Our need to define ourselves by what we do rather than who we are makes for a difficult road at times. I do X. Therefore I am X. People know what X is and they get the feeling they understand X so they understand me. I do Y. Therefore I am Y. People know what Y is and they get the feeling they understand me. But wait I do X and I do Y. Whoa. People don’t understand what XY is so they can’t understand me. So they will either force me to pick X or Y or they will ignore me entirely so they might rest easier.
I think our strengths tend to be about who we are and how we do things more than what we do. Trying to understand who someone is and what their strengths are can be difficult and even if you feel you can identify what someone is good at the ability to figure out how to apply that to what needs to get done is not always obvious. Management understands what needs to be done. Individuals need to understand how their gifts apply to what needs to be done.
The ability to be aware of who you are and how to apply that to what needs to be done is a skill we do not teach people. It is an ability to extrapolate information and an ability to combine X and Y and get XY or even Z. There are people who have this naturally and I think there are a lot of opportunities to learn these skills through life but in formalized education or training we are most commonly teaching people what to do rather than how to understand what needs to be done and how they best can do it.
