Play to your strengths

There is a quite a bit of talk lately about playing to your strengths – books, TV and the internet are all abuzz about the idea of playing to your strengths.  Quite honestly, I am a big believer in the notion.  Over the holiday weekend, I was writing some notes to put some context around the idea, particularly as it relates to sports and business.  What I realized is there are some blatantly obvious areas where individuals play to their strengths and then there are more subtle scenarios.  I think both are worth talking a bit about.

So what are those crystal clear scenarios? 

How many of you have seen the clips when Shaquille O’Neal gets the defensive rebound and begins to dribble the basketball up the court.  Everyone is a bit amazed at how agile he is for a 7-foot massive human being.  That said I don’t know many NBA coaches ready to make the trade for Shaq to play point guard for them.  Shaq does his damage in the paint, where he is clearly a force to be reckoned with.  If Shaq were forced to guard and chase around the point guards in the NBA, I am pretty certain he would not garner the accolades he has as over the course of his career as one of the best centers of all time.

Similar visual, different sport – Did you ever see a clip where the lineman picks up the fumbled football and begins to run to the end zone?  Relatively speaking, the 6’5” 320 lbs man is quite fast.  However, as compared to the running backs, linemen are not even in the same stratosphere in terms of speed and agility.  However, put a lineman in the trenches of the line of scrimmage, there is no one better at moving bodies around the field.  Linemen and running backs both know their strengths and how best to use them.

Coaches make decisions on which positions an individual should play to make the best use of an individual’s talent.  The Shaquille O’Neal and football linemen examples are just two scenarios that seem intuitive and simple. 

So what are the not so obvious? 

How about a basketball player that is 6’9” 230 lbs and plays – POINT GUARD?!?  At that height and that weight, that person should be playing power forward, maybe even center, right?  Well, don’t tell Magic Johnson that.  Perhaps the best point guard of all time had the physical gifts and talents that would suggest he should be playing a different position.  However, there was a coach out there that allowed Magic to play to his strengths and what resulted was one of the best players of all time.     

I went to Lehigh University and one of my very best friends was an All-American wrestler, a 3.8 GPA finance major and an amazingly aggressive, yet amazingly personable guy.  He could have gone the Wall Street path and made a mint – he is the kind of guy that numbers just click for him and given his pedigree and personality, he would have most certainly had his pick of firms to work for. 

Well, fast forward to today and what you would find is the same aggressive, personable guy that is working incredibly successfully teaching the blind and hearing impaired in Western Pennsylvania.  My friend’s conviction and strength had him pursue his true strengths and passions, working with children.    

At the end of the day, only you know what your true strengths and passions are.  Over the next few blogs, I am going to try to focus the discussions around this topic.  In the mean time, I would love to hear about your thoughts and ideas on what it means to “play to your strengths.”