Focus on Your Strengths

Matt Perman of What's Best Next (and Desiring God) is doing some great work applying the Christian worldview to business, management, and our everyday work. Here's what he has to say about whether we should give priority to improving our weaknesses or to focusing on our strengths:

[W]e will be most effective if we craft our roles (and lives!) so that we are operating in our strengths most of the time….

[U]sing our gifts is a matter of good stewardship. This also underscores the fact that using them is not an optional bonus. When we use our gifts, we are being good stewards. Conversely, if we don’t use our gifts—or, if we don’t use them very much—we are being bad stewards. Buckingham’s point that we should seek to operate in our strengths most of the time sounds very much in alignment with what Peter is saying here. The way Peter puts it is: “Be a good steward—use your gift! (And, by implication, use it a lot—maximize it for the good of others, as a good steward of God’s varied grace!)"….

Some people worry that it might be selfish to focus on operating within our strengths, or gifts, most of the time. But when we focus on using our gifts, we are actually being more effective for the good of others and are being better stewards. So it is actually not selfish to focus on using our gifts; rather, if our motives are right, it is radically others-centered because it is driven by the question: “How can I best serve others and do them the most good?”

I post this not only because I hope this will free you to say no to some things in order to do what you love and excel at—what God gifted you to do for the service of others, but because Matt is an excellent model of what we all ought to be doing in our respective vocations—that is, thinking carefully through what it means to be a Christian businessman, or teacher, or politician, or grocery clerk, or garbage collector, etc., etc.

Matt is doing this in a way I rarely see, and it's inspiring. We need to learn to think more deeply as Christians about every aspect of our work (and I mean every), but I think appreciation of this idea might be something more easily caught than taught, so I encourage you to watch this presentation he gave on "How the Gospel Should Shape Your Web Strategy, Not Just Your Web Content" as another great example.

Comments

[Jeff]

I applaud what Matt is trying to do.

My only concern is that I have seen the "business guru" community start to market their snake oil to Christian leaders. Jim Collins, after "Good to Great" had run its course in the business world, shrewdly began marketing it to Pastors. Never mind the problems with his "research". Pastors starting talking about their "hedgehogs" and "BHAGS".

Please.

Wise as serpents, church leaders, the marketing machine is coming for you.

[Daron]

Good warning, Jeff.

[Amy]

Jeff, I really encourage you read some of Matt's stuff, or take a look at that video I linked to. I'm willing to bet it's not like anything you've heard before.