j e s r u s h . c o m

Career mentor extraordinaire Patty Azzarello recently made a suggestion to me that I take the ‘StrengthsFinder 2.0‘ assessment. This is a 175 question online timed test which asks questions like, “Which describes you more strongly: You get things done on time or You get things done correctly”. Painful! You want to choose both, but have to favor one or the other. The assessment was designed by Gallup and supposedly incorporates data from millions of people.

I’m notoriously skeptical of these kinds of things, especially after the Myers Briggs told me I was an introvert (my wife enjoyed a good laugh over that one). But I took the dive on Patty’s recommendation and have to say I’m really impressed. Out of the 34 “strengths”, the assessment tells you your five most prominent and this thing was spot on.

It said my strengths were that I’m:

Reading the descriptions of these was pretty amazing. They fit me to a “T”.

Why is this useful? Because so much of success both in your career and in your personal life depends on the extent to which you position yourself to take advantage of your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.

If you’re interested in taking the test yourself, you have to buy the accompanying book, which gives you an “access code” for the online test.

Patty Azzarello — career mentor extraordinaire — has a great post this week on the issue of liking your job. Does it really matter whether you like your job? And more importantly, if not, what can you do about it?

As usual, her advice is on target. If you don’t like your job, you need to “tune it” over time:

Imagine two different project managers in this same situation, with two different sets of gifts and dislikes. (Notice how the content of the business and the technology itself, don’t factor into either the problem or the solution.)

Person #1: You have a gift for analysis, and are a good writer. You do not like giving presentations or arguing with people. You hate your job because you have to deal with annoying people all the time.

Person #2: You have a gift for empathy and engaging and motivating people. You are not very detail oriented, and do not care to publish documents. You hate your job because you are stuck dealing with detailed project plans, and technology issues.

Tune your job to suit your strengths, and minimize your dislikes.

Person #1: Think about negotiating with your manager over time to take on a broader role to support all the project managers by improving the overall process, creating templates and workflows, managing data, etc. Build on your analysis and writing strengths, spend less time fighting dragons, and add real value to the business by creating infrastructure, process, and efficiencies.

Person #2: Ask for new projects that span organizations, need publicity, and have within them, more technical people and support you can rely on. Build on your people strengths, spend less time in the weeds, and help the business achieve significant outcomes on the biggest, messiest programs, that require lot’s of hand-holding and finesse with people.

People who like their jobs work harder so it benefits the organization as well!

It’s been said that 70-90% of project management is communication. So I was very interested when Patty Azzarello turned me on to a little book about communicating ideas called, ‘Made to Stick,’ by Chip and Dan Heath. The interest was justified.

This is one of the five best business books I’ve ever read. The Heath brothers take you on a wild romp through urban legends, advertising, and the mind’s jungle to tease out why some ideas “stick” with you and others don’t. Why is it that we remember the bathtub-ice-kidney-heist after hearing it one time, but can’t name the auto manufacturer in that TV commercial we’ve seen four times?

Because, Chip and Dan argue, the kidney heist is simple, unexpected, concrete, and emotional… They spend about 200 pages exploring these and other aspects of “sticky” messages while tying in some some remarkable research from academia.

Most importantly, they step you through the process of making your own messages more sticky. If this sounds like a marketing book, don’t be fooled: You will quickly find yourself applying this concepts to all kinds of communications… with your team… with your superiors… with everyone.

I was stunned by how dramatically ‘Made to Stick‘ “stuck” with me and actually improved by ability to communicate. Insanely recommended.