Why you must keep practising your current skills while developing new ones

“It is impossible to keep one’s excellence in a little glass casket, like a jewel, to take it out whenever wanted. On the contrary, it can only be conserved by continuous and good practice”. The words are those of the great chess player Adolph Anderssen, spoken after his 1857 match against the American Paul Morphy.

No matter how strong you are in a particular field, you get rusty if you don’t periodically practise your craft. As consultants, we worry sometimes when we see the development plans of certain managers. The focus is entirely on remedying perceived weaknesses.

Development plans should start from an appreciation of an individual’s strengths and be designed to build on these strengths. A weakness is best defined as something which is preventing you from displaying one of your strengths. If you focus only on weaknesses, by definition the list becomes endless and the job never gets done. Energy gets dissipated, people get frustrated, and it sometimes leads to them no longer practising those very skills that they do brilliantly better than anyone else.

Build on your strengths. Excessive remedial work belongs only at the dentist.

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