When I was growing up in Cleveland, I was a boxer. I absolutely loved the sport as a child, and I still love it now. Any true boxing enthusiast can tell you about the Tale of the Tape, which is a prefight analysis that shows detailed measurements for each fighter. When you watch the Tale of the Tape on TV, the measurements typically include each boxer’s age, weight, height, and arm reach. Back in the day, it also used to include biceps, chest, waist, thigh, neck, calf, and even ankle measurements. While you and I may not be able to do a whole lot with all those numbers, true fight analysts can identify strengths and weaknesses before a single punch is thrown.
One of the greatest fights in the history of boxing was the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, between the undefeated heavyweight champion George Foreman and former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. The fight took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), and nearly all the experts predicted that the younger, stronger, more powerful champion would defeat the older, flamboyant, but weaker former champion.
Ali knew better than anyone what his strengths and weaknesses were. He knew he couldn’t punch harder than Foreman, and he knew that his typical dancing around the ring was not going to have the same impact on Foreman as it had on previous fighters with different skills. Ali assessed his challenger’s skills and looked at them next to his own. Using what he learned, he devised a strategy that he had never before tried. For the better part of eight rounds, Ali leaned back against the ropes, allowing Foreman to throw punches that took major effort but caused minimum damage. At other times Ali would get in close to Foreman, lean on him so that Foreman was holding Ali up, and take quick jabs to his face. By the eighth round, Foreman was weak from expending his energy throwing punches as well as from receiving Ali’s jabs. Ali knocked Foreman out in that round and stunned many in the boxing world.
Ali was not the stronger fighter on that day. But he was the fighter who had done a better side-by-side assessment of skills. You have to take on this same mind-set as you are looking at new opportunities, new career moves, and even new relationships. Just like in boxing, what is a weakness against one fighter may be a strength against another. When you look at your list of skills, what are your potential advantages and disadvantages?
If you have strong skills in communications, project management, and team building, but you have weaknesses in budgeting and finance, it is unlikely that your skills would match up well for a chief financial officer position. On the flip side, if you have strengths in technology and digital design, your skills could line up well for a chief technology officer. Make sure you know your opportunity, relationship, or job well enough to size up its requirements in relation to your skills so that you can knock it out of the park.
You cannot give your best when you don’t know what your best is. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important because you need to learn how to maximize your wins and minimize your losses. Taking on the challenges of life, business, work, health, and family means you will have to take and throw a lot of punches. Being honest about your weaknesses will put you in a place to take fewer punches and minimize being knocked off your path to success.
Finally, each of us has the ability to either evolve and grow stronger or remain stagnant and become weaker. When you know what you do well, you can develop a strategy for growth. All of this is possible with a little work, but none of it can happen if you don’t take the time to know your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses.
Assessing your strengths and weaknesses is not an emotional process. Rather, it is a time for cataloging your skills. Knowing what you do well versus what you still need to improve upon will help you to identify your personal skills and traits. As you begin this treasure hunt to uncover your qualities, here are the areas where you may start looking for your strengths and weaknesses.
• KNOWLEDGE-BASED SKILLS: These skills include degrees, languages, technical know-how, industry-specific skills, or managerial savvy that you have gained from educational training or professional experience.
• TRANSFERABLE SKILLS: These skills include everyday traits that you can bring with you into any situation, such as communication skills, financial knowledge, customer service expertise, leadership aptitude, problem-solving skills, and project management experience.
• CHARACTER SKILLS: Traits such as honesty, timeliness, hard work, trustworthiness, and confidence are great characteristics that will serve you well both personally and professionally.
First, let’s take a look at your personal and professional relationships. What are the skills you demonstrate in interpersonal relationships? Are you a good listener? Are you supportive? Now think about the areas where there’s room for improvement. Can you be more patient? Do you need to work on your ability to compromise?
Next, let’s focus on your professional career. What are the skills you have needed to do your job well? What are the skills that your employers ranked you highly on during your performance reviews? What were the areas that were marked for continued growth and improvement?
Now that you have a list of skills in these two major areas, I want you to identify what kind of skill it is (for example, Knowledge-Based, Transferable, or Character). Note whether it is a strength or a weakness, and evaluate each as follows: Superior, Good, Proficient, and Needs Improvement. So that you can get an idea of how to rank your skills, I have included my own Tale of the Tape in the table below.
This self-assessment will give you an honest picture of yourself. But before you complete your sheet, bear this in mind: You have to complete your assessment based on where you are today. No beating yourself up over past weaknesses or undervaluing strengths when you have clearly developed in certain areas.
What are your skills? Compose your own self-assessment in a chart that looks like this:
Your personal assessment is important, but you also need an outside perspective. You may want to consider hiring a business-development coach to assess your skills. If that’s not possible, you might ask a longtime colleague or a trusted friend to objectively evaluate your skills. If there are a number of people you can rely on in your inner circle, you may want to consider having one person give you a personal assessment and another give you your professional assessment. As you start working with your outside observer, here are three things to keep in mind:
1. BE OPEN. Your feedback with your outside observer will be more effective if you can let go of your beliefs and hear what your observer has to say.
2. KEEP YOUR EMOTIONS IN CHECK. Your observer may uncover something that could hit a nerve. Don’t shut down when you hear something uncomfortable. Stay in the moment and use this conversation as an opportunity to learn and grow.
3. LISTEN WITH YOUR HEAD AND NOT YOUR HEART. Identify areas where your strengths and weaknesses impact your life in ways you previously had not thought about.
There are traits of your strengths and weaknesses that you must understand to ensure your success.
Stepping Up Your Strengths
• BE CONFIDENT BUT NOT COCKY. Know your strengths and use them to your advantage. Be confident enough to insert your skills into opportunities that will provide advancement and growth. However, even your strengths have limits. Know your limitations and manage them well.
• STAY FIGHT READY. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not always the most popular person, but he has the distinction of almost always being at fight weight. Most boxers have to train for months to get to a fighting weight. Likewise, you have to consistently work on your strengths. Continued education, supplemental training, and reading everything you can get your hands on will not only keep your skills sharp; they will also help you to grow.
• DEVELOP OR DIE. If you do not develop other strengths, your enemies will always know what choices you will make. Switch things up, learn and master other skills, and apply them strategically so that you can stay ahead of the marketplace and your industry.
Working on Your Weaknesses
• PROTECT YOUR WEAKNESSES. Like Ali, you don’t have to expose your weaknesses. Remember to identify opportunities that speak to your strengths.
• CHOOSE YOUR WEAKNESSES. Weaknesses are only a detriment if you allow them to be. Create partnerships with people whose strength is your weakness. Learn from them and build that area so that you can grow stronger.
• DEVELOP OR DIE. If you stay the same, your enemies will know where to attack you. Continue to develop so that even areas that need improvement can be assets.
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is without question the difference between your success and your failure. Assess your skills and develop a strategy so that your skills will always be used for your advancement.
What are the strengths you want to focus on for your next opportunity, job, or relationship?
What are three opportunities you can connect your skills to?
What is one weakness you want to strengthen, and how will you do so?