How do you take a 20 ton, 12 foot block of ice and transform it into an elaborate award winning work of art?
Just ask, Singapore Captain Ng See Yian who was gracious to allow me to interview him and learn how his five person team creates their magical snow sculptor called Love, Balance and Community.
My wife and I got a blast of insight about transforming talent as we watched the 14 countries participating in the 23rd Annual International Snow Sculptor Championship in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Sculptor Rob Neyland said, “Snow is a living medium. It starts as water from the sky, and we just grasp it briefly, and then it’s water again. It’s a lot like life in that respect.”
Talent is a divine given genetic predisposition to think, feel, and act.
Just like snow sculpting teams only have 65 hours to work their magic before being evaluated on their performance we only have a short life time to maximize our talents.
Here are three tips to transform talent.
1. Start with a story.
Team Singapore used their mascot as a model for transforming their block of ice.
The story behind their mascot is that the head of a lion and the body of a fish surrounded by dolphins signifies how the world can communicate courageously, attaining peace by living in love and balance.
Donald Clifton, the father of strengths psychology created the Clifton Strengthsfinder assessment measuring 34 talent themes. Over 8 million people in 22 languages have taken this test and now Gallup strengths evangelist want to up the ante to a billion takers.
Clifton also had a vision of winning the Nobel Peace Prize uniting the world with a positive language of talents and strengths.
What would the world, your family, your church, your work look like if everyone started with the story of strengths?
To coach your clients to transform their talents into strengths, ask them to “describe a story when they were at their best.”
By starting with a personal story they have a model for talent and success.
2. Strengthen with tools.
The Snow Sculpture Championship is not allowed to use power tools and can only use hand tools such as chisels, saws, and vegetable peelers. Each sculptor on the team transforms the ice through their skills and precision from years of practice.
Talent is also transformed into strength when we gain knowledge and create a strength based mindset. Honing a positive growth mindset instead of a negative fixed mindset allows character to develop and fuels our talents.
As the book, Outliers describes, true genius is achieved with at least 10,000 hours of repetitive practice.
Coaching, mentoring, masterminding, reading, training, are a few tools used for transforming talents into strengths in everyday life.
3. Succeed with a team.
It’s true “All of us is smarter and stronger than one of us.”
To transform talents to an elaborate work of artful strengths takes the interdependence of strengths from an entire team. Each person has their role and genius that turns a block of ice into love, balance, and community.
No one person has all the strengths needed to create a masterful work of art. It truly takes not only the power of two but the genius of five team members to transform a block of ice into am inspiring award winning masterpiece.
How could your teams capitalize on each others strengths better for success?
Remember to transform talent into strength like the Singapore team transformed ice into a beautiful snow sculpture and then the world will see more love, balance and community.
