Integritus Prime

After a recent conversation, I was inspired to map out my skills in a different way. Previously, I have mapped out my skills to determine the range of services for Alchemus Prime, or to determine my professional development needs. This time, I wanted to see if I was, in agile language, an “I”, a “T”, pi, or broken comb. If I’m speaking in gibberish now, that’s okay. These are terms for the types of skills a person has. An “I” has deep expertise in one area but no breadth across disciplines. A “T” has breadth in several areas, and depth in one area. A pi has depth in two areas and some breadth. A broken comb is someone with multiple areas of depth and breadth.

As it turns out, I’m a broken comb, as you can see in the image below (special thanks to my bro, Nicholas Cornelius for guiding me through the iterations it took to create this diagram). My deepest areas of knowledge are behavioral science, design thinking and climate change, followed closely by meditation, and then management. The areas where I’ve had some training include graphic design and biomimicry. When I did this skills mapping analysis, it made sense that I offer the services I do. I’ve tried to put “soft” skills on the left and “hard skills” on the right, but even this framing is not ideal, as I’ve written about before. So, I focused on representing me accurately.

As I’ve experienced, having this sort of skill base is important for cross-functional teams. One part of my work as a change management consultant is to guide teams through transitions. I find I am able to help them through a plethora of challenges, from articulating the vision and mission to dealing with team dynamics, and figuring out how to navigate governance transitions. As a coach, I turn into a one-stop-shop when clients come to me for business writing or boundary setting or career transitions, and we end up discussing childhood trauma as a root cause for their adult woes. Basically, I resonate with being a broken comb. It makes me feel whole 🙂

Here are my tips if you’d like to map out your skills:

1. Be honest (not modest): Document all the skills you really have in a spreadsheet. Add your qualifications too. Don’t be shy.
2. Dig deep (and look wide): Think beyond your formal work and consider skills you’re really good at for yourself and your friends too, like time management, or interior design. This gives a more complete picture.
3. Iterate (look differently): Draw and re-draw your diagram to see if you’re an “I”, a “T”, a pi or a broken comb, or something else.

A few thoughts: the diagram may not be comprehensive compared to your spreadsheet (mine wasn’t), but it’s a worthwhile assignment; it’s an exercise, it doesn’t define you. This exercise could give you another interesting way to perceive what you bring to the table and what you’d like to change about that; it may also highlight areas for learning.

Have fun with it, and embrace learning more about yourself. Also, check out my blog on how I discovered my evolution using what is now the Gallup’s Strengths test, and a 3-point checklist to use for your own self-analysis.