker, says that learning through talking is by no means unusual and notes that successful trial lawyers are often talk learners.
There is no right method. There is no wrong method. Which ever you are is your strength, not your weakness. Try to be what you are not, and you greatly reduce you effectiveness. Once you have your own answer, tell others. When those you work with understand how you “perform best,” the collaborative results are improved. That, of course, means that next you should determine how others around you “perform best”. Who are the readers and listeners? Who are the writers and talkers? Understanding each other improves team results.
You can download a copy of Peter Drucker’s 1999 article Managing Oneself from the web site of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.
Related posts
Filed under Management by Tom Collins
Leave a Comment