Have you taken the StrengthsFinder profile? It’s a very interesting way to pinpoint your talents (strengths) and build success based on them. If I’m loving my job, you can bet it’s because I’m getting the opportunity to maximize my natural strengths.
One of my top strengths, according to my profile, is called “Learner.” I love to learn and I’m energized by the process of learning. Apparently, I’m not the only one at Geonetric with this particular strength. We have regular “brown bag” lunches where anyone in the company can sign up to lead a session on a topic of interest to them – work related or not.
Just this past month, our resident shutterbug (and senior project manager) led us into the world of photography and shared picture-taking strategies; our high-purple-belt director of strategic services taught us about Taekwondo and self defense; one of our summer interns dazzled us with his ability to create animated graphics through computer 3d modeling; we learned the latest research on user experience from our gifted information architect and scrum-master; and I got to share my knowledge of marketing with people who typically spend their time writing .NET code. Today, I’ll learn about taking care of my heart from a member of the American Heart Association. And that’s not even counting our monthly read-to-lead book club.
Many companies talk about “growing” their employees … and many employees talk about being lifelong learners. I’m fortunate enough to work at a company where it’s not just talk. How cool is that?