Fear Your Strengths

Fixing Overuse

You will remember that William Lessor had long suffered from an inferiority complex about his intellect that mired him in tactical detail. Fear drove his hyperattention to detail: “I’m afraid that if I’m meeting with my team or even people lower in the organization and something comes up that I’m not aware of, they’ll think I’m stupid.” He was afraid of being stupid even though he was widely viewed as plenty smart. When we first asked him to make a list of his strengths, he did not include any version of the word “smart.” During the feedback session, we called his attention to the omission and suggested he add “smart” to his list, but he could not do it, even after he had received formal feedback from coworkers that included appreciation ...