Breaking Away from the Competition: A Footrace Illustrates Strengths and Weaknesses

I was unhappy with my life, so I went shopping. Surely I could justify buying a new pair of sensible shoes. Instead, the salesman held up something that looked like it belonged on a Barbie doll, with a high heel and stylish strap over the instep. He slipped the sandals on my feet and leaned back, admiration in his eyes. I couldn't afford the shoes but bought them anyway, because the salesman had made my shopping experience a pleasure. As it turned out, those sandals brought me joy every time I wore them.

A year I later bought running shoes from a different salesman. Knowledgeable but surly, he insulted my intelligence for choosing a pair that later proved to be comfortable and long-lasting. I still wish I'd pulled him aside to hiss in his ear: "You sold me these shoes despite your poor performance. You should do yourself and your customers a big favor by getting out of sales!"

In all my years of buying footwear, those two salesmen remain in my memory because one of them was just as awesome as the other was awful. They anchor opposite ends of a continuum. That same continuum exists for most human behavior, with strong performance at one end and weak at the other.

Let's switch now from a verbal explanation of strengths and weaknesses to a visual and numerical description, using the metaphor of a footrace. A footrace measures running skill. Like other skills, running can fall in the strong, average, or weak ranges. The image above shows the distance 100 runners have covered after ten seconds. (It also illustrates what statisticians call the normal curve.)

You'll notice that there is quite a bit of spread between the racers, with most of them bunched up in the middle of the pack. Those sixty-eight folks are running in the average range where it's hard to distinguish one from another. In contrast, the first sixteen racers—the strong runners—have broken away from the pack, while the last sixteen—the weak runners—have fallen behind.

In the high and low ranges, strengths and weaknesses are extreme enough to become "visible to the naked eye." In other words, observers are more likely to notice that you're fast, if you're one of the first sixteen runners, or slow, if you're among the last sixteen to cross the finish line. Arrows below the footrace image mark the point where the average range begins and ends (these two points are also known as one standard deviation below and above the mean).

Running is only one skill, but this general concept of performing in the high, average, or low range applies across the world of work. Every occupation has its own unique pattern of required skills, such as those necessary for selling shoes. When your student can use her greatest strengths on the job, she will become an effective and perhaps even phenomenal employee, like the guy who sold me the snazzy sandals.

Strengths are characteristics that help the worker adapt in a specific environment. In the sales environment, for example, strengths could include positive characteristics like being outgoing, developing rapport with strangers, and generating many alternatives. An employer seeks and compensates employee strengths that contribute to meeting his customer's needs. If you were the owner of the shoe store, of course you'd want to hire the most effective salesman you could, because he would help keep you in business.

Your child is best served by looking for work that is enhanced by her strengths and not affected by her weaknesses, so that she can break away from the competition throughout her career. If a particular job requires important skills that she can only perform in the low range, then she's better off looking elsewhere.

Do you suspect this point is too obscure to matter? Consider this little known fact: Many job seekers must submit to pre-employment testing. Employers seldom share the test results with their candidates; instead, they simply hire the applicants whose strengths provide the best match for their position.

And the unfortunate job applicant who has already spent her time and her parents' money to earn her bachelor's degree? She may not even be aware that she's running in the middle of the pack. She will not be hired. And most likely, she will never know why.