Pennsylvania Investment Observer

What's your Strength?

by Judy L. Loy

First things come first, the January Barometer disappointed. Despite the last day of the month creating a nice rally, all the stock indexes ended in negative territory for the first month of 2005. If you will recall from my Canton article last month, January's trend tends to portend the calendar year returns. What was the forecasting ability of January in the past? The S & P 500 Index was accurate 90.7% of the time. This could portend bad times for equities in 2005. For those of you keeping track the following are the year-to-date returns for indexes as of January 31, 2005:

Well, now that I have concentrated on the negative facts, let's go onto something more positive, Strengths. In contrast to my usual articles, I want to spend this month discussing personal development instead of financial development. Of course, one can lead to the other.

Most personal or professional development courses and books center on improving your weaknesses. Not good at a particular part of your job or life, well then you should work on it, right? I have come across an amazing book that says rather than concentrate on negatives (let's admit it, we all have them), work toward your strengths (Hey, we also have those!). The book is titled, "Now, Discover Your Strengths," by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.

To find your strengths, on the inside book jacket a code is supplied to use at a website (strengthsfinder.com) to take a test that determines your top five strengths. There are 34 core strengths and from those the test computes your five. What is amazing about the process is we take our strengths for granted. Doesn't everybody show responsibility or want to achieve? The answer is actually no. The test determines your fairly unique strength list. Of the 34 strengths, there are thirty-three million combinations of top five. Thus, your five strengths and how they work together are harder to come by then you think. This makes you a valuable employee to someone who wants your strengths.

What is the payoff to finding out your strengths and using them in your job and life? One is that you know what you bring to the table. Don't assume something you do as a default isn't a big deal. The wonder of it is it is probably a strength and exactly why you are where you are in your job and life. Or if you are dissatisfied with your job or an aspect of you life, it may be because you don't get the opportunity to use your strengths.

Another handy use of the book is the chapter entitled, "Managing Strengths." The idea is if you know your individual team members abilities and strengths then you can put them in the right places, motivate them in the right ways, and combine them with the right team members.

In closing, Peter Drucker had a wonderful quote in regards to strengths that sums up the power of the Strengths book, "Leadership is the ability to align strengths toward a goal or vision in such a way that weaknesses are irrelevant." My suggestion is to check out the book and find out how you can lead.

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