7 Talent Myths That Can Burn Your Career (Part 2)

April 19, 2011 by Bryce Christiansen in Personal Growth, Professional Development, Understanding Yourself, WorkLife Balance

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Previously, we shared the first 3 Personal Talent Myths That Can Burn Your Career.  We learned from NASA, Michael Jordan, and more how not to develop our personal  talents.

Sometimes we are confused about where we should focus our time on developing our skills and expertise.  In some cases it’s much like the quote below.

Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways. – H. Jackson Brown

Without further delay let’s continue where we left off.

#4 Everything is Open for Delegation

I love Hollywood’s depiction of top level managers.  They live the dream, peons come running into their office first thing in the morning with their special order coffee, papers and bags are carried in the hands of servants, and no order, request, or delegation goes unanswered.  I always wondered, what do these “Super Bosses” even do?

In reality however, there are key tasks no one should delegate.  After all, you can’t delegate your pushups!

For example, continuous learning, leadership, politics, company culture, goal setting, and management are all things that need to be handled directly.

What are some things you should possibly not be delegating?

#5 Staying with the Pack is a Sure Path to Success

In the wild fish, zebras, and sheep, learn that their lives depend on staying with the pack.  Predators nip and bite at the group, trying to distract one into falling out of step with the rest.  No sooner are they a goner.

However, in the workplace, if you’re a sheep, you can be in danger.  When the economy fell the sheep were the first to go.

To illustrate, say your personal talent is in social media.  A pack follower would do exactly what thousands of others have already done and start calling themselves a social media expert, write some articles and share common knowledge on the topic.  Unless you are prepared to offer some truly unique strategies, insights, or leverage, it’s going to be tough to stand out from the pack, you’ll be replaceable.

Now sticking with your talent, what if you were to become the highest followed twitterer, blog, or facebook fan page on a hobby or skill of yours like home gardening, kite making, or pie baking.  Then you’ve not only shown you can build a following, you’ve shown you are unique, irreplaceable.

It’s more important to turn ordinary into extraordinary, then to blend in with the pack.

#6 Avoiding Workplace Politics is the Safe Route

Politics and workplace have a negative connotation in most minds, but that’s not the case for those who know how to succeed in this area.  I’m not talking about office gossip, but networking in the business and understanding how to create win/win situations for your superiors.

The majority of your co workers will let the office “happen” to them. What do I mean by that?  This means they work day by day letting layoffs, promotions, position, and team changes occur without any effort to influence them.

I made this mistake in the past.  My first job out of college was in sales, but not the fun kind of sales.  This was straight 100% cold call sales.  I was a passionate and excited college grad and the first full time career job I was wasting it by interrupting powerful people’s days to convince them that outsourcing IT was the way to go.  This wasn’t my true talent.  I had studied Marketing.  In college I worked with amazing companies like Dell, Microsoft, and Livescribe promoting and marketing their brands.

I was eager to apply those skills with this new small business, but never fought hard enough for it.  I would mention suggestions for improving the site, building traffic and leads, but they fell on deaf ears.  The year I worked there I was miserable, working outside of my exceptional talent zone, and feeling helpless to change.

If I went back now, I’d make it a priority to show the management how putting me in a role utilizing my exceptional talents would be a win/win for both of us.  They would have systems in place to generate IT outsourcing leads online, and I’d be working in an area I was passionate about.

Good politics is about networking in the organization and building win/win scenarios.  Don’t let the office just “happen” to you.

#7 Excelling in My Position Will Lead to My Promotion

Wrong! Promotions come after someone already has demonstrated the skills required.

I had the honor of working with the BEST teller for a very well known bank.  Her name was Mary Lou and she was the model for how teller’s should be.  She balanced every day, she exhumed charm and happiness, customers disregarded the wait time if it meant having Mary Lou serve them.  Yet the way Mary Lou was rewarded as an employee shocked me.

She was in her 60′s had worked there a decade and barely made a dime over what she started at. Her bonuses were meager and management took her for granted most days.  Everyday she would walk from her house to the bank since affording a car and insurance was out of the question.  When I left the bank I asked her why she wasn’t managing all these tellers? Her answer, she didn’t want to.

In order for Mary Lou to have gotten the promotion she would have had to stretch herself beyond the tasks of a teller.  She would have to help with personal banking, finding errors on balance sheets, keeping records of accounts and more.  No matter how great a job she was doing as a teller, she would never reach that next promotion until she started doing the work of the next job.

How Do I Find My Exceptional Talents?

We have a great tool to help people narrow down what it is they should be focusing on and what they should delegate.  Our Exceptional Talent Online tool looks at over 35 talents and how they rank in terms of strength and enjoyment.

Another helpful tool is our DISC and Behavior Assessment.  This assessment will give you a deep level of understanding of the strengths and weaknesses you have in regards to approaching challenges, influencing others, reacting to pace of environment, and rule bending.  You also can see what motivates you.  Download a free sample here.  If after flipping through this you would like one of your own, give us a call and we’d be happy to get you pricing 1-877-523-0212.

image courtesy of john curley