Guiming Xu
1. Maximizer
Once youhave identified your own greatest talents, stay focused on them. Refine yourskills. Acquire new knowledge. Practice. Keep working toward strength in a fewareas.
Develop aplan to use your most powerful talents outside of work. In doing so, considerhow your talents relate to the mission in your life and how they might benefit yourfamily or the community.
Problemsolving might drain your energy and enthusiasm. Look for a restorative partnerwho can be your chief troubleshooter and problem solver. Let that person knowhow important your partnership is to your success.
Study success.Deliberately spend time with people who have discovered their strengths. Themore you understand how marshaling strengths leads to success, the more likelyyou will be to create success in your own life.
Explain toothers why you spend more time building on great talent rather than fixingweaknesses. Initially, they might confuse what you are doing with complacency.
Don’t letyour Maximizer talents be stifled by conventional wisdom, which says you shouldfind what is broken and fix it. Identify and invest in the parts of yourorganization or community that are working. Make sure that most of yourresources are spent in the build-up and build-out of these pockets ofexcellence.
Keep yourfocus on long-term relationships and goals. Many make a career out of pickingthe low-hanging fruit of short-term success, but your Maximizer talents will bemost energized and effective as you turn top potential into true and lastinggreatness.
See if youcan make some of your weaknesses irrelevant. For example, find a partner,devise a support system, or use one of your stronger talents to compensate forone of your weaker ones.
Seek rolesin which you are helping people succeed. In coaching, managing, mentoring, orteaching roles, your focus on strengths will prove particularly beneficial toothers. Because most people find it difficult to describe what they do best,start by arming them with vivid descriptions.
Devise waysto measure your performance and the performance of others. These measures willhelp you spot strengths, because the best way to identify a strength is to lookfor sustained levels of excellent performance.
2. Learner
Refine howyou learn. For example, you might learn best by teaching; if so, seek outopportunities to present to others. You might learn best through quietreflection; if so, find this quiet time.
Developways to track the progress of your learning. If there are distinct levels orstages of learning within a discipline or skill, take a moment to celebrateyour progression from one level to the next. If no such levels exist, createthem for yourself (e.g., reading five books on the subject or making threepresentations on the subject).
Be acatalyst for change. Others might be intimidated by new rules, new skills, ornew circumstances. Your willingness to soak up this newness can calm theirfears and spur them to action. Take this responsibility seriously.
Seek rolesthat require some form of technical competence. You will enjoy the process ofacquiring and maintaining this expertise.
As far aspossible, shift your career toward a field with constantly changingtechnologies or regulations. You will be energized by the challenge of keepingup.
Because youare not threatened by unfamiliar information, you might excel in a consultingrole (either internal or external) in which you are paid to go into newsituations and pick up new competencies or languages quickly.
Researchsupports the link between learning and performance. When people have theopportunity to learn and grow, they are more productive and loyal. Look forways to measure the degree to which you and others feel that your learningneeds are being met, to create individualized learning milestones, and toreward achievements in learning.
At work,take advantage of programs that subsidize your learning. Your organization maybe willing to pay for part or all of your instructional coursework or forcertifications. Ask your manager for information about scholarships and othereducational opportunities.
Honor yourdesire to learn. Take advantage of adult educational opportunities in yourcommunity. Discipline yourself to sign up for at least one new academic oradult learning course each year.
Timedisappears and your attention intensifies when you are immersed in studying orlearning. Allow yourself to “follow the trail” by scheduling learning sessionsduring periods of time that will not be interrupted by pressing engagements.
3. Achiever
Select jobsthat allow you to have the leeway to work as hard as you want and in which youare encouraged to measure your own productivity. You will feel challenged andalive in these environments.
As anachiever, you relish the feeling of being busy, yet you also need to know whenyou are “done.” Attach timelines and measurement to goals so that effort leadsto defined progress and tangible outcomes.
Remember tobuild celebration and recognition into your life. Achievers tend to move on tothe next challenge without acknowledging their successes. Counter this impulseby creating regular opportunities to enjoy your progress and accomplishments.
Your drivefor action might cause you to find meetings a bit boring. If that’s the case,appeal to your Achiever talents by learning the objectives of each meetingahead of time and by taking notes about progress toward those objectives duringthe meeting. You can help ensure that meetings are productive and efficient.
