11 Herbs and Spices

Many years ago, in a previous working 'life', I worked as a manager at KFC restaurants. I learned a lot in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, particularly from my first employer, an outstanding KFC franchisee that I would still call a friend. I learned a lot about myself, too, though mostly about my weaknesses, and how my greatest strengths had pretty much nothing to do with managing a restaurant.

When people learn that I worked at KFC, the one question almost everyone asks, even to this day, is whether I knew what the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices were. It's the funniest question, and yet, because it is a secret, everyone wants to know about it. Actually, we were told that even the vendors that produced the spices for KFC didn't know the formula because different vendors only produced part of the blend.

I've often wondered what 10 herbs and spices would have tasted like. Why did the Colonel need exactly 11? I thought about these questions recently as I've been doing coaching for my team at work (back to the present day in the Medical Device industry). We've been having everyone do Gallup's Strengths Finder survey, then I've been doing one-on-one coaching with each team member to develop an action plan to help them play to their strengths.

It occurred to me that the precise combination of strengths, weaknesses, personality, social style, beliefs and life experiences all work together to put a unique stamp, or fingerprint, on each individual. In this way, we are all like our own blend of 11 herbs and spices. For instance, two people in my group are both strong in the Restorative theme, which means that they love to solve problems and find solutions, but they both express this strength in different ways.

One of the individuals is also strong in the Activator theme, so she likes to identify a problem, quickly find a fix, and get on with the rest of the team's work. The other person, however, is also strong in the Connection theme, so he would prefer to spend time finding the root cause of a problem, seeking out each of the connections that came together to create the issue so that it could be prevented next time. Both are valuable pursuits, and their strengths complement each other on the team, but each is unique and expresses their common strengths in slightly different ways.

I may never know what 10 herbs and spices would taste like, but I do know that my strengths make me unique, and I am going to look for every opportunity to capitalize on them. It just probably won't be managing a fast food restaurant!

Light it up...

Rob