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ACCEPT: What Are Your Weaknesses?

Lesson 4 from: Design​ ​Thinking​ ​for​ ​Strengths-Based​ ​Leadership​

John K. Coyle

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Lesson Info

4. ACCEPT: What Are Your Weaknesses?

Lesson Info

ACCEPT: What Are Your Weaknesses?

Everybody in every institution has weaknesses. I took that test twice more over two years, and I went from 52 to 52 to 52. Because that is me, I have an aerobic weakness. Always have, always will. I can't go up, as I learned many years prior, but still didn't want to accept. So what are your weaknesses? I'm gonna give you a few to work with. And for those taking this later, you'll have a workbook with a list of these. But here's a few, I'll go first and then maybe a few of you from the panel can shout out a weakness you might have. I can tend to be disorganized. So anybody else have a weakness you're willing to share. Almost all of them. (laughing) Hard on oneself. Restless, rebellious, distractable. I think one that stood out for me was humorless, for some reason. I don't know why. So, here's a list of weaknesses, there's others, right? I was doing this a little while back and there were two ladies actually sitting up front and they were writing cause they were using their w...

orksheet and the one says to the other hey, and they clearly knew each other. And the one says hey, am I rude? And the other one didn't even break stride, she was like yep. It was pretty funny. Everybody started laughing. So a couple days later we got a new manila envelope under the door for another test. And they don't really tell you much about these things. So just said where to be and what to wear. So I showed up across campus. It was a different room, no lab coats. And there was two guys, a stationary bike, and some carpeting. When I got the room they said, look this is super easy. You're gonna get on the bike, you're gonna pedal for 30 seconds as fast as you can go. We'll measure peak and average power output. We'll have you out of here in a few minutes. And I thought okay, this is right up my alley. I'm excited to try this one. So I got on the bike and put everything in place and then, I went to go step on the bike pedal, and all that happened was I went up. I'm not gonna do that on the TV. So when I pushed on it, I stood up and the pedal didn't go down so I did it again. And then I started jumping up and down on the pedal and it moved one inch and stopped. And I turned to the guys and I'm like hey, there's something wrong with the three, two, one. I gotta pedal that for 30 seconds. I didn't see that coming, but what could I do? I had to start, so pushed down with every ounce of energy with my right leg. Every ounce of energy with my left hamstring. Pulled up and eventually got one rotation. But after a second, I started getting the flywheel going. And two seconds in I hit 30 rpms. And then three seconds, 80 rpms. Four seconds, 150 rpms. Five seconds, 200 rpms. Six seconds, 240 rpms. And at seven seconds I pegged out at 250 rpms. I could feel the heat rising from the wheel. I could smell it in the air. And for the first time, they were actually interested in me for not being terrible. And they were screaming at my go, go, go you're killin' it, you're killin' it. And I was eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 seconds. Pegged at 250 rpms and I can remember right about then sort of lookin' around the room a little bit and kinda cockily. And then how does that phrase go, the pride goes before the fall. Right around 13 seconds, it was like the world exploded. I was like simultaneously dipped in gasoline, set on fire, and drowning at the same time. Everything began to burn and I had no oxygen left. And my rpms dropped from 250 to 200, to 150, to 100, down to 60. And at 18 seconds in, I could see them moving in screaming at me, don't quit. Keep going, keep going, and then their mouths kept moving but I couldn't hear them any more. Because that's when this shuddering, fluttering sound entered the room and up and over my head that turned to the buzzing of cicadas. And then the lights got lighter and the darks got darker. And then everything turned yellow, and then black. And when I woke up, I was on a cot, in another room, and the little vampire was back stabbing away at my fingers with no permission. She was annoying me. And that guy was on the phone, he was annoying me too. He was like yeah, yeah, I know, I know, he's the first one to pass out on the bike. Fantastic. In a sport where the shortest event is 40 seconds, I can't manage to stay comatose for 18. And I went back to my room and I got my manila envelope. I didn't really wanna open it but eventually I did. And sure enough, the lowest average power output of the team. Not so surprising considering I was comatose for the second half, but then the second page was a different cut of the data. This was for a 15 second interval which showed actually, had an advantage for the first half of the test vis a vie the team. And then they cut the data by individual seconds and as it turned out, there was an anomaly in the data in the two to five second range, where I generated, I had a small thermonuclear reactor in each quadricep for that short interval which of course is awesome in a sport where the shortest even is 40 seconds. Or is it? Actually this is a little tiny super power that later became advantageous to me. I just didn't know what to do with it at the time.

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This class was fantastic. I appreciate John's insights and his discussion of design thinking, a process that now that I have learned it, makes so much sense! This has been an amazing course that will impact my decisions in life and work for the rest of my career. Thank you John!

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