The Value of A Strengths Based Approach To Life
Monday, June 9, 2008 at 09:49PM Marcus Buckingham's presentation in Sydney came as a pleasant surprise and breath of fresh air courtesy of Business Connect. Anybody who has written a book entitled "Go Put Your Strengths To Work - 6 Powerful Steps To Achieve Outstanding Performance" I view with a degree of cynicism - I don't need another self help guru - and with a seminar title "The One Thing You Need To Know" I was sure this was going to be a short visit. s
Buckingham, a Cambridge educated sociologist worked for the Gallup Organization for 17 years where he developed a real interest in asking questions, in particular about what made people successful. Out of this inquiring mind influenced by the likes of Peter Drucker, David Cooperrider, the founder of Appreciative Inquiry and Dr Martin Seligman, who is acknowledged as the founder of the Positive Psychology movement, came a view that if you built on your strengths rather than try to improve your weaknesses you were likely to be far more successful in life.
His anecdotes were sharp. The best was his Tiger Woods story. When Tiger Woods determined even though he was number one golfer in the world, his game had some improvements to make. His stats showed he was number 63 in the world when it came to shots out of the bunker. His sand wedge shots were very poor compared to the rest of the game and players. He agreed with his coach that if he concentrated on improving his sand wedge shots he would only ever improve a little. However, if he was able to control his normal swing better that already rated number one in the world, he would have less chance of ending up in the bunker in the first instance. That's the plan he followed in the year he broke the record for the number of majors won and it is the plan he follows to-day, still the number professional golfer in one of the most competitive sports in the world. Ironically he now languishes at number 117 in the world in successful bunker shots.
His example in which your child is told he got an A in English, a B in Geography, a C in Science and an F in Mathematics and the teacher's remark saying there is a lot of room for improvement when pointing to the F in Mathematics was a great illustration of how playing to your weakness will only ever improve from an F to a C at most. Why concentrate on weakness when the results will only be marginally better. Move from bad to not so bad!!
His exercise in which participants had to construct a Company Board and appoint all the board members was very illuminating. You were required to draw an oval circle on a piece of paper and then appoint those who you felt would best serve on your own personal board. Most people appointed between 7 to 12 people, one woman appointed 23!! From this board you were then asked to place in the centre of the board table the words that best described why you chose them. Out of this emerged your sense of values and the priority you gave to those values assisting you to recognize your strengths
The concept of building on your strengths is very simple and yet as Buckingham pointed out less than half of the population in Australia understands the importance of that notion.
Buckingham presented gentle, authentically and confidently without being an egomaniac or appearing as "an expert". Very thought provoking!
Click here to download a .ppt file of his presentation.
Reader Comments (1)
When will managers learn this simple truth? Instead they harp on people's weaknesses, rarely paying attention to their strengths. And when will people (out of their own self-awareness) move towards jobs which allow their strengths to be seen and then blossom.