Where do you focus?

I wish I had read the book earlier. It would have prevented me from wasting money and spending a fortune, and that’s just a minor part of it. Reading the book would have prevented me from making my kids miserable. Now that’s the major issue. But instead of telling you my story, allow me to ask you a question.

Your kid comes home from school. Walking slowly towards you, his head drooping a little, his eyes avoiding yours, he hands over his report card with one hand. You look over his grades. The printed score in red jumps out of the card. “71% in Math?”

With a glare in your eye and a scream in your voice, you say, “Why did you fail? You’ve been spending too much time on your computer, and you did not work hard on your math!” Your kid keeps quiet. Any attempt to explain would simply elicit more comments from you, so he’s actually being wise, “I need to get you a tutor! Do you know how much money that will cost me?”

Is this is your script today? This was my script many years ago. Could you tell what’s lacking from the script?

What was lacking was my commendation for my kid’s grades in the other subjects. I could’ve said, “Wow Bryan, you’ve got an 88% in Music. Have you thought of getting some more lessons on that?” Or I should have said, “Hannah, your score in Arts is extraordinarily high. How would you like to improve on it?” Looking back, I could have said, “Rachel, you scored so high in English. Would you like me to buy you more books, you know, the kind that you like?”

Here is the point: We parents are so focused on the weaknesses of our kids that we fail to appreciate their strengths. This was clearly emphasized by Marcus Buckingham in his book Discovering Your Strengths. His book reveals that we’re wired to focus on problems rather than strengths.

The same thing happens in practically every aspect in life.

You’d know people who would spend countless hours analyzing why the relationship is falling apart, but they have not analyzed why things are working well in the areas that are.

As a businessman I have been trained to fight fires, to solve problems, to come up with quick decisions to rectify a wrong situation. And so I take pride in defining and locating the weak areas.

• “You know Rara the reason why this thing happened was because you failed to do this…”

• “Pam, you should have followed up this client…”

• “Bryan, you spent too much time playing your drums…”

• “Hannah, you did not work hard on your subjects, you packed in too much activities in your schedule…”

• “Rachel, you have not prioritized your subjects…”

I may be right in pointing those things our; in fact I was most of the time. But I’m still on the wrong because I failed to recognize and build on their areas of strengths.

Today things are a little different. I focus on my kids’ strengths. I acknowledge, compliment and praise them. In turn I see my kids taking off. Bryan is now a professional drummer apart from his day job. He keeps quiet and doesn’t brag about it, but my friends in the industry tell me that he’s really good. Hannah sells a lot of her jewelry, designs shoes and clothes, while doing very well in school. She’s just graduating this year, but she’s already gotten the knack of being an entrepreneur. Rachel is enjoying her multi-media course.

Rara and Pam are so dependable and reliable, I could not function well without them helping me out in the background.

It’s as simple as affirming people in their areas of strength and helping them build on those. This provides them with the necessary encouragement, and it could help them deal with their weaknesses in a more positive way.

When you go to your work place tomorrow, praise your people for the fantastic work they have done. Two things will happen: your people would be surprised at first (others would probably be shocked with disbelief), but they will be inspired to do better; and you would’ve made yourself a better person.

The Scriptures remind us constantly to encourage one another. And now I know why - because it really works!

(Develop your leadership skills! Francis Kong will be the lead trainer for the Dr. John Maxwell’s “Developing the Leader Within You” leadership program this August 26-27 at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. at 632-6872614 or 09178511115.)