What Got You Here, Wont Get You There

Women's Enterprise Day (Wed 19 Nov) was celebrated across the country with three events held in Oxfordshire alone. I joined a group of businesswomen at the Faringdon Business Centre to hear to what Sue Stockdale had to say about 'Maximising Your Strengths for Business Success'.

At work, do you have the opportunity, to do what you do best every day?

This was a question put to1.7 million employees, from 101 companies, throughout 63 countries by the Gallup Organisation. Not surprisingly, only 20% strongly agreed with this statement.

We're all so used to addressing our weaknesses, it was quite refreshing to wallow in our strengths for a while, acknowledge what we are good at and consider how we might increase our business revenue by maximising time spent on what we are already good at. 'If you don't like numbers, then get someone else to do your bookkeeping' Sue suggested. Predictably this was met by objections along the lines of 'small budgets' and ' I'm on my own, so I must do everything myself'. Sue challenged these by pointing out that if we have a talent for something, which can raise revenue, we can raise more than enough revenue to cover the costs of employing someone else to cover our weaknesses and still make a profit. That way, we do what we want to do and still get paid. Marshall Goldsmith's book 'What Got You Here, Wont Get You There', is part of Sue's recommended reading. Its one of those titles which makes you step off your life for a moment and take a bird's eye view of what is going on.