ResearchGoddess

My new friend Scott Williamson over at Career Waymark wrote a neat post today titled “Work Smarter: Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses“. Very interesting take on how to be most productive in your job function. He says “so many people think they can do or get better at their job by trying to fix weaknesses and this is where they usually end up failing. Mostly because they’re trying to get better at something they don’t have an aptitude for or really enjoy.” This can be both a good and a bad thing. Some people would argue that you’ll never improve at your weak areas if you just ignore them; that you must persevere through some activities that you don’t like in order to be well rounded. Others (like me) would say that if you have an area of weakness in which one of your coworkers excels, then focus on what you each do best and you’ll have great team productivity.

Some would say that not working on your weaknesses is like favoring one arm or leg over the other when working out. But this is making the assumption that you, yourself, are the entire body. If you put this in more of a team perspective, each person could be considered a different part of the body, and by allowing each person to capitalize on their individual strengths you improve the overall strength of the body and thus create a balance of ‘muscle power’.

Personally, I think it’s good to at least have an understanding of different areas in your industry or job function so that you can respect the skill it takes to be good in this area or that. That doesn’t mean you have to become an expert at everything – just have enough knowledge of what it takes to be great so that you can appreciate those who have a deep interest in and work towards excellence in that area. That makes it easier to understand your team and work best together when you can capitalize on the different strengths.

Enjoy the article!

The following LinkedIn connection request I received recently is an example for the argument of responsible networking, because last time I checked, I was a female!

“Amybeth Hale,

I know you are a busy man but I was just browsing your profile and want to get linked with you. My name is xxx and I’m with ABC.

ABC is propelled by a team of efficient & committed individuals having acquired their professional acumen from IIT’s and Harvard’s, and have been offering IT services at relatively low effective cost with high development quality with an established on-time/on-budget delivery Guarantee.

Thanks in Advance,
xxx
Vice President, ABC Software
[email address removed]“

I’m not even sure what the purpose of this note is? It’s not asking for my expertise, or offering me a career opportunity at least from what I can gather? This is what I meant in an earlier post by taking the time to read the profile of the person you’re reaching out to I mean come on, I even have a photo up on my LinkedIn profile, and I think I look like a girl!

Hi everyone – I would like to make you aware that I will be changing the URL of this blog very soon, as in the next 2 weeks. For those of you who have subscribed via Feedburner, you’re cool. However, if you have subscribed using the spiresearch.blogspot.com address, make sure to bookmark your RSS using http://www.amybethhale.com/ now. This is where my RSS is automatically directed to. You can of course always subscribe by email by filling out the field to the right.

Please make sure to do this in the next two weeks as spiresearch.blogspot.com will no longer exist once the transition is made, and I’d hate for you do lose your feed! Thanks everyone!

As if Yahoo! wasn’t already getting enough bad press with its impending layoffs, today Terry Semel severed his last ties with Yahoo! as he officially stepped down from his role as Chairman. I can’t imagine that will do anything to ease the minds of the employees who are already unsure of whether or not they’ll have a job next month.

If you work at Yahoo!, it might be a good time to freshen up your resume, just in case…