Find Your Strengths Among Your Team

“Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” — August Wilson

As a parting gift at the end of one of my projects, I wanted everybody to walk away with their list of personal strengths.

Not just a list that I made up, or their own list, but a list of strengths through the eyes of the team.

I wanted everybody to know exactly how the other team members valued them.

Know Your Strengths for Future Adventures

I wanted each person to have a new lens on their strengths that they could carry forward for their future adventures.

I’m a fan of focusing on strengths, but part of that means knowing what your strengths are, as you see them, and as others see them. I know too many people with hidden talents, simply because they just don’t know how valuable their skills and strengths are to the situation or to other people.

A Simple Process for Finding Strengths on the Team

I kept the process simple. I sent an email to my distributed team around the world, and then compiled the results, and shared with the team. It was nothing fancy, but it meant a lot to each person on the team because it was real.

How I Asked for Everyone to Identify Strengths

Here is the simple mail I sent to my team:

For today … Take 15 or so minutes to …
… send me 3 unique strengths for each person, you’ve seen demonstrated during the project.

The Results Are In …

Here are the results …

(I’m included in the results, but for privacy I used “teammate” as a place holder for each team member)

J.D.

Driving project forward
Providing vision for the end result
Making decisions quickly and efficiently
Effective leadership
Drive to execute
People management
Vision for customer impact and results
PM ability to manage multiple threads and bring them together at the right time
Framing out new areas, new chapters, guide structure, etc. So that the team can follow behind.
Management
Vision
Architecture
Keeping things on track
leadership/ mentoring
Political interference for team
Visionary
Great networking skills
Good mentor
Always knows what he wants. Driven by a vision.
Has a positive vibe that infuses confidence in the team
Very vocal

Teammate 1

Reliable
Consistent
Pragmatic
Seems to be knowledgeable about architecture
Consistently working on updating docs
Work ethic and speed
Persistence
Discipline
Technical
Feedback
Writing
Good at reviewing and asking questions
Good at filling out documents to get something to start with
Eye for details
Committed
Strive for Project Goals
All round performer.
Does a good job with the tasks assigned to him.

Teammate 2

Fast
Reliable
Consistent
Writing skills
Accuracy of details
Team player
Video creation
Ability to learn new tech areas
Familiarity with MS and p&p
Editing
Writing
New Technologies
Rewording and editing
Starting documents. Getting something going.
Video creation
Fast in execution
Resourceful
Focused on task at hand
Very articulate.
Knows how to express practice in words.

Teammate 3

Fast
Results focused
Solution-oriented
Managing project when required
Steering others and confirming tasks and requirements
Technical skills
Perfectionist
Technical
Writing
Architecture
Pruning down text
Security experience
Team leadership
Knows to reduce the flab (compressor)
Quick at task in hand
Great sounding board
Frames crispier sentences from long-running paragraphs.
Driven by vision.
More or less knows/expects a given outcome from a task.

Teammate 4

Knowledge and experience of architecture
Fluent writer
Willing to provide assistance when required
Robust thinking
Great experience
Open to new ideas
Technical skills
Influential
Problem-solving ability
Architecture knowledge
Patterns knowledge
Technical ability and information in head
Application development experience and wisdom
Standing up for useful over “marketing speak”
Good at technical knowledge
good reviewer
can talk in architecture lingo
Highly knowledgeable.
High motivation.

Teammate 5

Managing day to day activities
Planning and executing the plan
Producing and refining content
Hard working
Results focused
Solution-oriented
Motivation
Interpersonal skills
Big picture thinking
Understanding of the quality bar
Driving releases
Retains knowledge of old areas and can synthesize new knowledge into his existing framework
Collaboration
Writing
Technical
Only doing what needs to be done
finishing and shipping
positive attitude on how to deal with pressure
Gets stuff done one way or another.
Prioritizes tasks well.
Precise. Doesn’t like beating around the bush.

Teammate 6

Consistent work on improving content
Pragmatic
Ability to be wrong / no ego
Solution-oriented
Detail oriented and thorough
Customer focus, understands the right quality tradeoffs for customer impact
A good writer, his suggestions and changes are almost always very high quality
Feedback
Technical
Architecture

Teammate 7

Finding and maintaining contacts with reviewers and advisors
Maintaining consistency and eye for detail
Willing to help when required
Due diligence
Teamwork
Eager to learn
Networking
Team player
Willingness to do whatever is necessary or needed of him
Growing SEO knowledge
Interaction with and management of reviewers/contributors outside the team
SEO
Collaboration
Writing
Great passion and energy
Good marketing skills
Striving to improve himself
Great team player
Wants to be involved in everything.
Process based.
Loves Visio and drawing figures.:)

Some people were surprised by the strengths that others saw in them. Some were deeply touched. Everyone felt stronger with a clear picture of what they brought to the table and how they were valued for their contribution.