Don't go against the grain; stretch in the direction of your strengths.

Engineering teaches us about tensile forces and shear forces.

Tensile forces are forces that stretch things. For example, if we hold two ends of a rope in our hands and pull the rope then the rope is under tension...and it stretches. The more force we apply the more the rope stretches.

Shear forces are forces that cut. For example, if we take a pair of shears we can cut through the cross-section of the rope.

It takes much less force to shear the rope than it takes to pull both ends of the rope and break it into two pieces. Engineers would say it takes less shear force than tensile force to cause the rope to fail.

In layman's terms: the rope likes to stretch in the direction of its strength and the rope is less tolerant when the force is applied against its grain.

People have strengths and weaknesses. With respect to strengths and weaknesses, each person is unique.

People can stretch and grow in the directions of their personal strengths...and people do not do well when we apply force against their weaknesses.

In business, we need to make sure we know people's strengths and weaknesses...this, of course, is better than assuming people's strengths and weaknesses or not bothering to understand people's strengths and weaknesses. This applies in the broadest of terms: it applies to industry-technical strengths and weaknesses; it applies to interpersonal/communication strengths and weaknesses; it applies to situation-strengths and situation-weaknesses; it applies to individuals and it applies to work-teams.

We should help people stretch in the direction of their strengths...this inspires people and provides them the opportunity to be self-motivated and to excel.

We should work to use one person's strengths to cover another person's weakness...this is better than cutting against the grain.

We should anticipate situations that resonate with strengths and situations that resonate with weaknesses.

These are important leader and manager responsibilities.

PS: instead of saying tensile stress, some engineers would call it normal stress. That makes for an even more compelling argument. When we stretch in the direction of our strengths...that's normal. When we cut across our weaknesses...it hurts.

PPS: this overlaps the fact that constructive criticism is an oxymoron. Most of the time, criticism hits people right on their weak spots.

Human beings evolved from lightly-furred prey to Earth's dominant species.

How did that happen?

Certainly, 2 things played a large role: brawn and brains. When I say 'brawn' I mean muscular strength. When I say 'brains' I mean intellectual strength, including cognitive intelligence and emotional intelligence.

Brawn and brains helped us, over time, crawl out of caves with clubs in hand and build office cubicles with smart phones in hand. Human beings had the muscular strength to survive on the available land and travel to better lands in search of safer homes and more-abundance and richer food sources. Of even more importance, human beings learned:

• how to understand one another,
• how to associate with one another, 
• how to cooperate with one another,
• how to think strategically,
• how to work together in teams.

Which brings us to business...

Your business will be at its best when each of your people uses his or her individual business-brawn and individual business-brain.

Individual Business-Brawn

One hundred years ago, over 90% of the people in Canada earned money by exchanging physical effort for money. They used their bodies to do farm work, construction work, heavy industrial work, etc. Now, in business, muscular strength has been replaced by individual strengths where:

Individual Strength = Talent + pertinent business Knowledge + Skill, developed through repeated practice of work-thought and work-action

Each person has unique talents and some of those talents align with working in business. The key is to find those business-fitting talents and put them to use at work, gain knowledge about work and about the talents to learn how to best mesh the two, and practice, test, measure, practice...practice, practice.

Individual Business-Brain

Every person's brain is wired differently. That applies to learning, remembering, to understanding other people, to communicating with other people, and to getting along with other people... and to a whole lot more. In business, we cannot come even close to covering the enormous and unfathomable range of individual-brain nuances.

Nor do we need to.

A huge step is to believe every person's brain is unique and that uniqueness is both the source of species greatness and the source of interpersonal misunderstandings and conflict. The biggest mistakes a business person can make fall in the following areas:

• assuming people think alike, 
• assuming people possess similar business desires, 
• assuming people communicate the same way,
• assuming people remember the same facts [i.e., never facts, just perceptions],
• etc.

Thought Tweet #570 If you cannot see the forest for the trees, check to see if you're out on a limb.

The Thinking Behind The Tweet

Few people possess the ability to think strategically while having a solid grasp of the details of the plan. Some people do not know they are out on a limb until they suffer a painful fall. Yes - that's part of the learning experience...as long as they are able to get up after the fall.