Recently my son received a remote control helicopter for his birthday from his grandparents. It is a miniature helicopter meant to fly indoors and retains a charge that allows for about  20 minutes of flying time. It is truly an amazing toy that was obviously engineered and built by some very smart and talented people. A lot of thought and planning went into this little engineering marvel and, by judging by the devices performance, it is clear that the designers were working in their areas of strength.

However, they went one step too far....they obviously were WAY outside their areas of strength when they created the English version of the owners manual. Take a look at this excerpt taken word for word from the manual.

"In if the flight does not have the impetus to change the operating lever, but the helicopter still in airborne spun, by now might adjust in your hand on remote control's vernier adjustment knob, balanced does not spin until the helicopter."

Does this make any sense? What about this one....

"When the airplane tail presents the counter clockwise rotation, you may the clockwise rotation you in the hand the remote control vernier adjustment knob until well balanced."

I could go on with more examples but I believe my point has been made. After going to all the effort of making a great product, why not hire an English translator to finish off your product in a professional fashion. The toy owners would obviously not hire an English translator to design their remote control helicopter so why use an engineer to do translating work?

The lesson in this is to always make sure you are operating in your area of strength and when you have things that need to be completed in one of your areas of weakness, make sure that you find someone with a strength in this area to buttress your weakness.

PS. Here is another funny example from a sign I saw recently on a flight between Qatar and Dubai..."Be careful to store your bags so they don't fall off". This is a scary sign for someone to see after taking a seat on the airplane!

Great teams thrive on diversity, with each team member having a unique set of skills, filling a unique role. Yet teams are also unified behind a single purpose. All of those diverse talents and personalities must unite around a single goal. Pat Williams

A strong team is a diversified team. Without diversity a team will fail.

Teams need to be built with individuals that have different viewpoints, talents, values, personalities, strengths, likes and dislikes. This diversity needs to be united by a common vision, mission and goals but the diversity is still required as the team or organization strives towards the vision, mission and goals. A team without the diversity is like a football team of all quarterbacks or a team of only tight ends or only defensive backs. Individually they might be stellar performers but as a team they are destined to fail big time.

Do a strengths assessment of your team and determine where there are overlaps and where there are strength gaps. Make sure the team is very aware of the overlaps and how they, as a team, might be biased towards a particular way of doing business or a particular action because of the similarity in their individuality. Then identify the strength gaps and determine a strategy to deal with these gaps. Perhaps this means hiring people with this particular strength or maybe the organization can bring in consultants with these strengths to review the business. Whatever strategy you use, ensure that your team is a diverse group of individuals with diverse strengths that come together into a united, well balanced team. Some great examples of high performing high profile teams are:

- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs…Wozniak did the techie work and built the Apple personal computer and Jobs did the marketing.

- Paul Allen and Bill Gates…Allen pushed for new products and technological innovation while Gates provided the greater business vision.

- Earl Tupper and Brownie Wise…Tupper provided the inventions and products, quality control and processes and Wise provided the astounding network marketing that turned Tupperware into an astronomical success.

Once you have a great team in place that can thrive on diversity and is ready to excel together then the organizational leader must unite this team around a common vision, mission and set of goals. Combine these two steps and you will propel your organization towards success.

First, I have learned that I waste time in trying to correct other people’s mistakes. I should use the time to utilize their strengths and buttress their weaknesses. A lot of training programs I have seen are geared to overcoming weaknesses – what a waste of time. Fred Smith Sr.

Fred Smith, Sr. is the founder of FedEx. He has determined that it is a waste of time to correct his employees' weaknesses. Rather, he spends his time understanding the unique strengths of his employees. He then utilizes these strengths and leverages them inside his organization to the benefit of the employee and the business. He identifies weaknesses that the employees may have but then rather than build a development plan to try and increase proficiency in the area of weakness, he buttresses their weaknesses with other employees that have strengths in these areas.

To do anything else is a waste of valuable time and money…both for the employee and for the business.

As individuals we need to discover our Strength Zone and work diligently to leverage our strengths into each and every role that we have in life. When a weakness is identified, rather than attend classes or training to improve (unless the weakness is in an areas of character, discipline or integrity) we need to partner with others that have strengths where we are weak. Spend your time and your money developing yourself in your Strength Zone. Don't procrastinate with this exercise. Be clear with your coworkers where you need help and where you in turn can help them.

Create a culture of openness and a strength based culture in your organization.