WORKING WITHIN: The Unknown Talents Within

Working Within with Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Do you know your talents specific to working with others? What I have found to be true is these 3 facts:

• Many individuals do not know their talents
• Many individuals do not leverage their talents (think strengths) within the workplace
• Many individuals turn their non-talents into weaknesses and then focus on these weaknesses even if they are not related to their current role

Part of the reason is due to conditioning from the K-16 experience. People are almost trained to focus on what they do not do well. Remember all the emphasis in school about improving your weaknesses? How much time did your teachers invest to reinforce your strengths? Probably not as much when compared to the amount of time devoted to the development of your weaknesses.

This emphasis on weaknesses is truly backward. Let me ask one question: Why do winning sports’ teams win?

Do they win because of the collective weaknesses of their team members? Of course, not! They win because of the collective strengths of each team member.

Another reason for the lack of emphasis on talents is because many companies do not have:

• Current written job descriptions with written job performance benchmarks
• Process from which to close the gap between benchmarks and performance
• Proven assessment that looks to the talents instead of the personality
• Plan supported by written goals to align employee’s performance to the overall strategic action plan
• Understanding how employees make decisions and how those talents are involved in that decision making process

Imagine the possibilities if your employees and you as the CEO or business owner could isolate specific core talents or attributes ranging from Accountability for Others to Using Common Sense? Then be able to build effective team where decision making styles are balanced.

For example, how many times have you heard one employee complaining about being the only one doing anything on a seven (7) member team? The attitude of this employee could be potentially affecting the overall team’s performance. Then you learn through an assessment that this employee is truly the only one focused on getting things done while the other 6 members are busy thinking and feeling. Their decision making style is necessary for the team to work effectively yet the team is unbalanced results potentially in negative productivity. You bring the team together to discuss this information. Then you ask the team what do they need to do to improve the teams’ performance?

Human capital when not leveraged to its full potential is a significant waste and drains the bottom line. When companies begin to help their employees build stronger networks based upon each employee’s individual talents while understanding their decision making styles, the results can be truly amazing.


For more information, please visit Leanne's TNNW Bio.

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