Continueyour education by attaining certifications in your area or specialty inaddition to attending conferences and other programs. This will give you evenmore goals to achieve and will push your existing boundaries of accomplishment.
You do notrequire much motivation from others. Take advantage of your self-motivation bysetting challenging goals. Set a more demanding goal every time you finish aproject.
Partnerwith other hard workers. Share your goals with them so they can help you to getmore done.
Countpersonal achievements in your scoring “system.” This will help you direct yourAchiever talents toward family and friends as well as toward work.
More workexcites you. The prospect of what lies ahead is infinitely more motivating thanwhat has been completed. Launch initiatives and new projects. Your seeminglyendless reserve of energy will create enthusiasm and momentum.
Make surethat in your eagerness to do more at work, you do not skimp on quality. Createmeasurable outcome standards to guarantee that increased productivity ismatched by enhanced quality.
4. Futuristic
Chooseroles in which you can contribute your ideas about the future. For example, youmight excel in entrepreneurial or start-up situations.
Take timeto think about the future. The more time you spend considering your ideas aboutthe future, the more vivid your ideas will become. The more vivid your ideas,the more persuasive you will be.
Seekaudiences who appreciate your ideas for the future. They will expect you tomake these ideas a reality, and these expectations will motivate you.
Find afriend or colleague who also has powerful Futuristic talents. Set aside an houreach month for “future” discussions. You can push each other to greater heightsof creativity and vividness.
Partnerwith someone with strong Activator talents. This person can remind you that youdo not discover the future, you create it with the actions you take today.
You inspireothers with your images of the future, yet your thinking may be too expansivefor them to comprehend. When you articulate your vision, be sure to describethe future in detail with vivid words and metaphors. Make your ideas andstrategies more concrete via sketches, step-by-step action plans, or mock-upmodels so that others can readily grasp your intent.
Surroundyourself with people who are eager to put your vision into motion. They willfeel exhilarated by your Futuristic talents, and you can harness their energyto propel the vision toward reality.
Be preparedto provide logical support for your futuristic thinking. Your exciting visionsof future success will be best received when rooted in real possibility.
YourFuturistic talents could equip you to be a guide or coach for others. Unlikeyou, they might not be able to easily see over the horizon. If you catch avision of what someone could be or do, don’t assume that he or she is aware ofthat potential. Share what you see as vividly as you can. In doing so, you mayinspire someone to move forward.
Musingabout the future comes naturally to you. Read articles about technology,science, and research to gain knowledge that will fuel your imagination.
5. Discipline
Don’thesitate to check as often as necessary to ensure that things are right. Youfeel an urge to do it anyway, and soon others will come to expect it from you.
Accept thatmistakes might depress you. Precision is a core part of who you are; however,you must find ways to move through these moments of annoyance to preventbecoming discouraged.
Recognizethat others may not be as disciplined as you are. More than likely, theirclumsy process will frustrate you, so try to look beyond it, and focus on theirresults, not on their process.
Exactitudeis your forté; you enjoy poring over details. Seek opportunities to perusecontracts, important communications, or financial documents for errors. You cansave yourself and others from making costly mistakes and looking foolish.
Increasingefficiency is one of your hallmarks. You are a perfectionist at heart. Discoversituations in which time or money is being wasted because of inefficiency, andcreate systems or procedures to improve efficiency.
You notonly create order, you probably also crave it in the form of a well-organizedspace. To completely free your Discipline talents, invest in furniture andorganization systems that enable you to have “a place for everything andeverything in its place.”
Timelinesmotivate you. When you have a task to complete, you like to know the deadlineso you can plan your schedule accordingly. Apply your Discipline talents byoutlining the step-by-step plan you will use. Others will appreciate your cuesbecause they will help keep everyone “on task.”
Others may confuse your Discipline talents with rigidity. Help them understand that your discipline helps you pack more effectiveness into a day — often because you prioritize your time. When working with others who are not as disciplined, ask them to clarify deadlines so you can adjust your workload to accommodate their requests.
Seek outroles and responsibilities that have structure.
Create routines that require you to systematically follow through. Over time, people will come to appreciate this kind of predictability.
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