Know who you are.

What are your organization’s greatest strengths? Do your employees agree? You need to know who you are in order to be successful in any endeavor, and that means understanding your strengths as well as your weaknesses. If you want to be competitive, capitalize on what you are really good at and minimize where you are most vulnerable. For some teams, this means capitalizing on their passing game; for others, it will be to capitalize on their opponents’ weaknesses. The best football teams in history are not afraid to admit their weaknesses. In fact, they turn them into strengths.

To be successful in the end, you have to figure out who you really are and what your core competencies are—those critical qualities that you need for the job. Building on them represents your greatest chance of moving ahead of the competition. Work on those things you are already good at, but look hard at what you’re not so good at. Little by little, strengthen those weaker areas, and you will give your competition a run for its money.

Leadership Questions

  What are the things that your organization does well that you might work on so you excel in these areas?

  As an organization, do you know who and what you really are—what your strengths and weakness are?

  Does your competition?