“At the highest levels of any kind of competitive discipline, everyone is great. At this point the decisive factor is rarely who knows more, but who dictates the tone of the battle. For this reason, almost without exception, champions are specialists whose styles emerge from profound awareness of their unique strengths, and who are exceedingly skilled at guiding the battle in that direction.” | Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning.
I love this note.
Josh, a child chess prodigy, describes the process of his falling out of love with chess beautifully in this part of the book. A big part of that was being coached to play in a style that didn’t suit his strengths or natural approach.
But, to his point, it is an idea – like all great ideas – that has widespread applicability. Leading teams, for example, works just the same way. The best leaders lead in a way that suits their style in contexts and organizations that suit their strengths.
Understanding ourselves and placing ourselves in teams and contexts that suit our unique strengths may be among the most important things we do.
