Does Your Greatest Strength Stop You?

When I was young, my Russian-Polish- Yiddish speaking Grandmother who escaped from the ovens during WWII used to talk about the war and what happened to her. She would scare the heck out of me with her stories, sometimes resulting in nightmares.

She would always finish her stories with one saying:  "Remember always, Fred, she would whisper, as you go through life, your greatest strength is your greatest weakness."

As the years went by,  these words took on new meanings.

What I realized she was saying was to be careful of being blinded by your weaknesses because you have your strengths. The same drives that could propel me to success were also weaknesses that could bring me down. In my younger days, my great belief in my abilities and strength of knowing what to do often times blinded me to accept other opinions, especially if they were different from mine.Thank goodness I figured that out early in my career!!

More than ever as I look at our business I realize how true her words were.

I visited a client recently who demonstrated this. This large center was very operationally and "numbers" oriented.  So much so that good marketing programs that THEY thought of were often killed because they couldn't make the program fit their operational model.  Thus,  their business went slowly south, but their operational controls were to be envied!!

Their greatest strength was their greatest weakness.

So today I am giving you a homework assignment.  You don't have to formally do it, of course; but maybe think about it as you drive, listen to music or are just sitting around.

What are your business' greatest strengths?  Are they also its greatest weaknesses?  And more importantly what will you do to make your strengths less of a weakness?

Let me know what you find out.  Thank you.