Ask yourself what you’re good at – and get it to work for you at work
Mark Edwards – or Mark Julian Edwards as he is officially known on LinkedIn “because there were millions of Mark Edwards, but not many Mark Julian Edwards” – wants to help you play to your strengths.
I met him in London at a conference where I was acting as Master of Ceremonies. We got chatting over the lunch break and I was enjoying his story so much, I was almost late returning to the stage to kick off the second half.
Now that the conference is over, and went successfully I am happy to add, I am also happy to share his story and insights with you as your intrepid columnist.
“My background is in leadership development,” Mark begins, as we caught up over Zoom, “which I’ve done for many, many years.
During an assignment I had a few years ago on the sunny island of Mallorca, I was thinking about my career and I asked myself: ‘Do I fundamentally enjoy some of the recent work I’ve been doing?’ And the answer was no. Because the roles were not playing to my strengths.”
He decided to go on an exploration to determine if he could apply what he was uniquely talented in into other areas outside of what he had always done.
“The biggest instance of this was I created a photo portrait book called Faces of Mallorca.”
Personally, I have never visited, but Mark tells me one of the more common impressions about this Spanish Island in the Mediterranean is that it’s full of expats. “A lot of Brits, Germans, Scandinavians and big boats,” he laughs.
Mark wanted to change that perception through a book that told the stories of local people living there in an authentic way. And although he did not have any formal training as a photographer, Mark saw this endeavour as his opportunity to lean into applying his naturally developed characteristics.
“My strengths are around connecting with people, creativity, humour and playfulness. So rather than being obsessed with things like the technical aspects of settings and shutter speed, which still confuse the hell out of me, I focused on how I could leverage my ability to make people feel comfortable and relaxed.”
The book was published and although it may not have sold a million copies – yet – Mark was pleased.
And through the experience, he reached this conclusion: “We are not our jobs. We’re just not our jobs. It’s the biggest lie we’ve ever been told. And it’s also the biggest lie we tell ourselves because we’re the first people sometimes to put ourselves in a box saying, ‘I’m marketing, I’m production, I’m sales, I’m this, I’m that.’
“But we are real human beings with a variety of values and strengths that we can apply to different things.”
WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT?
Today, Mark is the founder and CEO of the organisation unsurprisingly named The Strengths Explorer. He’s on a mission to help individuals and organisations enable their people to accelerate performance through understanding and leveraging each other’s strengths.
He asks a lot of questions designed to zero in on identifying our innate, natural human selves. “Do you like networking?”
“Do you prefer execution?”
“Do you excel at organisation?” “Are you consistent?”
“Are you highly deliberative?” “Do you have impeccable communication?” And much more.
Once you identify your strengths, you can leverage them, and pull on them. Offer to do something not simply because it’s a part of your job, but because you enjoy it.
PUSH THROUGH TENDENCIES TO BE NEGATIVE
Mark points out that while this exploration of identifying natural strengths may seem easy, it is not.
“On balance, we generally have quite a good view of where we suck, but we have less of a good view of excelling. Especially if you’re from certain countries which have a bit of a shyer disposition that defaults to, ‘Oh, that would be seen as bragging and I don’t want to show off. What will people think?’”
He shares an example of a term used in the Nordics, “lagom”, which essentially means “to blend in” and conditions people to keep their heads down; to not stand out.
I’m from America, as you wonderful loyal readers already know, which is boisterously individualistic and competitive.
But moving here to Ireland, I encountered plenty of the “don’t put yourself above your station” mentality. Please remember: understanding and playing to your strengths is not the same as showing off.
If you can’t identify your strengths on your own, Mark recommends asking 10 people in your network – personal and professional – to send stories of when they’ve seen you at your best. “When you read through the stories, you’ll see patterns of your strengths emerge.”
“For example, there was a team I worked with recently,” Mark says, “and one of the participants, in her own words, was not great at sales but she was very good at executing. So, she enlisted the talents of her team members around communication and brought them into the sales process which led her to close three deals which she wouldn’t otherwise have done.”
She understood her strengths and recognised others’ strengths. More productive teams will commit to identifying and combining strengths – for the greater win.