1, 2, 3 Leverage Your Talent

Leveraged talent equates to increased satisfaction and profitability, whether you’re leveraging the talent of one or many. If you’re the Managing Shareholder in a large firm, a professional in a firm of any size or a soloist, leveraging talent pays off.

1. Begin with yourself. What are the things that you and only you must do? These might relate to critical financial decisions or client relationships that must remain on your plate. Now, energize yourself by doing more of what you love and delegating as much of your remaining work as possible. Delegating requires training, but it’s well worth the extra time and effort in the short term, when it frees you to do the work you most enjoy in the long term. You might be surprised to discover things you can hand off or that don’t need to be done at all. Focus on what you enjoy most and do best. These are your greatest sources of satisfaction and your highest contribution.

2. Influence your peers. If you’ve energized yourself by leveraging your own talent, your peers already see it. Even if they don’t know how you’ve done it or quite recognize what “it” is, when they see you fully engaged in your work and loving it, they want the same for themselves. You can help your peers leverage their talent, whether they’re colleagues, clients or referral partners. How? Ask them about the work and clients they most enjoy. Compliment them on their strengths (it’s surprising how often people don’t recognize their own greatest talents). Now look for chances to connect them with those client and work opportunities that use their highest talents. Better yet, look for opportunities together. Maybe you and a business acquaintance can collaborate to meet the needs of a shared client. Perhaps you and a colleague or a client can present at a conference together. When you leverage your talent together, your energy will be contagious and everyone will benefit.

3. Inspire your team. Do you know the highest talents of each member of your team? If not, it’s time to find out. Begin by simply observing. What are their successes? What talents did those successes require? Next, ask your team members about their strengths. What does each member of your team think is his or her greatest strength? A closely related question is, “What do you like best to do?” The two are often one and the same, but people sometimes don’t know their greatest talents or are reluctant to claim them, whereas they’re comfortable talking about what they like to do. Finally, assessment tools can help identify strengths. I like PREP Profile tools and my clients continue to value the results. Those three methods – observing, asking, assessing – in combination can help you identify strengths. Now recognize team members for their talents and assign or direct work to them that utilizes and develops those talents. The vast majority of your professional development resources – in training dollars and supervisory time – should be spent on enhancing strengths, not fixing weaknesses (which are not the same as learning gaps). It’s not just the right thing to do…it’s the smart thing to do.