I let my strengths get the better of me. Part of my job is teaching people not to.
I was preparing questions for a conversation. My Top 5 are Strategic, Futuristic, Maximizer, Ideation and Activator, and all five turned up.
Activator went first: "Come on, this is fun, just get started." So I did, and I'm not a recipe person. It was like cooking a dish without a recipe, throwing in ingredients as they occurred to me.
Ideation kept the ingredients coming. There were always more questions we could ask, more ideas about what we could do with the answers. Maximizer wanted every minute of the time slot used well, so more went in. Futuristic could already picture the conversations and was excited to get there. And Activator was itching to hand people the answers instead of letting them find their own.
The guide was bloated. Like a dish with every flavour and no identity, it wasn't recognisable as anything in particular. Ask my kids what that tastes like.
Then Strategic, my number one, stepped in. "Hang on. Are you clear on what these questions are for?"
That is the question from last week: "What needs to become clearer?" I had skipped it, and I know exactly why. Activator makes clarity feel like a delay.
What I did about it
I went back and checked the purpose of the conversation, then adjusted the questioning to serve it. I removed the questions that could lead away from that purpose. I cut most of the supporting commentary and added follow-ups to help me reach a clear answer. And I added a reminder to keep me focused on the purpose.
Ironically, the fix was a system.
Knowing my strengths is one thing. Managing them is another.
I can name all five of my strengths in my sleep. The skill is catching which one is driving at the moment I'm building something, and having a small way to interrupt it. Mine is a purpose in one sentence before I build anything, and a reminder to interrupt the habit I know I'll fall back into.
The same blind spot shows up in teams: the leader's strongest strength sets the team's blind spot, because people copy what gets rewarded. Visionary leaders paint a picture that highly effective executors run with prematurely.
Last week I asked which of the three questions you usually skip: clarity, ownership or capacity. Mine is clarity, and Activator is why. I suspect the others have strengths behind them too. Someone who loves generating ideas may skip who owns them. Someone who sees the route clearly may never ask who has the time to walk it.
Which is yours, and which strength makes it easy? Reply with your top strength and the question. I read every response.
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