Hidden Assets

The movie Hidden Figures tells the story of three African-American women who made a significant difference to the US space industry.  Their untold, until recently, story has many lessons for those engaged in community change.  How many times do we join a collaborative table thinking that our share efforts will transform the community only to get disappointed that we were not included or that our skills and expertise were not leveraged?  It took a crisis to bring forward the Hidden Figures but collaborative tables can uncover hidden assets early on with the Personal Asset Inventory Tool.

The Personal Asset Inventory Tool can be used by collaborative tables to uncover the assets that each partner brings to the collaborative effort.  This simple, but powerful tool, encourages collaborative leaders to list and share their skills, interests and passions.  In a few minutes, individuals and groups will realize that they are starting from a base of resources that can be leveraged.

The Personal Asset Inventory Tool was recently debuted during workshops in La Tabitiere, Quebec and St. John’s, Newfoundland.  In both cases, the participants learned new things about each other and remarked about the skills and capacities that they uncovered.

Once everyone has listed their unique skills, interests and passions on post it notes, the table is asked to begin grouping the skills into categories.  As the collaborative table undertakes it work, it can reach into and draw on the skills of the leadership team.

No longer will there be hidden assets, but the Personal Asset Inventory Tool enables assets to be uncovered and enables shared leadership to occur.  Try it out and let me know what you think.