Have you ever wondered what’s my value in the world? What do I know that makes my value important to others? What do I know that makes me different than others? Some people look too deep to answer that question. They are trying to find something they have that is above average. Hopefully, this blog will shed some light on your value that you might have overlooked.
I want you to know that I am referring to people that think they are average. Those individuals that believe that they do not have any special talent or gift. People that believe that what they know is common knowledge to others. Well, I’m here to tell you that what you consider to be common knowledge just might not be common knowledge to others.
What I Know Wasn’t Common Knowledge to Others
As an engineer and supervisor, I always had the ability to see problems and implement the appropriate action to correct it and prevent future occurrences. This ability was so natural for me. Because it was so easy for me, I always considered it to be common knowledge. I actually believed others knew it just as well as me.
As years when by, I became a manager of others. In this new role, I wanted to be a leader and not just a manager. One of the many traits of a good leader is to coach the team. They influence others. I would ask supervisors to work with their teams to understand their issues and help resolve them. I would ask them if they knew what their bottlenecks were. They would have a tough time with some of these tasks and I would coach them as to how I would approach it. Things definitely improved but they still struggled with the concept.
I started to realized what was so common to me, wasn’t that common to others. I had a talent that increased my value. It now started to make sense to me why I was selected for different positions both within the present company and openings in other companies. Others saw my value which I wasn’t aware of.
Understanding the Values of Other
Discovering that my knowledge wasn’t as common as I thought made me start to think. If this phenomenon is happening to me, wouldn’t it be happening to others? Of course it is. I decided to work even closer with the team hoping to understand what unique value they bring to the team. Once I understood their expertise, I tried to put them in a place that helps them and the team. For example, I discovered a few team members that were very detailed, which is both good and bad. Since they were so detailed orientated, their output wasn’t the best for production numbers. However, their attention to detail made them very resourceful with quality. They would find the defects with digital images and help explain the problems to the members taking the images.
Know Your Strengths
I highly recommend that you understand your strengths. That might not be an easy task especially if you believe some of your strengths is common knowledge. My advice to you is to list what you are good at regardless if you think it is a strength or just common knowledge. I would consider everything to be your strength, which makes you a unique individual. Let others make that determination. You might have more value in your field than you are giving yourself credit for.
