In one of my previous posts I mentioned a question from a recent grad about making a difference at work, and I’d like to follow-up with a statement that I find Millennials (born 1981-1999) to be the generation most engaged in the pursuit of meaning and in redefining personal and professional success. I’ve come to think about them as the generation in search for meaning.
In coaching conversations, Millennials often point out that “we,” their parents, teachers, and coaches, have lied to them when we kept saying that as long as they put their mind to it, they could be anything they wanted to be. In all fairness, this message is delivered with the best of intentions to encourage our children to dream big and to set ambitious goals.
But the truth is that none of us can do anything we want. Only a select few reach upper-echelon status in business, science, sports, etc. There were less than 500 players on the 2015-2016 NBA opening-day roster. I can say without a doubt, I could never be one of them, nor a prima ballerina for that matter. It’s not in my genes. To further illustrate this point, let me quote Professor Scott Trappe, Human Performance Lab at Ball State University, who says that if you want to be a world-class sprinter, you’d better choose your parents wisely. His research shows it’s all about having just the right muscle fibers to be either a sprinter or a marathoner. And even when we are genetically endowed to pursue success in certain fields it would typically take years of practice and hard work.
So how about we stop telling our children they can be anything they want and just allow them to be themselves? Let’s help them uncover and develop their natural gifts, talents, and joys and grow to be all that they can be. Perhaps it’s time to re-define success as making the most of our opportunities?
We all face real limits but also have great strengths. Should we focus on improving our weaknesses or building on our strengths to seek and achieve greater success?
I first started pondering this question when attending Marcus Buckingham’s presentation at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference in San Diego in 2010. He started his presentation telling us about a school conference where he and his wife saw the beautiful drawings created by their son’s classmates whereas their son’s art work consisted of a hastily drawn set of stick figures. He shared that his first reaction was that of embarrassment, shame, and guilt that his son was lagging behind at age 5. He was seriously considering getting a private tutor to help their son improve until the teacher told them their son had superior math skills. His story struck a chord with me. My son’s preschool drawings were beautiful, but it turned out each one was a collaborative art project, my son not included. He would ask the girls to do his work while he was out playing in the yard. I had a light-bulb moment and vowed to switch my parenting style from nagging for improvement to recognizing and rewarding strengths. And I applied the same principle to work refocusing performance conversations on areas of greatest potential and on capitalizing strengths.
I highly recommend “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton. The message is very powerful: we would only get marginally better if we keep focusing on improving on our weaknesses. Spending our days putting much effort on work for little gain is not fun. We are better off focusing on what we do well at optimal capacity. Once we commit to playing to our strengths we may not be anything we want, but we can become someone we are proud and happy to be.
Note: we can’t discuss limits and strengths without addressing the issue of self-imposed limitations – more on the topic in my next post.
