All of us have tremendous personal and professional strengths – with a few weaknesses sprinkled in along the way. It’s how we handle both that allows us to fulfill life’s potential with our unique talents or less so…

 It really starts with those six inches or so between our ears. Instead of spending 80 percent of our time trying to improve our strengths, most of us typically spend an unhealthy percentage trying to “scale Mt. Everest…”

One of my fantastic colleagues, Doug Lennick, highlighted some very enlightened research Kim Cameron, a professor at the University of Michigan, has completed.  Professor Cameron’s “Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance” book, which I suggest all of you should read for professional and personal purposes, highlights many possible life-changing findings and breakthrough strategies.

Among them, are his four Ps – positive climate, positive relationships, positive communications and positive meanings.

Each one relates to how successful we see ourselves, and how others see us. This research definitely has synergy with my resiliency control and strengths models I’ve talked about many times before. That is, the three life actions we can truly control in our lives – our attitude, our values and how we relate to people.

Over the next few months, I will occasionally write articles about his four Ps as they relate to our career and life resiliency.

Let’s start out with focusing on our strengths to nurture positive (and resilient) relationships at work and in life.

As I mentioned, one of our life actions we can ultimately control is the way we treat others and the strengths we show. And this is where Professor Cameron’s “”Positive Relationships” of building energy networks and reinforcing strengths definitely come to the forefront 

As very conscientious individuals in work and in life, we want to feel great about ourselves without waiting for the next crisis to hit.

A study has shown that we can improve our strengths by up to 30 percent. If we use the same amount of time to improve their weaknesses, we can only get less than a 10 percent improvement rate.

I have found my greatest life and work success in the corporate world and life in general to focus on what I do best. I know that is easier said than done with expectations of others.

When I was asked a few years ago to create layoff communications plans that would affect my work friends – and ultimately me – the first draft was not seen as not “hard enough.”

I took the critique and used my resilient strengths of adaptability and patience to re-craft a more direct yet sensitive plan that was implemented.

The workplace and life point: Unless you lack some core skills, I suggest not worrying as much your weaknesses. Especially in your working world, I suggest spending at least 80 percent of the time demonstrating and improving your strengths. 

It also is much easier to keep focusing on your strengths if you have very resilient and positive energy networks (as Dr. Cameron highlights) around you. As far as your resilience, this means trying to avoid as much as possible those folks who may see the glass half empty and more than not, have reasons why something won’t work.

Sounds easier to say than do. By establishing, though, positive relationships with others, you can weed out those who are probably not healthy for you to stick around – unless absolutely necessary.

A fantastic business example has happened to me very recently as I have been overcoming some fairly significant health issues stemming from my lifelong physical disability (Cerebral Palsy).

To increase my resiliency programming reach around the world even more, I recently joined Lennick Aberman Group (LAG), a worldwide leader in corporate services for behavioral advice, emotional intelligence and moral intelligence – www.lennickaberman.com.

Unfortunately, right after joining, my highly arthritic back went nuts on me. I had several significant falls leaving me with concussions and being paralyzed for a short time.

My great friends at LAG, which is one of my positive energy networks, came through to say time after time “focus on yourself and don’t worry about anything at work…we are 100 percent behind you.” And they meant it!

In addition to my wonderful family and friends, such a positive energy network at work has allowed me to continue using my creative strengths with resiliency such as this article example. If I had a less compassionate and enthusiastic energy around me, my creativity would have been stalled because of worry (a weakness of mine) about what’s next.

As I have tried to do, I’d suggest that you redouble your efforts to establish further “energy networks” around you. You, then, can focus most of your efforts on making your life and work strengths even greater knowing there is such positive and resilient support around you. 

This will make you more content, your family happier, and show work colleagues your tremendous and unique strengths on all fronts. Such is managing those six inches the best way for you…J 

It’s such a resilient pleasure talking with you again this week. Please visit my web site for my latest resiliency e-books for your work and personal lives – www.resiliencyfirst.com. I hope you are having a resilient day!

Photo By: Spracks

Many of us spend too much time on what we could have done, or thinking about our perceived personal and professional weaknesses.

To stay resilient in these challenging times, all of us need to focus on our strengths as a person, spouse, parent, friend and co-worker. This is especially true for many of us who have been seriously affected by recent layoffs, which are unfortunately gaining speed in our country today.

Adapting to new challenges always means looking at ways we can be a better person. But focusing on the past and any weakness(es) you see in yourself will diminish the fantastic person that you are everyday.

That is why this week I encourage you to think about one strength you see in yourself and how this positively affects your life. In fact, when you wake up in the mornings this week, let’s all try to remember this strength and the good people that we are.

Resiliency and adaptability is sometimes putting the past in perspective and creating a sense of future hope. Identifying your strengths will highlight the terrific assets you bring everyday to yourself, family and friends.

I heard someone say once: “You can’t always fix your weaknesses but you can definitely improve on your strengths. Focusing too much on weaknesses will expend far more needed resilient energy than continually showing the world your strengths.

Highlighting these strengths will allow each of us to tackle the variety of daily issues we face – and the uncertainty all of us may have in this economic perfect storm.