Strengths and Weaknesses

Ahh weaknesses, they commonly rear their head during a job interview. Your interviewer asks you what your weaknesses are, and you sit there and think to yourself for a second "How do I make myself sound human and realistic, without telling them all the things about myself they won't like." In that moment it might feel like the only time we think about our weaknesses, but we spend more time than we realise working on ourselves, improving ourselves and practicing and doing things that we're just not good at.

Don't get me wrong, as a Christian I think we should better ourselves. But what I'm talking about specifically is skills. I am a software engineer and some of my strong skills includes software architecture, software design, clean and modular development, efficient task management, and an easy ability to adapt to new programming languages and paradigms. My weaknesses would include public speaking, car maintenance, and fitness training. They're things I either need practice at, or formal training to be considered skilled.

In a corporate setting the skills you need are tightly described by your job description and so they're the skills you'll probably have. If you work in a smaller company you'll find the work you do will fringe on skills you just don't have. And if your an entrepreneur it can be really tempting to run your business in that way also. When starting out with your own business you can save a lot of money doing everything yourself, you know the work will be done exactly how you want it and you can preserve ownership over the entire business by not getting anyone else involved.

But there's something really wrong with this. God created us all and gave us gifts. In some cases these gifts will translate into our weaknesses and they need just a bit of practice to flourish into our strengths. In many cases however these gifts are our strengths, waiting to be used to their full potential. God designed us to work together using our gifts in our community of followers. In the Bible we are delivered a message on this (1 Corinthians 12), encouraging us to perform the function God designed us for in much the same way that one part of our body performs a specific function. Our ear hears, our eyes see and our mouth tastes. Christian communities often fall under pressure when individuals take on roles they weren't designed for. This can be seen in churches where a minister takes on all the roles needed to operate a church, often performing tasks that he/she has no skills with and in turn lowering the effectiveness of the church in that area and taking him/her away from the tasks that need their gifts.

This same experience translates into business. Businesses where the entrepreneur holds on tight, doing everything themselves have a higher chance of either dieing in their early days or never growing beyond what that one person can create. If you're interested in taking your business outside the limitations of your own skills, and expanding the skills that are available to your business, you have a few options. The first I would suggest is outsourcing: What tasks do you perform that someone else can. Another option is a personal assistant: Are there a large number of administrative tasks that could free up your time if handed over. Ideally what you should do is identify the tasks you perform that you shouldn't be wasting your time on. And then finding other businesses or individuals that can service those tasks.