Returning for a moment to the question of superpowers…
One of the claims of the Strengthsfinder people, and also of the Life@work people, and also of Marcus Buckingham, who is a member of both those groups, is that we should give up the idea of well-roundedness.
We focus, these guys say, on our areas of weakness. We try to get better at stuff we’re not so good at, and ignore the things we are good at. If a child is good at math and weak on reading, we focus on reading with them. If we’re skillful with ideas and not so good at clerical work, then we strive to improve in that area of weakness, figuring that we’re already good at ideas so we don’t need to worry about that.
Buckingham says that we should, instead, focus on our own strengths and partner with people who have strengths different from our own. This way, we’ll complement them and they’ll complement us, and we’ll end up with a complete product of excellence.
CD and I were discussing this on Sunday. She said that my attempting to learn to play handbells (and I have gotten better over the years — I just haven’t actually gotten good) improved my ability to read music, which made me a better singer. Had I not been working on that area of weakness, I wouldn’t have increased my area of strength.
She’s quite right. I also have developed strengths in my work which I didn’t have before. It is arguable that these things are merely skills, though, and not strengths. That is, when I learn more about tech stuff, then I am just using my superpowers of Input, Ideation, Learning, and Strategery (or gathering and disseminating information, as I used to put it) in a new context. It looks like I’m doing new stuff, but I’m really not.
What do you think? Do you try to be a well-rounded person, or try to lead your kids to be well-rounded people? or do you focus on your areas of strength?
Ah…the old “Jack of all trades, master of none” conundrum. I think this is a blogworthy topic! I will answer on my blog tomorrow or the next day. It’s a great question! And I have lots of ideas about it….Too much to post here in the comments!
And the answer is…
Both, of course!
Unless you have the other, complementary person physically attached to you, you’re going to have to do stuff that you’re not so good at from time to time. You want to be at least competent. And you shouldn’t give up a general, well-rounded education.
But you should also spend time on what you’re best at. Hopefully, you can make that such an awesome skill that you’ll find someplace that you’ll be irreplaceable.
I suppose I’m lucky to have the area of weakness that I have, which is arithmetic. All I have to do is get a pocket calculator (and use it at least to check what I’ve done), and I’ve almost eliminated my area of weakness.
Lucky, too, is that my area(s) of most skill, technical art, art is(are) something that a lot of people are not good at. And something simple like a calculator won’t cure that lack.
Now, if I could just convince employers of that. All they see is that I’m not young anymore.
@craftymommavt –
I look forward to it!
@lostarts –
The age question almost disappears when you work online, as I do.
I can’t say I do either of those. I have always just gone ahead and done whatever I found interesting at the time. Not particularly efficient of me admittedly but then efficiency has never been one of my strengths :)so I obviously don’t focus on my weaknesses.
@sighkey –
That sounds like a fun way to do it.