Is it juggling? Riding a unicycle, maybe? Or do you have some ingrained personal attributes that are your secret talent? This talent is not only to add to your “personal toolbox” of skills but is often what sets you apart from other Project Managers in a very competitive landscape.

What could a Talent be?

This is normally the first question that I’m asked! and my reply is that it could be a personality trait that gives you that positive edge or something more practical. During coaching sessions, I try to learn what a persons talent could be to be able to guide them in case they don’t know this, themselves.

How to identify your talent?

Here are a few ideas for what you can do to identify your talent:

• Self Reflection / reflection with a trusted individual
  • This would be looking within yourself and working out what your talents are. It can help to do this exercise with a trusted colleague, spouse, or friend).
  • If you are doing this yourself, then here are a few questions to get you started:
    • What makes you unique among your peers?
    • Can you analyse things better than anyone else?
    • Are you a great communicator?
    • Can you help teams bond?
    • What do you enjoy doing (as this often shows some of your natural talent!)
• Online Quizzes
  • I’ve seen these being used in a variety of different ways and it’s always interesting to see how you compare against your peers/other exams.
• Formal Personality exams (e.g. Myers-Briggs)
  • In various companies that I have worked with, you often go through the personality exams during teambuilding exercises. This could be Myers-Briggs but could also be other elements / tests which determine your strengths.

What do you do with your talent?

Once you understand your talent, you’re able to use this to build on your existing ‘personal toolbox’ of skills and use this to your advantage. An example could be: You’re a great communicator so you use this to improve the communication flows within your project/organisation. As you’re also a technologist, you look at ways to become a more effective communicator within your project/organisation.

Therefore, by understanding one skill, you’re able to expand on this by using the other skills in your personal toolbox.

The final stage of this, is looking at how your organisation/projects (and more importantly, your career!) can best benefit by using this talent. It could involve transitioning into another are or alternatively putting your skills to full use within your project.

Using your talent is a really simple way to add value to your personal toolbox but it’s also a very easy way to give yourself the edge among the competition.

So, what’s your superpower?