Leo Messi a 5-time FIFA Ballon d’Or winner, 4-time Champions League winner and 7-time La Liga winner was once banned from playing football because he was too “small”.
Imagine if Messi and his parents have given up the dream of playing professional football. Today Real Madrid would be king of La Liga with Barcelona playing second fiddle. May be and just may be, Sir Alex Ferguson would have won his third and fourth Champions League with Manchester United in Rome (2009) and in London (2012). Thank God that Messi pursued his dreams.
In the definition of former Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar and his colleague Angus Ridgway ex-McKinsey Head of Leadership Development, Messi is a 10X leader (a Jedi master). He achieved this Jedi master status by using his strengths, the “S” of the acronym SHARP model. Strengths consist of two components: one’s passion and natural talents.
Passion refers to career interests and motivation. Things that excites you! In Messi’s case, we can see that he lives, breathes and eats football from a very young age. Football was his life. But that’s not enough tobe a 10x leader. One must also have the natural talent: ability, skills or competencies. In Messi’s case, his short, strong legs allow him to excel in short bursts of acceleration while his quick feet enable him to retain control of the ball when dribbling at speed. His former Barcelona manager, Pep Guardiola, once stated, “Messi is the only player that runs faster with the ball than he does without.”
Messi harnessed his strengths and didn’t try to fix his weakness. Some 634 games for club and country later, Messi has scored 532 goals and 204 assists to his name and still counting. Mind you had Messi been playing in a typical English center forward, a position that does not leverage his strength Messi would probably do ok. He would have had an average career in other words an average leader.
Similarly, HR and managers alike must learn to discover and recognize the inherent strengths of their employees. Companies would still need to be aware of employees’ weaknesses. Rather than spending scarce resources and time to improve weakness, companies should encourage employees to play to their strengths everyday.
To that end, companies must assist employees to discover their strengths. Do not assume that everyone is aware. There are many reliable tools available in the market to do just that. Or if you want to go old school, ask fellow colleagues and managers to share stories in which employees have excelled. Ask them to identify what did the employee do well to achieve the goal. Next step is to encourage employees to use that inherent strength in everyday both at work and personal life. Employees’ performance and productivity will be way off the charts. Instead of feeling tired, employees will be full of energy and happy! According to Gallup, employees who know their strengths are more productive by 7.8%, and teams that focus on strengths every day have 12.5% greater productivity.
So fellow Jedi, start leveraging your strengths and you will notice the force within you!
Suvit Chansrichawla, next-generation HR consultant under the brand Serendipity&Co., partner of the Curve Group in Thailand.
