The Parable of the Produce Stand

Riotous colors in a grey stone alleyway of a tiny village in the Cinque Terre. Eggplants, peppers, beans, tomatoes, squash.... that scene on the Cinque Terre has stayed with me.  I offer up this image of summer splendor to illustrate what I'll call The Parable of the Produce Stand.

At a surface level, let's look at three observations we can make from the photo:

1.  Variety:  An array of different fruits and vegetables are crated by variety.
2.  Robustness:  There's absolutely nothing anemic about the produce in the picture.
3.  Offered for use:  The produce is displayed to be bought and consumed.

What lessons from this produce stand can help us increase our productivity and happiness?

1.  Embrace our uniqueness.  

Each of the thirteen or so varieties of fruit and vegetable in the photo has potential to make a unique contribution. There is no eggplant parmesan without eggplant. No stuffed peppers without peppers. No classic red sauce without tomatoes.  Like those fruits and vegetables, we each have potential to make unique, signature contributions. Our uniqueness is in fact measurable: Of the seven billion people on the planet, no one can contribute from the same collection of talents, skills, knowledge and experiences as you. No one. Those factors form your uniqueness, and your best contributions will come not when you try to be what you're not, but when you become more of who you are, building on and giving from your uniqueness.

How do you do this?  Start by learning exactly what your unique combination of talents is.  By far the most accessible, specific, and insightful tool I've seen for this is the Clifton StrengthsFinder®, an online assessment you can access at strengthscenter.com.

2.  Build our robustness.  

Those fruits and vegetables look healthy, colorful, appetizing.  They've been carefully planted, tended and harvested to bring out their maximum flavor.  So, too, we need to build the robustness of our own talents with intentional tending and feeding.

Let's say you've taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder®, you have self-awareness about your unique talents, but you don't know how to develop your potential. Build your talents into strengths by intentionally using them. Think of your talents as a muscle that will get stronger with exercise.  Focus on a particular talent theme for a week at a time, intentionally leveraging it toward goals you have. Build knowledge and skill that complement your talents.  If you'd like additional support, rev up with a Strengths Coach who can help you develop and apply your talents productively toward goals in work and life.

3.  Offer what we have to give.

While the produce in the picture looks beautiful, it's not a still life intended to amuse visitors along the Cinque Terre.  It's a working produce stand, where the fruit and vegetables are intended to be purchased and consumed.  So it is with our talents:  They're meant to be shared.  While it's sad to think of beautiful produce that spoils, never having contributed flavor and never having been consumed, it's sadder still to think of people whose potential to contribute is never realized.  The world misses out.  And, when we don't get to use our strengths regularly, we may miss out on some of the hope, confidence and satisfaction that are byproducts.  When we do focus on using our strengths, we are happier and more engaged in our work.  How much happier? How much more productive?  People who focus on using their strengths are three times more likely to report an excellent quality of life, and six times as likely to be engaged at work.

Each of us has utterly unique talents, knowledge, skills and experience to contribute.  We need to be and are needed to be productive. When we contribute what we uniquely can and have meaningful impact, now that is fruitfulness worth celebrating!

I hope you'll remember The Parable of the Produce Stand. You have great capacity to be productive. Embrace your uniqueness. Build your robustness. Share what you have to give.

For more information on Gallup's approach to Strengths, or to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ online, go to https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/

Slaying the Giant

Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath:  Underdogs, Misfits, and The Art of Battling Giants, I’ve given more thought to David, that shepherd boy who volunteered to attempt to end a deadlock between armies of the Philistines and Israelites as the head-to-head competitor against an armored, gigantic warrior. 

Gladwell’s insights into the ancient story are intriguing:  Goliath is presumed to have the upper hand, while David appears to be the classic underdog, equipped as he is with only a slingshot against Goliath’s armor and sword. In fact, David has a superior projectile technology that he exploits to prevail against a massive, nearly blind man weighed down with armor. In Gladwell’s words, The powerful and the strong are not always what they seem. Illustrating this theme through the stories of such people as stellar litigator David Boies and childhood leukemia-slayer Dr. Jay Frierich, Gladwell derives conclusions about ordinary people confronting “giants” ranging from armies and governments to misfortune and oppression.

I see each of Gladwell’s human success stories through an additional lens, a strengths lens: Each of Gladwell's heroes has unique personality traits that have been developed into strengths and used to achieve particular goals. These strengths aren't fungible from person to person.  

Let’s take David, for instance.  While we may surmise that David volunteered to battle the giant, in part, because he had confidence in his ability with the slingshot, my guess is that not just any shepherd proficient with a slingshot would have volunteered to carry the weight of the conflict alone.  Confidently and audaciously, David not only volunteered but then refused his king’s offer to equip him with armor. (Who, we might wonder, says no to the king in order to do it his own way?)  David used strategy and speed to his advantage, firing quickly at the strategic target of Goliath’s only vulnerability, his unprotected forehead. David sought, claimed and excelled at the clutch player role.

We all have outcomes we need to bring about, in work and in our personal lives, and we each have a unique combination of talents that we can leverage toward those outcomes. Not all of us thrive as clutch players, needing to summon our best in a heated moment of pressure.   Instead, some of us are planners whose strengths best shine when we are unhurried and have ample time to anticipate risks, obstacles and problems.  Some of us give our best when we are focused on building relationships and sensing others’ feelings.  Some of us shine best when we have time to immerse ourselves in thought, reflecting deeply on ideas, generating new ideas and approaches.  Each of us is different and gives our best when we are giving from who we already are.

Many of our most powerful talents are so innate to us that we are unaware of them.  When we know what our talents are we can strategically aim those talents at the outcomes we need to bring about, using our most effective route to success.  When we know the talents of the people with whom we work, we have a force multiplier as we can strategically align ourselves so that each of us contributes in our most powerful and effective ways, energized by being who we are and contributing what we do best.

We aren’t all clutch players, nor should we be.  We need to pick targets that we can hit, given our particular strengths, and aim our unique bag of tricks to slay the giants before us.

For more information on Gallup's approach to Strengths, or to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder™ online, go to https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/