Assign Work by Strengths

What do you do if your top sales person, the person who brings in millions of dollars in revenue, keeps losing sales because that person cannot organize their paperwork? That person is a 27 on the 10 point scale for sales and a “zero” for getting the sales forms filled out right. I expect most employers would constantly remind that sales person to fill in the forms and maybe threaten to reduce their commissions. Basically, the employer would try to “fix” the “broken” sales person. I wouldn’t. I would hire the best form-filler I could and pair that person with my best sales person.

Where is the profit in crushing the spirit of the perfect sales agent to get that person to fill out some forms? Clearly, the sales agent has the strengths necessary to garner huge sales and is weak in organization. Thinking in terms of solving problems by augmenting the weaknesses of one person with the strengths of another makes sense. Is that not what makes a great team?

A team of people who look, think, and act the same are at risk of arriving at a solution with gaping flaws. Everybody approaches the problem from the same perspective and nobody in the group offers the critical “What if?” questions that force the team to examine the problem from different angles. The team made up of people with a variety of strengths benefits from the inevitable “What about…?” questions that are followed by a statement of “Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

Strengths go beyond perspectives. The task that drains the energy and stresses out one team member could be done in minutes with enthusiasm by another team member. There are times when a team member needs to learn a new skill or try something new to at least appreciate what goes into getting that job done. Many employers want cross-trained employees to mitigate the risk of losing a team member. But is your goal as the employer to be able to replace any person in your office with any other person in your office on a moment’s notice?

People need to be cross-trained only to the point that their cross-training gets you through a temporary term during which the efforts of one team member are absent. Either that person is on leave or you will fill the position with a replacement within a few weeks.

Beyond that level of cross-training, you want to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of a team. The people on a team of software developers will have different strengths than the people on a team of elementary school teachers. If this is true, then it stands to reason the people on the team of software developers each have unique strengths that taken together make for a highly efficient team. The whole is more valuable than the parts.