
There’s a school of thought out there that believes you shouldn’t pay attention to your competitors. You may hear things such as:
- It’s a waste of time
- Focus on yourself
I read a fascinating book recently called ‘The Sports Gene: Inside The Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance’ by David Epstein.
The author is a science reporter by trade, and dives into the nature-vs-nurture debate around world class athletes.
Are top performers made, or are they born that way?
What is the most effective way to yield Olympic champions?
What about the so-called 10,000-hour rule?
At the risk of spoiling the plot, the author comes down on the side of nature. Because of what he uncovers in his research.
For instance, did you know what the top predictor of a successful major league baseball hitter is?
Hand speed, you might guess. Or hand-eye coordination. Or even upper body strength.
Visual acuity is the answer. The top predictive trait for a major league hitter is their vision. They pick up the rotation of the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. That is what sets them apart.
May of the top hitters in the game have vision at a 20/10 level, or even 20/9. In rare cases, the vision is 20/8 on major league players, which is approaching the theoretical limits of the human eye. Fascinating.
It also illustrates the futility of pursuing greatness as a batter without this strength. Regardless of how many hours you practice, it is highly unlikely you will become great if you don’t have good visual acuity.
Practice can’t overcome bad eyesight in baseball.
I believe that ideal business teams are also focusing on their strengths.
If you focus on your weaknesses, after a long time, you’ll have better weaknesses.
- Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach
Identifying people’s strengths is relatively straightforward. You could purchase an assessment like Clifton Strengths to get a general sense. You could ask the team to help each other identify strengths. You could use an exercise like The Activity Optimizer to have people organize their tasks. Or all three.
Then, you can rearrange the work within the team to let everyone get closer to those strengths.
How will you do that? There are several approaches you can take.
Businesses that aspire to have team members work within their strengths generally perform better.
Benefits include:
Part 3 of 7 in our Scalability blog series.
There’s a school of thought out there that believes you shouldn’t pay attention to your competitors. You may hear things such as:
I’m willing to bet that if you’re running a business in 2022, you’re using technology and software to get things done (in fact, you’re likely using a number of them)....