Get an outside assessment of your strengths

China, 2018.

It’s notoriously difficult to view yourself objectively from the outside, and the ability to do so is highly prized.  As the poet Robert Burns wrote:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

While complete objectivity may be hard to achieve, there is a simple exercise you can do that goes a long way towards it and can give you some useful insights into how you are perceived by others.

Make a list of your top three strengths, and ask five other people to list what they consider your top three strengths.

Ask people who know you well, and include a mix of co-workers and friends.  Once you have all the lists, compare them – you may be surprised at the result.  A major business school where I consult has its students perform this exercise, and they are often shocked at how different other’s opinions are from their own.  The shock is sometimes unpleasant, when students learn that what they consider their greatest strength doesn’t even make the lists of outside assessors.  But the shock can also be pleasant, when they learn that something they considered unimportant or easy is perceived by others as a major strength.  What they learn about how “ithers” see them helps as they position themselves in the career marketplace.

I had one client at Core Allies, LLC who was a wiz at coming up with creative financing for deals.  But he didn’t think of it as an important skill because it was so easy for him; he assumed it was equally easy for everyone.  I had him do this exercise, and he learned that on the contrary his skill at financing deals was highly regarded.  This new information changed his work life.  By focusing on his strengths, both in his projects and his yearly review, he became much happier at work.