Question 1:
In the second grade, I took an aptitude test that stated my biggest strength was working
backwards. In high school, my favorite assignment was picture prompts; where the teacher
would give us a picture and within a certain amount of time to come up with a story. I considered
this attribute to be a great personal strength of mine, up until college.
Before college, I filtered how I received and processed information by first figuring out what the
end result should be. College was different though; the end result wasn’t always given or was
something unique to each assignment. This led to a lot of struggles in my academic coursework,
often leading to me not understanding classes until finals, when the bigger picture would
become clear. That was the first time my biggest strength, became a huge blind spot in my
development as an adult and eventually a professional.
I struggled with that contradiction for a long time, well into my 30s. Who was I without my
greatest strength? Up until this class, I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was a breach of
my sensitive line. As I often try to act with the big picture in mind, this breach was further
reinforced when I occasionally ran afoul of the picture the University had in mind. For a time it
led me to not want to take chances and to just do what I’m told. No matter if my strength served
me well in 9 out of 10 situations, the 1 situation would loom the largest in my mind.
It was right around 30 when I realized I needed to work on how I approach and process things, I
had to do something about my cognitive style. In the podcast ‘When Strength Becomes
Weakness’, one of the guests describes how someone could unbalance themselves by focusing
on one area of the body, for instance the upper trunk, to build and neglect others, for instance
legs and core. Reviewing the text for this class, I realize I did that with my cognitive style. I
found one way to process information early on and stuck with it all my life to the exclusion of all
others.
I realized that in order to lead more effectively, my cognitive style needed to be more flexible. I
needed to find ways to not only process information differently, but also gather information
differently. Gathering information in different ways was the key step in shifting my style. Before, I
would only gather information in the most formal ways possible, but once I started talking to
colleagues and clients more informally, that is when I started being able to form a more
complete picture in my head. That led me back to my strength.
Adam Grant describes how strengths can turn into liabilities when overused or
misapplied. Identify one of your own professional or interpersonal strengths. Describe a
time when it helped you succeed — and a time when it created challenges. What lessons
can you draw for applying this strength more intelligently in leadership contexts?
Support your arguments with evidence from the podcast and other course materials.
In second grade, I was given an aptitude test that stated my greatest strength was working
backwards; seeing the end and figuring out how to get there. It served me well, especially in
creative tasks like picture prompts in high school. But in college, when the end goal was often
unclear or subjective, this strength became a liability. I struggled academically until finals, when
the “big picture” would finally come into focus.
In reading the text for this class, I realize my cognitive style leaned heavily towards the planning
style. This cognitive style was so ingrained that it became a blind spot. When it clashed with the
less flexible systems of the professional world, I found myself withdrawing and avoiding the risk
of being misaligned with the bigger picture of the organization. I now realize that this was a
breach of my “sensitive line,” which was eroding my confidence in my biggest strength. Leaving
me to question how I move forward in my career.
In Adam Grant’s podcast, a guest compares unbalanced cognitive development to overtraining
one muscle group. That was me, I over-relied on one way of thinking. Around age 30, I began
developing flexibility in how I process and gather information. Talking informally with colleagues,
rather than relying solely on structured inputs, helped me reconnect with my strength in a
healthier way. Leadership requires not just thinking differently, but listening differently. That shift
changed everything.
How can overusing a strength contribute to burnout, stress, or interpersonal tension at
work or school? Explain in terms of the General Model of Stress (chapter 2) and suggest
a self-care or boundary-setting practice that might help mitigate it.
The idiom, “too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing”, comes to mind when contemplating
the overuse of one’s strengths. During the podcast episode, Melinda Gates was given negative
feedback (anonymously) from employees who find her to be “too perfect”. While Gates
responded favorably to the feedback, not everyone would. Knowing that there is a colleague in
your professional life that sees your strength as a distinction can cause both anticipatory and
encounter stress.
If the person behind the feedback reveals themselves to you, what would your reaction be? Do
you change how you use your strength around that person? Will that lead to more stress around
underperforming at work? When you consider the fact that stress can lead to real and lasting
psychological and physiological damage, how a person answers these questions will greatly
impact how their outlook on work.
This is just one example of how overusing a strength can affect someone. In my opinion the
best way to mitigate your strengths being overused at work, is to use them in other ways outside
of work. Simply put, there is a finite amount of energy a person can spend in a day. Spending
some of that energy on external endeavors helps maintain balance, while mitigating stress by
doing something that brings you joy.
Adam Grant reflected on giving overly rational advice that stifled another person’s
decision-making process. Why does this occur? How can analytical thinkers adjust their
approach to better support creative or intuitive problem-solving in others (apply material
from chapter 3)?
I found this part of the podcast interesting as I have had some personal experience being in
Adam’s position. When you have been training new employees for as long as I have, you forget
that they are new employees and that things you teach them are hard-coded into their brains.
So of course, when things come along that are a little outside of the norm, my employees
struggled with trying to operate outside of those constraints. What I, and Adam, was doing can
be perceived as placing a compression conceptual block on our employees/students. Only the
constraints were not artificial. In Adam’s case, he used logic to hem his student into thinking the
way he thought. That stifles creative thinking and leaves little room for growth.
To fix this, I had to take a step back and re-evaluate our training. We needed to find a way to
allow our employees to think creatively to solve issues, while also having the base line of getting
the job done efficiently. So, during training I would perform the task once and then ask the
students how they would go about getting the same end result I did. As long as their tactics
didn’t break anything or create a dangerous situation, I allowed them to continue doing it their
own way. As a result, our efficiency increased significantly as the year went on.