Tag Archives: Birkman

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Is Your Main Thing Really Your Main Thing?

“The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.”  Stephen Covey

 

What is your “main thing”? What is it that you do so well that people are willing to pay you for it? If you are not doing your main thing, or what you do best every day, chances are you are frustrated and even disengaged at work. According to Gallup annual poll, only 31.5% of US employees were engaged at work in 2014. That means that 68.5% of the US is not engaged in their work! As business leaders, this should scare us!

My main thing is leadership. Specifically: strategy, process and structure, and communication. Today, I do that from a business point of view by setting business strategy and vision, building processes and structure to implement that strategy and then communicating to the organization through this process. Prior to business leadership, I did the same thing from a project management perspective and, earlier, from an engineering and construction perspective.

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Use Your Gifts To Build A Life You Can Be Proud Of

“A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.” Solomon

This is one of my favorite all time quotes. It is also one of the pearls of wisdom that kept Nelson Mandela inspired with hope while he spent 27 years incarcerated as a political prisoner in South Africa. It is an ancient proverb that is about 3000 years old. I am amazed that this stellar advice was recognized and documented so many years ago and it is just as valid today just as it was way back then.

In today’s world of increasing speed, complexity and globalization it is critical that we understand our gifts or strengths. We need to understand these strengths and leverage these whenever and wherever we can. This takes a lot of work and a lot of honesty. It takes effort to determine where we have strengths and to admit where we are weak. It takes effort to determine how to take our strengths and leverage them properly into the work that we do. It can be painful to admit our areas of weakness and bring people around us to bolster those weak areas. However, if we do not do this then we are selling ourselves and our businesses short. You will never reach your full potential as a person. You or your business will never reach its potential unless you can get yourself and the whole organization operating in their areas of strength and offering their strengths where others are weak.