Understanding your strengths
Published 11:15 pm Tuesday, March 18, 2008
How do you maximize value in your business? Find out what you do best and do it often. This may sound overly simplistic, but it works.
What is the highest and best use of your time and talents? Or, as Dan Sullivan, a.k.a. “The Strategic Coach” would say, what is your “Unique Ability”? The thinking is that the more time you spend in your unique ability, the more productive and happy you can become. Recently, as part of an evaluation of the strengths of our firm and the individuals in it, our team participated in the assessment tool called StrengthsFinder 2.0 from a book of the same name. I found it a useful tool to discover, articulate and visualize the interaction of the various strengths we represent as a group in my office.
Do you have the strength of arranger, achiever, communication, harmony or WOO (the ability to “win others over”)? How do you reduce 34 identified and articulated strengths in the book down to the top five for you? Why does this have relevance in a financial column? I hope to shed some light on these issues.
Only you can determine the most productive use of your time as it relates to your business, finances and personal life. In your business, you hire team members to bring resources to bear that you may not have yourself or that need supplementation. The best leaders surround themselves with talent that magnifies their abilities.
This also is true when looking for the successor to your company. Does he or she have the requisite skills needed to secure the future of the company? Just as important as the skills, how is that person being developed so he or she can eventually take over and allow you that retirement you always wanted?
The theme continues to those you surround yourself with in your financial and personal life. If you knew your own strengths and those most important to you in others, could you develop a vision of the type of adviser you’d work with most effectively? It also is important to know those that, while being strengths, have the potential to clash with your own.
Recently, I was a speaker at the national symposium of an institutional money manager. The requested topic was “It’s More Than Investment Advice,” which was designed to address practice management and value creation for clients beyond the competencies required to properly plan the investments of a client.
It was an interesting exercise to list all the ways we bring value to the client relationship. It also was quite remarkable to discover how many of the 34 strengths were covered by our staff and how we deployed those talents. The application of those talents bring real value to our clients, making the practice that much more valuable. The same is true for any business. We always are challenged to find ways to continually improve and are learning how to better integrate the various strengths.
The last Vistage (formerly TEC) meeting I attended had these same themes come through. We were discussing them in the context of the book “Creating Competitive Advantage” by Jaynie L. Smith. While planning for the future, have a vision, determine your strengths, initially stay strategic, assess if that vision would be “awesome” for you and then develop tactics to go after it.
So let’s circle back — the ideas discussed here are for your LIFE: business, financial, philanthropic or otherwise. Surround yourself with those that bring the resources, experience and strengths to bear that enhance your situation, finding the best team members that fit your needs. Remember that life is a journey; we are walking along the path, learning as we go.
You can find the book “StrengthsFinder 2.0” by Tom Rath at Amazon or the local bookstore; for online information, go to http://sf2.strengthfinder.com/faq. FYI: Do not buy a used copy; part of what you are buying is a one-off access to the online assessment tool.
Dale Terwedo, certified as a CFP, ChFC and CLU, is principal of Terwedo Financial Services LLC, an independent financial services firm in Edmonds. In practice since 1983, Terwedo offers securities and investment advice through FSC Securities Corp., Atlanta, Ga., a Registered Broker/Dealer, Member of FINRA/SIPC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. For more information, go online to www.tfsadvisors.com, send e-mail to retire@tfsadvisors.com or call 425-776-0446.
