One of the lessons learnt during my programme at LBS is about identifying my strengths and weaknesses and rightly harnessing the strengths of others in my areas of weakness. I do not have to be the best at everything, I only need to be smart enough to identify those with capabilities in areas where I am less skilled or qualified. This way, I can leverage their competencies to produce results that no single individual could produce working alone.
For example, the various courses that we take at the school require different type of strengths. We are taking four courses in the first semester of our Year 1; out of which, two require strong numeracy skills, one require a combination of numeracy and literature skills while the last course require very strong level of literature skills. I realize that we are all given the platform to flourish on these courses while leveraging the strengths of one another in areas where we are not particularly gifted to act at the topmost level of mastery.
Do we then give up saying that once a particular subject is not in our area of strength, then we should not bother to learn and improve ourselves, definitely not. We are only encouraged to quickly recognize our innate abilities and consciously work towards putting ourselves at points of advantage by making good use of our colleagues’ areas of core competencies while we also offer to help them in areas where we are more gifted. You simply realize that no one is an island. While some people may appear gifted in many areas, we are all interdependent on the other person to maximize our joint potentials.
For instance, when given a task in subjects such as Corporate Financial Accounting, we often have the people with Finance or Accounting background take the lead in discussions and solving of the problems with respect to numbers. In addition, those amongst us that are gifted in writing will contribute in the area of putting the final solution in written forms for onward submission.
In life, great leaders are not necessarily the smartest, they are in some cases perhaps the weakest in terms of intelligence quotience but possess very strong emotional and people skills. Like the saying goes, people are our greatest assets. We can’t do much without people, and we are wired differently to make the world a better place by using our innate skills to complement that of every other person around us and across the world.
True greatness requires focusing on the outcome and recognizing the fact that putting several good heads together will always bring solution to any form or manner of problem and eventually yield profitable outcomes that will benefit the whole group in the end.
In summary, the following should be considered when trying to acquire knowledge
- Don’t run alone, learning works best in a community setting
- Bring what you have to the table, no matter how little
- Appreciate the process and trust the power of your commitment to learning.
I will begin to reflect more on the specific subjects that we are being taught in my Executive MBA programme in subsequent posts.
See you next time.
