Have you learnt your personal power? What about your weaknesses?
One enterprise administration and management principle suggests that folks and groups will obtain extra success by constructing on their strengths than by attempting to repair their weaknesses.
The idea doesn’t imply you must ignore weaknesses. As an alternative, it suggests you must make investments deeply in abilities and strengths and reduce the results of any weaknesses. (You possibly can learn extra about it within the ebook Strengths Primarily based Management, primarily based on the Gallup group’s 30-year analysis undertaking.
I’m all in on this concept. I’ve seen this concept work for content material groups that obtain success over the long run. However the alternative isn’t all the time clear.
Ought to #ContentMarketing groups double down on their strengths? Or attempt to repair their weaknesses? It’s not a straightforward alternative, says @Robert_Rose through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
Strengths vs. weaknesses
A brand new content material advertising and marketing technique brings folks collectively beneath new charters, with new processes, tasks, and applied sciences. Folks name this technique of getting everybody prepared for the brand new scenario “change administration.”
However, if we’re sincere, it’s actually “new administration.” None of these items has been carried out earlier than.
One of many first issues I like to recommend to shoppers on this scenario is to do a abilities audit. A abilities audit finds areas of power in addition to gaps the place extra coaching, outsourcing, or new hires could be wanted.
I’ve seen many firms make the identical mistake after the talents audit: They double down on shoring up perceived (or precise) weaknesses.
However that method instantly builds a steep mountain to climb. Content material groups grappling with all of the “new” could really feel demoralized in the event that they should rent and prepare new in-house or outsourced workers on the similar time.
But many consultants argue that focusing solely on strengths has its pitfalls. A number of years in the past, a Harvard Enterprise Evaluate podcast steered that “so many weaknesses are overdeveloped strengths.”
For instance, amplifying a politically astute crew chief’s strengths can create a manipulative boss. Specializing in the pace or creativity of the in-house design crew can result in a crew that’s overworked and regarded idiosyncratic of their method or out of contact with enterprise realities.
Deciding whether or not to give attention to the strengths or weaknesses uncovered in a abilities audit jogs my memory of the aphorism often attributed to statistician George Field: “All fashions are fallacious, however some are helpful.”
There are not any simple solutions.
Which strengths and which weaknesses matter extra
In a method, it’s a false alternative. Understanding which strengths and weaknesses matter probably the most tends to supply the most effective outcomes. You possibly can’t assess which strengths or weaknesses to give attention to till you perceive which strengths and weaknesses have an effect on your operation’s likelihood of success probably the most.
For instance, firms constructing content material groups usually ask me, “Ought to we rent material consultants with deep data about our providers and trade or nice writers who can be taught our enterprise over time?”
The reply to that query is sure.
Ought to #Content material groups rent SMEs who know the trade or nice writers who can be taught? Sure, says @Robert Rose through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
Each approaches are equally necessary – till you determine which is able to impression the crew’s goals extra. When you resolve which is extra necessary, you possibly can give attention to enhancing the strengths of the method you’ve chosen.
I’ve seen this first-hand in two conditions.
The primary concerned a brand new content material crew at a big Fortune 100 firm. After conducting a abilities audit, they recognized their strengths: creativity and journalistic storytelling. In addition they uncovered some perceived weaknesses: sales-enablement content material and advertising and marketing measurement.
As a brand new crew, additionally they understood that the enterprise positioned a excessive worth on the power to feed nice content material to gross sales and supply analytics to indicate the content material’s effectiveness. A key piece of the crew’s enterprise case was centralizing content material and making it an inside power. So, their impulse was to shore up their gross sales content material and analytics weaknesses.
To take action, the content material crew took over these areas from their outsourced company. They have been positive they might “determine it out.”
However they didn’t. And the crew’s popularity as a robust editorial crew additionally took a success as they tried to stability their strengths with the dearth of selling and analytical skill. When the enterprise pivoted, they let the editorial crew go. They weren’t thought-about able to taking up the mandatory advertising and marketing analytics.
Would they’ve survived in the event that they’d let the company deal with their weak areas and continued to excel at editorial or constructed a phased partnership with the company to deal with the talents wanted for gross sales enablement and measurement?
I think so.
Within the second scenario, a expertise firm I work with had been rising and molding its content material crew for a number of years. They keep an acute consciousness of their crew’s strengths and weaknesses. Extra importantly, the crew chief has created transparency and understanding of their ongoing stability all through the enterprise.
At first, they centered on highlighting their strengths as a content material advertising and marketing crew (creativity, trade thought management, and structuring content material for translation and reuse). They didn’t initially tackle sales-oriented content material – they left it to the demand era crew.
Finally, they partnered with the demand-gen crew, which continued to create nice advertising and marketing content material. The content material crew helped them develop requirements and playbooks to facilitate translation and repackaging for a number of channels.
Years in, this mannequin works very properly for them.
It’s a delicate however vital distinction. The primary crew thought its job was to excel at content material, and it centered on fixing the crew’s weaknesses to make {that a} actuality. The second crew realized its job was to make the enterprise good at content material, and it centered on its strengths to make {that a} actuality.
The usefulness of any content material abilities audit lies within the skill to align the crew’s core strengths to the priorities and abilities of the enterprise.
Over time, when you can hold this consciousness, your crew’s weaknesses can change into its biggest power.
It’s your story. Inform it properly.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute
