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GO IT ALONE!

argue that you are far more likely to succeed if you superbly execute a mediocre idea than if you execute a superb idea in a mediocre way.

It is therefore essential that you both identify your core competence and then spend considerable time analyzing whether the business idea you are considering will allow you to leverage this core skill.

Identifying Your Core Competence

A full examination of how you determine your core competence is beyond the scope of this book. However, what follows is an attempt to summarize some excellent thinking that has been done on this subject.

Methodology 1: Find Your Greatest Strength

If you are in the process of analyzing your skills, take a look at Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. These authors start from a premise that is similar to mine. They note that most businesses often operate on the belief that each person’s greatest potential for growth is in his or her arenas of greatest weakness. They believe that instead, organizations should recognize that “each person’s talents are enduring and unique,” and that “each person’s greatest potential for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.” As stated earlier, they forcefully suggest that “the real tragedy in life is not that each of us doesn’t have enough strengths, it’s that we fail to use the ones we have.”

These authors distinguish between strengths and talents: A strength is “consistent, near perfect performance in an activity.” An example the authors cite is Cole Porter, whose “ability to carve the perfect lyric was a strength. His attempts at writing believable

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