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Over the course of my life I’ve had more personality and intelligence tests than your average person. Growing up with ADHD before people understood it, meant I went through a lot of tests. Then between my various jobs and when I got my MBA I have taken dozens of additional tests.

The net result of all of this is that I know a lot about myself that I already knew.

I just  received the results of my most recent test. Surprise, I have a lot of ideas, I’m good with people and I’m bad with details. This probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who knows me at all.

Something that this test highlighted is the differences between my personality when I’m trying versus when I’m not trying. When I’m trying I’m just more me. I don’t try an compensate much for my lack of attention to details, I just try harder at the areas I’m strong in.

There used to be a time where people strived to be “well rounded,” there was an effort to strengthen your weaknesses. I don’t think that matters so much anymore. I think people would get further along if the focused on their strengths. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t ignore your weaknesses. I’ve had to improve my writing, but I’ve never made any effort to improve my penmanship. Why bother?

I work to be just as organized as I need to be but it’s not worth my effort to remember everything. I have technology and an office admin who make sure I’m where I need to be when I need to be. I’ve worked out a Moleskine system that works for my day to day but I have no interest in being David Allen.

Personality Test

Technology and our hyper connected lives (both to people and technology) means I can spend more effort increasing my strengths and spend just enough effort on my weaknesses to get by.

It’s really about personal ROI. I create more value doing what I’m good at because it takes me 2 to 3 times longer to do stuff I’m not good at. Because I’ve identified my strengths – my true strength – I don’t worry about trying to do things I’m not the best at.

Businesses shouldn’t focus on areas they can’t be among the best and neither should we.

Now I said true strengths. Being ADHD, people thought my multitasking and hyperness were a weakness and tried to “fix me”. I have to focus to a degree but the multitasking and hyper activity are huge strengths when it comes to ideation and innovation. I see trends and connections others don’t see because I don’t “keep my head down” and focus on one thing. Now I’m really glad that some of you can do that. It’s important that some of us stay focused. You still need some generalist. But they’re good at that.

But if we all focused on our strengths and worked together we’re infinitely greater together than we are individually trying to be well rounded.

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