When many of us come into new work environments we are faced with a fork in the road: Do we attempt to fit into the role we’ve just been hired for or do be ourselves.
It is unfortunate that we are hired and fired this way, placing our ‘square’ personalities into round ‘holes’ of job descriptions, but that is the way most businesses are run today. However, we can all overcome this and still thrive in the positions we’re hired for if we stay true to ourselves.
When I was hired with the furniture company the person I worked for walked around chirping to me that I was going to be a replica of him. One day I had enough of the non-sense and stopped him in his tracks to tell him that if he wanted a replica of him he would need to fire me and find someone else. I never wanted to be him and even if I did, the best him that I could be would be a second or third rate… I could never be him. Instead, I explained, “if you allow me to be me and work in this role with the strengths that I have, I will thrive and I will help you build this company as best as I can.” This conversation took place in 2008, less than a month after I was hired full time and I stayed until July of 2013, keeping my promise throughout my tenure.
This anecdote is useful for us all to learn how we can make the mistakes of trying to fit ourselves and those we hire into the wrong positions. If we hire someone who is not good with people to be in sales, we are setting them up for failure before they even get started. If we try to find jobs in a field such as accounting where we attention to detail is critical, yet we know we’re scatter-brained, we are setting ourselves up for failure. In both of these scenarios, the best we can be is mediocre.
On the flip side of this coin, if we find the position that matches our talents with our passions (referred to by Dave Ramsey and his crew as “The Sweet Spot”) we can and will thrive. Focusing on what we are good at is the only way to push the limits of what is possible. Think about it for a moment, would a would a chemist that has worked in labs his entire life up and quit to go start a finance company? Probably not, and that is often the shift we make when taking new jobs or hiring for them. We need to look for that intersection of talents and passions, otherwise we’re only fooling ourselves into being a second rate version. Instead, be ourselves.
I was fortunate enough to know about my own strengths from my past in sports and some of my professors at CSU, enabling me to be aware of this before I everattempted to be someone I’m not. The book StrengthsFinder 2.0
