Underutilized

When it comes to people, underutilized does not mean squeeze out more hours, it means unleash more strengths.

When people have the chance to give their best where they have their best to give, this has an automatic way of taking care of utilization, motivation, impact, etc.  When somebody is in their element, effective managers co-create the goals and get out of the way.  It’s among the best ways to get the best results from teams or individuals.  If you want to optimize a team, then unleash the strengths of each individual.

The power of people in a knowledge worker world is that you get exponential results when people are playing to their strengths.   The simplest way to do this is have people in roles where they spend more time in their strengths and less time in their weaknesses.  Another way to unleash their strength is pair them up with people that compliment their strengths or balance out their weaknesses.

On the flip side, the simplest way to create low-performing teams is to have people spend more time in their weaknesses and very little time in their strengths.   While this is simple and obvious, the real trick is looking for it and finding ways to bring out people’s best.

While it’s not always easy, and you often have to get creative, one of the best things you can do for you, your company, the world, is to spend more time in your strengths and help others do the same.  It’s the fittest and the flexible that survive, and it’s your unique strengths that crank up your fit factor.