Monday, February 07, 2005

On love & working around those weaknesses

Last week a friend of mine, Bob, spoke at a crop insurance seminar hosted by a local bank. In preparing for the seminar Bob’s wife offered to help his secretary put together the handout materials.

Every thriving group has to help its members use their strengths and work around their weaknesses. One of Bob’s weaknesses is that at work he likes to have things done his way and he doesn’t often take the time to explain why. To work around this weakness, Bob and his wife have discovered that when she helps out at the office, it’s much better to have his wife work with his staff and not directly with him.

The night before Bob’s presentation his wife surprised him by asking to go along and sit in the audience to learn more about what he does and what part she had played by helping putting together the handouts.

After the two-hour seminar they rode home together. She was ecstatic. She now felt like she understood what he did. She had taken two magazines to read during the seminar and had forgotten to open them.

She told Bob that if she didn’t already love him seeing him do a great job with the seminar would have made her fall in love with him again.

I tell you, there are great rewards when couples learn to go with their strengths and work around their weaknesses.