It’s easy to focus on what people can’t do and how they need to improve but knowing and utilising the strengths of our teams will lead to better outcomes all round (299 words).

David Beckham was probably a terrible goal keeper.  Nobody cares. Why? Because he was great at the role that he did do.

When I first get to know a middle manager, either as a line manager or  a coach,  I always ask them to, ‘Tell me about your team’ and often they  will automatically begin to describe the weaknesses of each  team member and what they need to develop.

I find this interesting and sad.

Schools seem to have embraced the idea of what a former colleague of mine used to call a ‘deficit culture’. All audits and filling in the gaps – an automatic focus on what isn’t working and trying to fix it. With time, I’ve become more interested in what is working and building on it and spreading it to ultimately move things forward.

From a motivation point of view, what’s going to excite and inspire teams more? Working on something that exploits their individual and collective strengths  or plugging away at  something that will help them marginally improve in something they don’t care that much about anyway?

Knowing and tapping into the strengths of our team members will benefit them, the team and the organisation.

Let’s focus on the strengths and use them to reach our team and organisational goals.

• Be aware of what they are
• Ask your team what they think their strengths are
• Ask your team what the strengths of others are

Let’s stop trying to make our David Beckhams mediocre goal keepers.

Quotes today are from an email I subscribe to from Matt Trinetti (@trinetti)
Education Director at  Escape the City