I once had a friend whose grandfather could not use rear-view mirrors to back his car. When he did, he always ran directly into whatever he was using the mirror to avoid. What a great metaphor for my own life… so focused on what I don’t want to do, or what I do poorly, that I end up headed right for it.
Often I encounter fellow nurses who are all too aware of their faults and weaknesses, or worse yet the weaknesses of others. Such awareness creates frustration and perhaps leads to some of the less appealing organizational climates that we find in our ever-changing world of health care.
I am no exception to this. Frequently I belabor my weaknesses and work to change them, creating hours of labor and frustration for skills not mastered (read in here learning to speak Spanish). However, imagine with me a healthcare organization built upon the strengths of the professionals who inhabit it? How could we change and permanently improve healthcare by building teams that recognize their own strengths? Teams that recognize when to call on the strengths of others, and who function more completely as a whole?
Tom Rath in his 2007 book Strengths Finder 2.0 notes that people who don’t get to focus on what they do best in their workplace do not emotionally engage while working. Likewise, “studies indicate that people who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general” (p. iii).
Further, Rath argues against the notion that we can be anything if we simply try hard enough. Believing we can do anything we set our minds to is the wrong philosophical perspective and quite simply false. Recognizing and honing our strengths is the key to happiness and success professionally.
Instead of screening nurses to find out how well they know what we think they should know, or how they best ‘fit’ the organization, perhaps we should begin by looking for the strengths of each nurse and build complex and capable teams from this starting point?
What are your strengths? Rath’s book is a great place to begin identifying them. This New Year my resolution is to not focus on my weaknesses, but to identify, build, and hone my strengths. I also vow to forgive myself for my weaknesses and realize them for what they are, simply another part of who I am.
References
Rath, T. (2007). Strengths finder 2.0. New York: Gallup Press.
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