Discovering the Power of Gallup's Talents: How My Talents Help Me Succeed in Business

The European Talent Day is on March 25, and it's what got me thinking about how important talents are in the IT industry, where I work every day. I hope this post will inspire you to discover your talents and work on them, as doing so can significantly impact your personal growth and your company's success. As a person who deals with broadly understood business development (i.e., processes, financial aspects, effectiveness in the activities performed), I completed the so-called Gallup test to check what features are dominant in me and how they affect my tasks.

The Gallup test makes it possible to find unique skills that can be turned into important strengths in the workplace. Finding out what your talents are helps you learn more about yourself, your strengths, and where you can improve. We can work better individually and in groups by developing and using these natural skills.

In the next part of the article, I will discuss my five main Gallup talents ( Individuation, Learning, Analytics, Focus, and Context) and explain how they influence my career and how they can help people responsible for business development and in the IT industry.

1. Individuation: This enables me to recognize the unique features, predispositions, and talents of other people, which in turn helps me tailor my approach and strategy to their needs. Thanks to this talent, I feel free to create a strategy or propose solutions when my clients have different needs and requirements. I try to listen to their needs, and finding the so-called golden mean is not a problem. In the IT industry, this talent can be invaluable for understanding team members' strengths and allocating tasks based on their abilities. By doing so, we can ensure that each person works to their full potential and contributes effectively to the team's success.
   At work, I use this talent to recommend which resources can be engaged to achieve the assumed strategic goal. Individualization allows me to effectively delegate tasks and when I have such an opportunity, I assign appropriate projects to people with appropriate skills and interests, which increases their efficiency and motivation.
2. Learning: As someone with a strong Learning talent, I am always eager to acquire new information and develop my skills. In the fast-paced, IT industry, staying up-to-date with the latest tools, trends, and technologies is essential for success. This talent helps me quickly adapt to changing conditions and confidently embrace new challenges. By fostering a culture of continuous learning within our team, we can ensure that our company remains at the cutting edge of the industry.
   At work, I use this talent to work on new projects that require getting to know a new industry or using new tools. For example, a few years ago I willingly implemented a new reporting system, even though no one in the entire company had used it before and my role was not only to learn about the system, but also to implement it throughout the company. This talent also helps me not to close myself off to previously known solutions and I am always willing to look for new ways to do something better.
3. Analytics: My Analytics talent allows me to work on revenue security in the company, identify opportunities in the IT industry, and analyze the competition. It can be applied to various aspects of the work, such as evaluating, identifying areas for improvement, or understanding user behavior. By leveraging data-driven insights, we can make more informed decisions and create better products for our clients.
   At work, I use this talent every day looking for answers in numbers to questions about markets, trends or the company's situation - I don't even have to spend a lot of time looking for data, because reaching the right information comes naturally to me. I often combine numerical data from many non-obvious sources, which ultimately help the business find the right solutions and answers to questions. I am a fan of "data driven culture", i.e. using data to make decisions at every level of the organization.
4. Focus: The Focus talent enables me to set goals and work diligently to achieve them and can be invaluable for keeping projects on track and ensuring that deadlines are met. Maintaining a clear sense of direction and prioritizing tasks ensures that our team stays focused on delivering high-quality work to our clients.
   At work, I use this talent primarily to plan and properly assign tasks so that when the team is working on many different topics at the same time, I do not lose sight of the main goal, which is, for example, the goals of business owners or investors (I often used this when working in a startup). This talent also helps me in projects where a completely new product is to be finally created, and people working on the product go with plans and tasks in completely different directions.
5. Context: My Context talent helps me quickly understand various strategies, goals, and operations within an organization. In the design and development field, this talent can be crucial for integrating different sources of information and creating a coherent picture of a project's requirements. By applying this talent, I can better understand our client's needs, identify potential opportunities, and develop recommendations for improving their digital presence.
   At work, this talent helps me assess the viability of future projects. Thanks to the analysis of previous projects, their budgets, resources used and results obtained, I quickly draw conclusions from previous experiences in order to use solutions that worked in previous situations. In addition, talent helps me work on processes. It is much easier for me to work on processes and identify what processes and practices have worked in the past and which have not, which is essential when working on strategy and financial aspects.

The European Talent Day is a great time to think about how important talent is in business and professional life. Discovering and developing your talents can significantly enhance your success at work and improve your effectiveness individually and as a team.

I encourage you to explore your own talents and consider how they can be utilized to improve your performance and enhance your personal growth. Whether you are a business analyst, developer, or designer, embracing your unique talents can lead to remarkable achievements and contributions to the overall success of your organization.

I'd love to hear your stories about discovering your talents and how they've made a difference in your work life. Let's learn from each other and grow together!