"What's your biggest professional weakness?"

[MickeyFinns]

An event happend at work today and I was curious as what people here's opinion is on it.

We've just completed a two week project cycle that didn't go amazingly well. Not dreadful but not great either. In our group meeting to discuss the last two weeks the normal meeting format was dropped last minute and instead each member of the team was told to stand up in turn and answer the following two questions;

"What was your biggest strength?"

And

"What was your biggest professional weakness that held us back?"

I personally felt this sort of question should be kept within a one to one meeting with each persons line manager (the person conductor the meeting was not a manager).

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Rich_L]

"What was your biggest strength?"

Honesty

"What was your biggest professional weakness that held us back?"

Lack of tolerance for your stupid *&^%

 

[sports_brah]

Ridiculous. They're questions designed to explore areas for development and should be between employee and manager.

Unless they're trying to get certain people to cop on..

 

[Josh]

Strength - Integrity
Weakness - Self Belief

 

[Dis86]

Intolerance of idiots. Even if that moron is my client.

Strength - thinking of alternative solutions.

 

[AHarvey]

Did the managers also answer this?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I think that that sort of question in such an open forum means that you really have to question whether what you believe about yourself is what other people perceive. If not, then perhaps you're not quite doing what you think you're doing.

 

[doofer]

Strength: I don't suffer fools gladly.

Weakness: I don't suffer fools gladly.

 

[Minstadave]

I have an unsuppressable urge to attack people who ask retarded questions.

 

[peterwalkley]

"What was your biggest professional weakness that held us back?"

Translation:

"Give me ammunition to blame you for everything that goes wrong"

 

[DampDog]

Weakness = I sometimes find it difficult to differentiate my imagination from the real world.

Strength = I'm Batman...

 

[Edrof]

Knowing when a People's Elbow is appropriate in meetings.

 

[Freefaller]

Strength - collaboration / team work
Weakness - take on too much work than I can cope with

 

[DJMK4]

Strength - Quick Learner, Always egar to pick up new skills and develop them, good time management

Weaknesses - Sometimes a bit too much of a perfectionist, I like things done in a certain way, if I see someone doing things which I wouldnt do in my way I would get all OCD inside (but I dont really expand it like that) I just say I am a bit of a perfectionist at times which may or may not add a bit of time on things.

Im sure I have said that as a weakness before

 

[nitram100]

Strength - Interpersonal Skills ( I can have the most difficult patient smiling and laughing within minutes)

Weakness - Terrible memory

 

[Deus Ex]

It seems odd to ask an overarching fault. Frequently we discuss what we did well and badly in a specific circumstance or defined block of work (e.g. 8 week teaching block), but I guess some might struggle with discussing their personality. None the less I'd see it as fair game.

strength - Quick on the draw for differentials and possibilities in diagnosis
weak - sometimes get led down a path ignoring other possible paths or possibilities.

 

[MickeyFinns]

Just to clarify I'm not asking for what people would've answered, more whether or not they agree that is an acceptable question to make people answer in front of their department...

 

[Diddums]

Absolutely not.

Someone should've asked the managers to start first.

 

[Bickaxe]

Unacceptable IMO.
But it depends on how you put your answer across. Using a positive answer as a negative is just avoiding the question (Such as I'm a perfectionist).
Did the meeting holder answer the question first or deflect it?

 

[radderfire]

Anyone have any thoughts?

Yes, these are useful questions to ask, as it is only by identifying weaknesses that you can improve.