Give voice to your potential!

Recently I was working with a client who had just accepted his first director level role. He had the thrill of a promotion, a fresh start in a new company and day to day reality had not yet set in. This should have been a moment of “peak career happiness”. And yet, he was full of doubts about his capacity to do the job.

I was intrigued. So I asked him, "Why did they hire you?" Silence. Followed by "I don’t know, I never even thought/ dared to ask."

This was after 7 interviews, psychometrics, references and all the usual hoops involved in a corporate selection process. Since then, I ask all my clients that question. And so far, not one person has been able to answer me with real conviction and clarity. And note, these are senior people. It implies not only that they did not ask, but that the recruiting side (their new boss and HR) didn’t tell. What a waste!

At one level I´m relieved – it means that I was not alone. When I think back on all the performance and career discussions that I had, I honestly don’t recall one conversation where the focus was about what I was good at, uniquely good at… and an interest to develop that. And as a boss myself, I focused on “raising the floor” with my team with the worthy intent of preparing everyone to be future General Managers, e.g. “finance training for non-finance people”, rather than nurturing people's unique edge.

And that links back to the message of Ken Robinson in the most watched TED talk of all time, “Schools kill Creativity”, that our education system is targeted to the lowest common denominator. But today, with the world of work being transformed by artificial intelligence and digitalisation, the focus needs to shift to creativity and fresh thinking, the skills in shortest supply in organisations.

So, how to give voice to potential?

The Irish comedian Dylan Moran has an interesting take on potential, he says “…that is something you should leave absolutely alone! You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you know – you always have much less than you think”.

And he´s right about one thing, it´s an area most people are not comfortable with. But when you flip the earlier question of "why did they hire you?" to “why should they hire you?” which all of us will face at some point, you´ll realise that following Dylan´s advice isn't an option.

So the next time you start a new role or sit down for a performance evaluation, do something different! Give development areas a break, and focus on your unique strengths, and seek out opportunities to develop them further.

If you´d like to give VOICE to your potential, get in touch.