The Timeshare Beat: Jerry Sikes; With Regard to Strengths

"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up." -Booker T. Washington-

My Pop was always supportive of all my undertakings and way to many time had his patience tested by my tomfoolery. Never lacking for energy and always looking for something to test myself against, I barely survived childhood. As an example: Pop was a bird hunter and kept a double-barreled shotgun for quail, dove and pheasant seasons. He was always very careful with the gun and kept it well out of reach of these busy hands, however, he did make one mistake. I knew where he kept the shells. I guess I was about five and a half when I took a block of wood, a nail, a hammer and a shell into the kitchen. I emptied all the shot and took the wad and black powder out of the shell and cut off the paper casing leaving only the brass and the cap. I set this on the wood block and struck the cap with the nail and hammer. Luckily I only lost part of one finger when the cap rebounded off the wood block. Pop just smiled, poured a little kerosene on the wound and told me to clean up my mess. Early on Pop had identified one of my strengths and use to say that I would never have a problem with the "All Work and No Play Makes for a Dull Boy" proverb.

At SCR we are very proud of our associate review program, which is designed to draw attention to the areas where an associate has superior performance as well as to identify those areas where improvements are encouraged. We often reference these as strengths and weaknesses. During the counseling meeting with the associate specific ideas are discussed pertaining to actions which provide the opportunity to improve performance in the areas where weaknesses were identified. The concept is that if we all work to improve our weaknesses then we will have measurable peaks in performance levels.

I was recently led to a book that provided some enlightenment in this area. That book made the following statements in the introduction area titled The Revolution:

"Most organizations are built on two flawed assumptions about people"

1. Each person can learn to be competent in almost anything.

2. Each person's greatest room for growth is in his or her area of greatest weakness.

Then this book provided a test so we could determine if our organization was based on those assumptions. The test asked that we look for the following characteristics:

Needless to say our organization at SCR exhibits all those characteristics and up to this point we (I) had been somewhat proud of it. The co-authors of this book then went right at my organization and me by indicating that what we were so proud of was just "Damage Control". That as long as our organization operated in this manner our associates and we would never achieve the higher and more consistent levels of performance that we were seeking.

My Pop is not around anymore, however I'm sure he is still aware that I don't like being told that I am wrong and that I really don't like actually being wrong. He knows that I'm still always looking for something to test myself against and in this situation he would again say: "Pour a little kerosene on the wound and clean up your mess."

The book indicated that to break out of the "weakness spiral" and to begin the change process we must change our assumptions about people. They indicate that the world's best managers make the following two assumptions:

1. Each person's talents are enduring and unique.

2. Each person's greatest room for growth is in the area of his or her greatest strength.

Now that's a concept worth exploring........

In April of this year the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) will again hold its Spring Convention and Expo in Las Vegas. The theme of the 2002 affair is "Expedition 2002: Beyond Boundaries." If you did not receive the direct mail piece concerning this opportunity a visit to http://www.arda.org/ will provide all the details.

Included in those details is the fact that at the convention's General Session on April 15 the keynote speaker will be Marcus Buckingham a senior consultant with The Gallup Organization. A highly sought-after speaker and consultant, Buckingham has spent the last 10 years focusing on how to find, keep, and harness the talent of the best employees. Buckingham co-authored the groundbreaking book First, Break All the Rules— written with fellow Gallup Organization consultant Curt Coffman.

In Buckingham's follow-up book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, he proposes another radical theory of human resources: rather than tinkering with employees' faults, and training to fill gaps in existing skills, we should be focusing on people's innate strengths.

Over the last 30 years The Gallup Organization has conducted a systematic study of excellence where it could be found. During this process they conducted a little over two million interviews. In all these different professions they found a tremendous diversity of knowledge, skills, and talent. But as expected they soon began to detect patterns. They kept looking and listening, and gradually extracted from this wealth of testimony thirty-four patterns, or “themes,” as they called them. These thirty-four are the most prevalent themes of human talent and are the basis for Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book details the concepts and presents a way to measure yourself on these thirty-four themes. This is via a questionnaire with the descriptive title StrengthFinder. This process will reveal your five dominant themes of talent, your signature themes. These signature themes are your most powerful sources of strength. As a part of Mr. Buckingham’s keynote speech he will demonstrate the concept using profiles gleamed from ARDA members. If you would like to find out more about this opportunity and possibly participate in the study, just click on either of the text links below:

Discover Your Strengths!

Tell me more...

Final Thought

My StrengthFinder profile indicated that one of my Signature Themes (strengths) was that of a Learner, and the others were Input, Intellection, Activator and Woo. I love to learn, I am inquisitive, I like to think, I want to get started and I enjoy the challenge of meeting new people. I guess that this was information that I already knew, however the book and the profile helped put them in a different perspective.

I would encourage anyone to buy the book and join the general ARDA survey. You will have fun and learn something new. See you all in April beyond the boundaries at "Expedition 2002