Strengths and weaknesses

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my strengths and weaknesses.  As a business owner I had to try and be good at everything initially....well.....because there was no one else to do it.  As my business grew I realized there were things I was simply no good at.  I tried to have the business make enough money so I could pay someone who was good at those things.  The challenge is that a lot of people think they are good at most things. So even our first few book keepers did not work out so well.  When we asked them to do more elaborate financial calculations they said, "no problem".  We found out later that they were not really very good at those things.  Unfortunately it cost us money and time to fix the problems those people created.  We really had no one to blame but ourselves because we had not taken the time to figure this out up front.  We eventually got a system in place that helped us evaluate our employees for their strengths and put them in the places where they could make the most difference.

I find that knowing my own strengths and weaknesses is a life long endeavor.  I'm constantly rediscovering things that I'm no good at and things that I'm great at.  This week I met with a good friend of mine and he gave me some advice.  He said to look at those who I work with and notice the areas where they are strong an where they are weak.  Don't ask them to do things that are in their areas of weakness.......that makes sense.  I guess it just took me till 41 to figure that out.  This has been very helpful.

I think this applies when it comes to finding technical support as well.  There a lot of people out there who will tell you they can handle just about anything. My experience has been that there are very few who can pull this off effectively.  The best engineers know where they are great and when to ask for help.  They continue to learn and grow to expand their expertise but they also know when to call in a specialist.  I guess thats where I can really help my customers out.  By helping them get the right team in place to address their business technology needs.  By making sure we have the right people working on the right issues.  I hope these thoughts are helpful to you in whatever challenges your facing right now.

Thanks for Reading  ~pz