If you’ve ever taken a StrengthsFinder test (or talked to literally anyone who’s into strengths-based anything), you’re probably familiar with the argument that we should focus on honing in on a few key strengths as opposed to investing equally into many different areas in at attempt to become well-rounded.
What’s more valuable and/or cost-effective for a business—hiring one person who does a bunch of stuff kind-of well? Or hiring three different people who each do their individualized jobs exceptionally well?
I’m not here to give one definitive answer to that question because I believe it ultimately comes down to each individual business and where it’s at in its growth process. However, I did have a realization today that made me have more appreciation for the well-rounded argument, which seems to be less popular (especially in strengths-based circles).
Growing up, I had the opportunity (read: was forced at gunpoint) to take piano lessons up until ninth grade. I can’t say I loved them (or even semi-enjoyed them), but I had to finish out the piano lessons before I was allowed to take guitar lessons.
The idea was that learning how to play the piano results in the most basic, essential, musically transferable set of skills (or something like that). And it did work—having that strong base of musical knowledge made me a better dancer and made learning the guitar so much easier and more enjoyable later on.
However, playing the piano itself was never an extreme passion of mine, and I would definitely not call it a strength. I hated practicing and only started enjoying the process of playing years later, once I was out of lessons and had enough distance to actually want to play for fun. Either way, I was never going to be a professional at it.
All those hours spent on something that I’d never intently pursue again in my life. Was it wasted time?
Today I helped the little girl I nanny practice her piano lesson. It was fun. She does really well for herself and music makes so much more sense to me now that I’m not learning it for the first time. I was able to explain a couple things, we worked away at a few tricky parts, and we were able to see visible improvement over the course of the practice session.
I didn’t think anything of it at all until her mom mentioned to me later how appreciative she was of the whole process. The daughter has grown outside the mom’s realm of musical knowledge, making it difficult for the mom to help the daughter with her struggles. Thus, my hour of minor help was able to make a significant impact.
I’m never going to be a professional pianist. That’s pretty much guaranteed at this point. However, that’s not to say that I can’t use my basic music theory knowledge to add value to somebody else’s life.
In this case, it totally makes sense for the mom to hire one nanny who can also help her daughter dance and practice the piano, as opposed to hiring three different, specialized, and much more expensive people to fill these different areas. And because the daughter’s needs are within the reach of my abilities, my basic knowledge is actually incredibly valuable.
The point of this is not at all my amazingly general music and dance teaching skills. Rather, it’s the idea that you don’t have to be a Specialized Professional in a certain area in order to use that skill or knowledge to provide true value to someone’s life and/or business.
If you are able to sufficiently fill a need with your less-than-professional-level skill set (even if it takes a little longer or isn’t as flashy as it would be coming from a professional), you’re still adding immense value to the situation. By doing this you’re saving your boss the time and money they’d need to spend figuring out other options.
So who cares if you never become the next world-famous concert pianist? Use that ninth grade-level knowledge to teach an eight year old some scales.
Don’t let your random experiences and skills go to waste just because they’re not in your Top Five Strengths. They can still be valuable somewhere, to someone, for something.
Embrace your beautiful multifaceted-ness, you!