When fio dossetto finished her PhD program in theatre semiotics — a very niche field that studies what happens during a performance to create meaning — she pivoted and opted to go into marketing instead. She’d seen the marketing departments within theatres and was drawn by the siren call of marketing’s fast pace, and her career over the last 15 years hasn’t let her down so far. 

Nowadays, fio works as Content Lead for Float.com and produces newsletters and podcasts for her own brand, contentfolks. Her career in content has been less traditional than many, and she’s taken in some important lessons along the way on identifying unique abilities and using them to map next steps, as well as using your colleagues’ unique abilities to assemble a synergistic team.

What Are Unique Abilities?

Unique abilities are the ones that singularly qualify you for a task or a role, as well as the areas in which you hold superior skills, a strong passion or a keen interest. fio first discovered this concept in 2017, when she was working at Hotjar. 

“I was having a performance review with my then-manager,” she recalls, “and you’re expecting the conversations about what you’ve been doing well and where you could improve. Instead, this discussion went very differently.”

fio’s manager told her what she was good at and instructed her to spend more time on those things, while also assessing how she could delegate the tasks she wasn’t as interested in. He pointed out that there were likely other people who would be happy to deal with the things fio didn’t like to do, so why not assign it to them?

Because fio was a strong editor and executor, here’s how that shift played out: 

    • fio began overseeing more… –> editing, freelancer management, content production and distribution, in-house writers and contributors, and project management tools

    • …while doing less → hands-on writing

“It was a new approach,” fio remembers. “For me to think, okay, I’ve got a set of existing strengths, and let’s try to multiply those as opposed to thinking about strengths and weaknesses and trying to fix the latter. With unique abilities, the time you would spend trying to manage or overcome your shortcomings is better invested doing what you already naturally excel at.” 

To Find Your Unique Ability, Ask Other People

fio was lucky to have an insightful manager who unlocked this concept for her. For those of us without that advantage, here are a couple of ways to begin investigating your unique abilities*: 

    • If your company hosts regular performance reviews, use that time to ask questions about your strengths and where you’re excelling. Take notes on the answers and reflect on the core abilities these are tied to.

    • Reach out to people you’ve worked with before, whether clients, colleagues or prior bosses, and give them some context on unique abilities. Then ask them, “Based on what you know about me, what is my unique ability?”

*The reason you’re asking others to weigh in is because self-reporting is biased and largely inaccurate. One study found that only 7% of self-reports aligned with external findings! Getting insight from other people can highlight things you might miss on your own. 

Here’s an example of fio’s message:
Screenshot of an email from fio

From there, compile the data and see if you can find any trends, themes or recurring points. Ask yourself: What more can I do that draws on these unique abilities? How can I build on top of them? If I’m responsible for things that aren’t tied to my unique abilities, how can I delegate? 

Look For the Broader, Big-Picture Skill in the Storyline  

It’s also important to look for the core abilities instead of getting tied up in the more superficial tasks, which is easy to do. For example, fio had always assumed her unique abilities had to do with “content” — creation, editing, management, etc. After all, that’s what her job was, so if she was good at her job, she was good at content, right? 

However, her manager pointed out that her unique ability was actually taking a larger problem and breaking it down into smaller action items, looping the right people in and figuring out the next steps while keeping everyone informed. 

“What was funny about that conversation was that all of that was just a given to me,” fio says. “Those skills were just how I survived in academia for four years, breaking down the giant task of a thesis into multiple years of work.” However, these abilities were not a given at all — they were special to fio and what made her successful in her role. 

Understanding this broader unique ability informed fio’s career journey. She began looking for opportunities to use her skills to play a larger role than simply executing strong content, leading her to strategist roles and eventually the leadership position she holds now. 

Using Unique Abilities To Shape Your Team as a Leader

Once you understand how unique abilities work, you can use the concept to develop a complementary team. 

“Knowing what your team is already excellent at and how you can further leverage their strengths can lead to delegating tasks so people can retain ownership of what they’re good at,” fio explains. “For example, I have a colleague, Stella, who has the unique ability to make people feel comfortable during interviews and get great insights. She keeps things friendly; interviews are just natural to her, and this is obvious to anyone who watches her do it.” 

Knowing this, fio can find ways to position Stella accordingly. If a project requires input from ana SME or a customer, for instance, fio can assign Stella to it. Meanwhile, fio and her own manager work together to find ways fio can bring order to processes and break cross-functional deliverables into milestones while outsourcing her other tasks.

“The whole point of unique abilities is for leaders to understand where people are strong and how to best position them,” she reiterates. “But also, as an individual contributor, it’s up to you to communicate this up to your own manager so they can do the same for you in return.”