What Exactly Do You Mean by Anal? Thoughts on Leadership and Self-Awareness

I remember one time having an argument that went like this:

Joe:  I think there's enough detail in there.

Dave:  No, there's not.  There's no underpinnings, there's no rigor in the thought process.  Remember, David Ogilvy always said "good writing is slavery" and ergo you need to dive deep and --

Joe:  Oh, you can be so anal.

Dave:  I don't think I'm being anal.  I'm just being rigorous.

Joe:  Yes, you are.

Dave:  Well, what exactly do you mean by anal?

I always try to listen to myself and once in a while I have a did-I-just-say-that moment.  Did I just say, "what exactly do you mean by anal?"  Oh shit, I did.  Isn't that kind of the definition of being anal?  Oh shit, it is.  Heck Dave, you may as well just have replied:  what I really want to know is -- is there a hyphen in anal-retentive?

The actual issue here is one of leadership:  being aware of your strengths and weaknesses, trying to avoid over-doing your strengths and working to compensate for your weaknesses.  It's critical that all leaders focus on this because, by default, most folks will over-play to their strengths (to a fault, effectively turning them into weaknesses) and ignore their weaknesses.

It's not hard to be self-aware when it comes to most strengths and weaknesses.  Most folks know, for example, if they're great at public speaking and bad at financial analysis, or great at individual problem-solving but bad in groups.  Or high on IQ but low on EQ.  People usually know.

Sometimes we euphemize with ourselves.  For example, while others might say I'm:

• Detail-oriented, I prefer "rigorous"
• Blunt, I prefer "direct"
• Contrarian, I prefer "critical-thinking"
• And so on

But at least you're circling the same pond.  You have awareness of the area --though you might soften how you think about it to protect the old ego, relative to how others might more bluntly, or should I say directly, describe it.

But some weaknesses are harder to self-assess.  For example, I've taken assessments that basically prove I'm low on flexibility.  But I never knew it.  In fact, I thought I was supremely flexible because I was capable of moving.  Think:  OK, we'll move a bit in your direction.  You see, I'm flexible!  Voila, QED.  Bravo Chef!  I was, however, blind to the fact that one person's mile is another's inch.  When you're inflexible you risk self-congratulation for a tidbit of demonstrated movement when the other party thinks you haven't moved at all.

As another example, because communication is one of my strengths, I always thought I did better in groups, when in fact I do better with people one-to-one -- which was a key strength of which I wasn't even aware.  Some of these things are just hard to see.

My advice on this front is three-fold:

• Be aware of your strengths and beware your natural tendency to overplay to them.  If one of your strengths has become a running joke (e.g., at one point one of my staff handed out "Captain Anal" pins), it could be time to think about it.
• Be aware of your weaknesses and, while you can work on them if you want, use building a complementary team as your primary way to compensate.
• Attend programs like LDP (managers, directors) or LAP (C-levels) to build a deep understanding of both.  These programs aren't cheap, but they will give you self-awareness, in a kind of data-driven and ergo virtually undeniable way, that few other programs will.

(And can somebody please spell-check this thing to make sure there aren't any errors.)