I was recently going through some marketing training material from Marty Neumeier specifically focused on business differentiation in the marketplace. He was proposing that the reader create a chart for their business that graphed quality of their product or service (or "level of goodness") against how different it was from its competition. The resulting chart would help the reader understand how their company can be differentiated in the marketplace.

 

I was prompted by this chart to take a look at my strengths and how often they were being used and how I used them to differentiate myself in the marketplace. I took this idea and plotted my strengths on the vertical axis of a graph (scale of 1 to 10) and then the frequency of the usage of the strength on the horizontal axis. Understanding that this is purely a subjective exercise, it still is very valuable. I found it quite sobering.

 

Each of us has invested time and energy to clearly define what our strengths are, yet few of us follow through to re-arrange our roles to maximize the use of these strengths. We have basically squandered our investment and because of that we are not properly differentiated in the marketplace. This will only cause us frustration and pain in our careers when we are not fully successful and do not live up to our potential.

 

I would encourage each of you to build this graph and honestly evaluate yourselves and how frequently you are using your strengths. Then you need to start making changes in the roles that you have and leverage these strengths as much as possible. As you do this, you will find yourself to be more productive, efficient, motivated and differentiated. This will propel you to realizing your true potential.