Lead-Down Principle #4
PLACE PEOPLE IN THEIR STRENGTH ZONES
Most leaders agree that having the right people on the team and putting those people in the right places are important. But how much of a difference does it make, really? Are we talking about a small difference or a big one? That’s what the people at the Gallup Organization asked themselves while doing research for Now, Discover Your Strengths. Here is what the book’s authors learned:
In our latest meta-analysis The Gallup Organization asked this question of 198,000 employees working in 7,939 business units within 36 companies: At work do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? We then compared the responses to the performance of the business units and discovered the following: When employees answered “strongly agree” to this question, they were 50 percent more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38 percent more likely to work in more productive business units, and 44 percent more likely to work in business units with higher customer satisfaction scores.1
That is a highly significant difference. What percentage of workers do you think are working in their areas of strength? According to the authors, the answer is only 20 percent.2
The number one reason people don’t like their jobs is that they are not working in the area of their strengths. When employees are continually asked to perform in an area of weakness, they become demoralized, they are less productive, and they eventually burn out. Whose fault is that? Usually, it is their leaders’ fault!
The number one reason people don’t like their jobs is that they are not working in the area of their strengths.
Successful people find their own strength zones. Successful leaders find the strength zones of the people they lead. Individuals may seek a job with a particular organization, but they generally don’t place themselves in their positions at work. For the most part, their leaders are the ones who do that.
When you place individuals in their strength zones, a couple of things happen. First, you change people’s lives for the better. In an earlier chapter, I mentioned that people’s personal lives color every aspect of their existence, including work. The reverse is also true. People’s work lives color the other aspects of their lives. When you put people in their strength zones, their jobs become rewarding and fulfilling. It often makes the difference between someone who hates going to work and someone who loves it. The other benefit is that you help the organization and you.
STEPS FOR PLACING PEOPLE IN THEIR STRENGTH ZONES
The ability to help people find their best place in their careers is an awesome power and a great responsibility, one that we should not take lightly as leaders. As you think about the people who work for you, try to do the following for each individual:
1. DISCOVER THEIR TRUE STRENGTHS
Most people do not discover their strengths on their own. They often get drawn into the routine of day-to-day living and simply get busy. They rarely explore their strengths or reflect on their successes or failures. That’s why it is so valuable for them to have a leader who is genuinely interested in them help them to recognize their strengths.
There are many helpful tools available that you can use to aid people in the process of self-discovery. I’ve already mentioned the work of Buckingham and Clifton. Their book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, and the Strengths Finder material on their Web site can be helpful. So can personality tests such as DISC or Myers-Briggs. And there are many vocational tests as well. Whatever works in the context of your organization can be helpful. But don’t limit yourself to tests. Often the most valuable help you can give will be based on your personal observations.
Successful people find their own strength zones. Successful leaders find the strength zones of the people they lead.
2. GIVE THEM THE RIGHT JOB
Moving someone from a job they hate to the right job can be life changing. One executive I interviewed said he moved a person on his staff to four different places in the organization, trying to find the right fit. Because he’d placed her wrong so many times, he was almost ready to give up on her. But he knew she had great potential, and she was right for the organization. Finally, after he found the right job for her, she was a star!
Because this executive knows how important it is to have every person working in the right job, he asks his staff once a year, “If you could be doing anything, what would it be?” From their answers, he gets clues about any people who may have been miscast in their roles.
Trying to get the right person in the right job can take a lot of time and energy. Let’s face it. Isn’t it easier for a leader to just put people where it is most convenient and get on with the work? Once again, this is an area where leaders’ desire for action works against them. Fight against your natural tendency to make a decision and move on. Don’t be afraid to move people around if they’re not shining the way you think they could.
3. IDENTIFY THE SKILLS THEY’LL NEED AND PROVIDE WORLD-CLASS TRAINING
Every job requires a particular set of skills that employees must possess in order to be really successful. Even someone with great personal strengths and a great “fit” will not truly be working in his strength zone if he doesn’t have these skills. As the leader, it is your job to make sure your people acquire what they need to win.
Two of the most important questions to ask are:
What am I doing to develop myself?
What am I doing to develop my staff?
The first question determines your personal potential and ongoing capacity to lead. The second determines the potential of your team. If they aren’t growing, then they will not be any better tomorrow than they are today.
In The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, the Law of the Niche says, “All players have a place where they add the most value.” Whatever that niche is determines the best role that person should assume on your team. And it really does make a difference. When leaders really get this, the teams they lead perform at an incredible level. And it reflects positively on those leaders. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the success of a leader is determined more by putting people into their strength zones than by anything else.
The Law of the Niche: “All players have a place where they add the most value.”
When I was in high school, I was fortunate to have a coach who understood this. During one of our varsity basketball practices, our coach, Don Neff, decided he wanted to teach us a very important lesson about basketball. He got the first- and second-string teams out on the floor to scrimmage. That wasn’t unusual—we scrimmaged all the time. Our second team had some good players, but clearly the first team was much better. This time he had us do something very different from the norm. He let the second-string players take their normal positions, but he assigned each of us starters to a different role from our usual one. I was normally a shooting guard, but for this scrimmage I was asked to play center. And as I recall, our center was put in the point-guard position.
“Having the best players on the floor isn’t enough. You have to have the best players in the right positions.”
—DON NEFF
We were instructed to play to twenty, but the game didn’t take long. The second team trounced us in no time. When the scrimmage was over, Coach Neff called us over to the bench and said, “Having the best players on the floor isn’t enough. You have to have the best players in the right positions.”
I never forgot that lesson. And as I’ve led people over the last thirty years, I’ve applied it to much more than basketball. It doesn’t matter what kind of a team you’re leading. If you don’t place people in their strength zones, you’re making it almost impossible for them—and you—to win.
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