One of most powerful communication tools you have in your project tool kit is your natural ability – what you do best. Your talents and strengths.
What is a talent? It is a natural ability that a person is born with.
What is a strength? It is taking a talent and enhancing it by investing the time and effort to grow one’s skills and knowledge through learning and practice. This occurs over a person’s lifetime.
When project team members understand their own talents (natural abilities), they can better communicate what they need to maximize the use of their own talents and strengths on the team. Furthermore, when each team member can understand and articulate their own talents, team members are better equipped to develop their strengths. (Remember that developing a strength means taking a talent—something you do well naturally—and investing time, skills, knowledge, and practice to turn that talent into a strength.)
To learn more about your Communication talent, check out the sample Talents and Strengths grid. This grid is specific to the individual. Your grid will look different than this one.
Explore more about talents and strengths and how to use them in your project communications by reading Chapter 7. Plus invest the time to read “Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams” written by Martha Buelt and Connie Plowman. The exhibit below is taken from their book; in it, you will see a sample in how a project manager invested in a specific talent over time to develop a specific strength. The “circles” will be unique to you!
