Things I Suck At

In some weird, self-diagnostic way, I’ve spent a lot of time in the last 5 years thinking about the things that I suck at. No cause for alarm – this blog isn’t some not-so-subtle cry for help, or some kind of reverse-psychology call for approval. Rather, the need to identify one’s own strengths and weaknesses is one that I find ever more pressing in today’s leadership world. And I firmly believe that there is no better way to realize your own weaknesses than by doing something that requires all of your strengths.

In many ways, by taking on so much so young through FORGE, I’ve been forced to become intimate with my own shortcomings, limitations and failures in ways that I may never have if I followed a more traditional path. I figured it may be helpful to inventory some of them here in case it helps other entrepreneurs to identify some of their own weaknesses, or if it can contribute to breaking down a bit of the culture of perfectionism that penetrates our world. So I picked five of the things I suck at most to share with you today:

1) Multitasking

One of the first things that anyone who knows me well comes to learn is that I CANNOT, for the life of me, do two things at once. If I’m working on a document, I won’t hear someone call my name. If I’m in a conversation, I won’t notice an elephant walk through the room. A fire could start in my building and I’d obliviously keep working until someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away. While this means I can be very good at noticing the details of what I’m currently enthralled with, I miss out on a lot of things going on around me unless I intentionally focus on being aware of them. Since I even have a hard time being responsive to my surroundings when I’m thinking about something, I worry that I can come off as rude and aloof.

2) Managing People Who Need A Lot of Structure

I pretty much just suck at this. While I work well with people who are naturally entrepreneurial and good at executing and self-directing, I have a hard time giving people who need more direction the necessary attention and oversight to bring out their best. Because I thrive under having a lot of space in which to be creative and self-determined, I seem to lack the perspective necessary to see when and where someone needs more direction, less control, and more feedback. It may partly relate to my lack of ability to multitask – when I’m focused on one of the items or projects on my list, it’s hard for me to stay aware and on top of what my colleagues are doing at the moment. Not one to look over someone else’s shoulder, and generally underestimating how much direction the average person needs, I can easily under-manage (and thus see under-performance from) people who aren’t naturally entrepreneurial and self-starters.

3) Taking Care of Life’s Little Details

Whether it’s a flat tire that needs fixing, bills that need paying, toilet paper that needs refilling, or a cell phone that needs recharging, I plain old suck at taking care of the basic building blocks of a functioning life. I forget, put off, and minimize. I focus on other things until I’m in trouble because I have no clean laundry left to wear. It’s a habit that I’ve tried desperately to fix, and only to some success. In order to not drop the ball, I need Mint reminders to pay my credit card bill, Accuchex to auto-deduct our payroll, and someone else to process our mail. I also need multiple cell phone chargers (office, bedroom, and car), Google Calendar constantly open, and colleagues who remind me when I fail to do something I was supposed to. And still, I’ll probably forget to take my vitamins before leaving the house in the morning…

4) Balancing Email & ‘Real’ Work

Professionally, this is one I’m constantly struggling with. It seems that every time I get really on top of my email, I fall behind on important projects or ‘real’ work. And every time I get a lot of ‘real’ work done, I end up dozens of important emails behind in my inbox. Right now, I’ve got 246 starred emails awaiting response, but I also have an Annual Report to finish, financials to manage, a dozen Training Sessions to update, and several grants to edit. How can you stay on top of both? I’ve learned to severely shorten my replies to bare minimums (that’s often originally uncomfortable for females who like to be ‘nice’), but I find that I tend to put off responding to emails that require longer, more nuanced, or more in-depth answers. This, of course, just leaves work unfinished on the table.

5) Moving on After Letting Someone Down

More than anything, this is perhaps one of my greatest weaknesses. Like everyone, I hate, hate HATE letting other people down. It’s like in sports – I never cried over losing a game, I only cried over not winning a game for my teammates. As a leader of an organization, I feel like I’m letting people down every day. Whether it’s by saying no to a summer intern, by not approving a budget increase, by not finishing something when I said I would, or by not responding to an email within 24 hours - I’m seemingly inevitably disappointing people or not meeting my own ideal standards. This is pretty normal, right? The problem is that I have a hard time letting go and just moving on. If I’m late on a deadline, I feel embarrassed to the point that I don’t want to submit the thing at all. If I know I let someone down performance-wise, my instinct is to avoid them because they probably are upset with me and I don’t want to bring that to the surface. Of all the things I’ve mentioned here, this is the behavior I’m most ashamed of. It’s avoidance in its most self-defeating of manifestations. It’s something I’m working to improve, but it still qualifies as something I suck at.

While by no means an exhaustive list, recognizing the things I suck at above has been an extremely important part of both my and FORGE’s development. I could probably write a whole nother blog on how I’ve learned to cope with these things, the way in which my colleagues are instrumental in balancing my weaknesses, and the steps that I still need to take. But I’ve written enough for now. I’ve got emails 246 starred emails to respond to!