Image by Clarita
David Rendall’s excellent Freak Factory site has a sub-title that reads “Embracing uniqueness by flaunting weakness”. Flaunting is what Rendall and his writing are all about. Instead of trying to balance, compensate, improve, or fix our weaknesses, his thesis is that by celebrating what we suck at, we are also celebrating what makes us unique and valuable.
This is a natural progression from the work of Marcus Buckingham and many others on strength-focused development. Buckingham, especially in The One Thing You Need to Know… About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, drives home the idea that the best approach to the management of others and to identifying pathways to personal success, is to focus on maximizing strengths rather than ‘repairing’ weaknesses.
Rendall takes this and both turns it on its head and pushes it one step further. Not only should we maximize our strengths rather than waste energy on fixing our weaknesses, we should actually find our strengths in our weaknesses. As Rendall wrote in a 2006 post What’s Your Problem:
“My parents and teachers had one primary goal during my entire childhood. They wanted me to sit down and shut up. I had a weakness, a big weakness, since I had to spend 12 years of my life in school, sitting still and listening . . . or at least trying to. Because of my weakness, I was told repeatedly that I was obnoxious, had a bad attitude and lacked self-control.
How did I overcome this problem? I didn’t. I became a college professor and a professional speaker. Now, I get paid to stand up and talk. I make a living on my weakness. I make a living on my strength. I never got “better.” I never fixed my weakness. To this day, I remain unable to sit still or keep quiet but I don’t have to.”
I am highlighting Rendall’s site for two reasons: it pushes a line of thought past the obvious and the intuitive, into a truly new perspective, and it has that blend of lessons for life, leadership, and business that I find attractive.
Here are some areas of the Freak Factory site worth exploring:
- The home page sets the contrarian tone. There are two ‘freaky’ quizzes and a list of recent blog posts with titles like “The Ten Unbreakable Rules of Blogging (and the reasons you can break them)”
- The Resources page is one of the best I have seen. It is clean, easy to navigate and FULL of great resources on the topics Rendall writes and speaks about. The page includes all of the formats his book Four Factors of Effective Leadership is available in, free PowerPoint and handout downloads for both book and seminars, and CD’s and DVD’s of his presentations. There are even two nicely done eBooks for free download. I wish all of my favourite writers had sites that made accessing their material this easy.
- The Freak Factor blog. Amongst all of Rendall`s strong writing I think the pieces I like the best are the Freak of the Week. These pieces, like “Freak of the Week: Lance Haun” give us glimpses into the lives of people who have drilled down into their weaknesses and challenges to see what unique advantages they hold.
As a coach I am always looking for that unique perspective that might break through the numbingly repetitive messages we tell ourselves, and that trap us in mediocrity. David Rendall’s work makes a difference because it provides that fresh perspective. After reading Rendall’s articles and following him on Twitter (daverendall) my perspective has shifted. I have looked at my own ‘weirdnesses’ and realized that there is a lot there that makes me unique and is the source of much of the value I bring to others.
I work with my clients to help them focus on their strengths, or the strengths of their employees, and find ways to create the greatest engagement for those strengths in their organizations. I tell them if they are waiting for someone to change, or ‘fix their problems’ before they can move forward, they will always be stuck. Maximize the strengths that are there, and move on.
Rendall’s work brings a new twist, and a new energy to that work. Our strengths need to be maximized, but the next step is to understand that our perceived weaknesses can be strengths. They don’t need to be fixed. They need to be acknowledged for the role they play in making us who we are as independent and unique individuals.
