Have you learnt your personal energy? What about your weaknesses?
One enterprise administration and management idea suggests that individuals and groups will obtain extra success by constructing on their strengths than by making an attempt to repair their weaknesses.
The idea doesn’t imply it is best to ignore weaknesses. As an alternative, it suggests it is best to make investments deeply in skills and strengths and decrease the consequences of any weaknesses. (You may learn extra about it within the e book Strengths Primarily based Management, based mostly on the Gallup group’s 30-year analysis venture.
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 selection 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 selection, says @Robert_Rose through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet
Strengths vs. weaknesses
A brand new content material advertising and marketing technique brings folks collectively below new charters, with new processes, duties, and applied sciences. Folks name this means of getting everybody prepared for the brand new state of affairs “change administration.”
However, if we’re trustworthy, it’s actually “new administration.” None of these things has been performed earlier than.
One of many first issues I like to recommend to shoppers on this state of affairs is to do a abilities audit. A abilities audit finds areas of energy in addition to gaps the place extra coaching, outsourcing, or new hires may be wanted.
I’ve seen many corporations make the identical mistake after the talents audit: They double down on shoring up perceived (or precise) weaknesses.
However that strategy instantly builds a steep mountain to climb. Content material groups grappling with all of the “new” might really feel demoralized in the event that they need to rent and prepare new in-house or outsourced workers on the similar time.
But many specialists argue that focusing solely on strengths has its pitfalls. A number of years in the past, a Harvard Enterprise Evaluation podcast urged 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 velocity or creativity of the in-house design crew can result in a crew that’s overworked and regarded idiosyncratic of their strategy or out of contact with enterprise realities.
Deciding whether or not to deal with the strengths or weaknesses uncovered in a abilities audit jogs my memory of the aphorism normally attributed to statistician George Field: “All fashions are flawed, however some are helpful.”
There aren’t any simple solutions.
Which strengths and which weaknesses matter extra
In a method, it’s a false selection. Understanding which strengths and weaknesses matter essentially the most tends to supply the most effective outcomes. You may’t assess which strengths or weaknesses to deal with till you perceive which strengths and weaknesses have an effect on your operation’s likelihood of success essentially the most.
For instance, corporations constructing content material groups typically ask me, “Ought to we rent subject material specialists with deep data about our companies and business 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 business 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 can influence the crew’s goals extra. When you resolve which is extra necessary, you may deal with enhancing the strengths of the strategy 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. Additionally they uncovered some perceived weaknesses: sales-enablement content material and advertising and marketing measurement.
As a brand new crew, in addition they understood that the enterprise positioned a excessive worth on the flexibility 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 energy. 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 certain they may “determine it out.”
However they didn’t. And the crew’s status as a robust editorial crew additionally took a success as they tried to stability their strengths with the shortage of promoting and analytical skill. When the enterprise pivoted, they let the editorial crew go. They weren’t thought of 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 state of affairs, a expertise firm I work with had been rising and molding its content material crew for a couple 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 targeted on highlighting their strengths as a content material advertising and marketing crew (creativity, business 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 technology crew.
Ultimately, 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 effectively for them.
It’s a delicate however essential distinction. The primary crew thought its job was to excel at content material, and it targeted 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 targeted 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 preserve this consciousness, your crew’s weaknesses can develop into its biggest energy.
It’s your story. Inform it effectively.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute
