Many of today's top companies are so fixated on what their competition is doing that they often forget to focus on their single most important competitive advantage: their strengths! Whether it is a fortune 500 company looking to come up with their next big idea, or a junior level analyst looking for ways to provide more value and move up the corporate ladder, too many companies and individuals alike are trying to get ahead by playing to the competition. Using your strengths to create a competitive advantage might sound obvious, but focusing on the internal measures of excellence that come naturally is surprisingly too often the first thing that gets overlooked or brushed aside.
Strengths, by definition, are "strong attributes or inherent assets". Companies and organizations have them, much the same as any individual has them. Strengths are generally not chosen by their owner, nor is shedding or forgetting them as easy as it sounds. Strengths tend to hang around and show up whether you like it or not. As a result, spending anytime trying to suppress them, or believing that your weaknesses will out-perform your strengths will rarely if ever provide the same value or return on investment that spending that same time playing to your strengths will. So why fight it? Whether you are a large organization, or a single individual, knowing how to use your strengths brings an entirely new meaning to what it means to work and have fun doing it. Why aren't more companies and individuals recognizing and embracing their strengths, growing them, and using them to their advantage? Knowing how to play to your strengths might just be the most under-used secret weapon in business today!
Organizations, much like individuals are so often unaware of their strengths, let alone know what steps are needed to use them to their advantage. In fact, strengths are such a mystery to most, that it usually takes an outside eye, third party, or hired consultant to recognize and identify individuals 'or organizations' strengths.
The negative pressure that is self-generated when focusing on the competition rather than your own internal DNA, often causes even the most established of organizations to forget what originally made them great. It is this loss of focus and downward spiral that enables companies and individuals to travel down a dark road leading them further from what will eventually help to create a long-term, sustainable, competitive advantage; their strengths.
If we look at what has happened with AOL in the past few years, we can see that their core strength of connecting people has gotten lost among all the effort to keep up with their strong search engine neighbors.
Amy Edmondson, famed Harvard Business School Chair and Professor of Leadership and Management, coined the term "Cultures of Innovation" to illustrate the importance of companies playing to their own strengths. Edmondson's framework demonstrates that all organizations, depending on their core DNA and strengths, are deeply rooted in one of four pre-defined cultures: explore, invent, execute, or apply. This theory posits that the true essence and success of a company, (that which has made them great or will make them great in the future) will inevitably come from their core strengths and ability to figure out what innovation looks like in their 'culture of innovation'. Organizations will have far more sustainable success if they are able to recognize and understand how to exploit their strengths.
Apple is a cliche but often-great example of recent success. Do you think Steve Jobs sits around looking at their PC competitors, saying that he wishes to be more like their competition in order to steal market share? Or prior to the development of the iPhone, looking at how successful RIM Blackberry has been in customer acquisition, and wishing Apple could innovate more like Blackberry? Of course not! So why is it that so many business leaders who feel the pressure to be better than their competition, strive to make their own companies, products, or process more like their competition? What does it take to be able to look inside your own organization, and create a unique vision that only you and your organization, with your DNA and strengths can carry out?
Being able to recognize your strengths is an integral piece of the pie, not only for success, but also for enjoying the journey. Getting the opportunity to do what you are naturally good at will dramatically increase the chances that you or your company will be successful. A study done by the Gallup Group recently published that only 17 % of people get to exercise their strengths at work on a regular basis. Why are more people not taking the initiative and setting themselves up for success?
Why not figure out how to beat the competition, by discovering what innovation can look like using your passions and natural strengths? You might find that beating the competition can be more fun and easier to achieve once you put the leg-work into discovering how to make your passions and strengths work for you. So the next time you or your company is charged with creating something new and innovative, start by looking inwards to your own strengths.
