Strengths Management Coaching with Marcus Buckingham

Those of you who have taken my classes, or simply dipped into the Recommended Reading section of MWA (pages 229-236) know that I am a big fan of the publications produced by The Gallup Organization, and I continue to follow the work of its break-away rock star Marcus Buckingham. When Buckingham declared that he wanted to start “a strengths revolution” I was eager to throw my hat in the ring and sign up.

‘Strengths management’ is about capitalizing on the talent and gifts you have within you; you celebrate them by concentrating on your strengths and making your weaknesses irrelevant. Aloha is the gift and strength I believe we all have in common.

Therefore, I was delighted to discover that Lisa Haneberg, author of several books and the Management Craft blog, had done a podcast with Marcus Buckingham within her Fireside Chat series. I had bookmarked Lisa’s posting for when a quiet time presented itself (the podcast is about 45 minutes long), and that time for me was today.

There were two things about the conversation which really struck a chord with me because of their timeliness; I’ve very recently had coaching conversations with customers about these very subjects.

One: We can’t expect managers to take on the full responsibility for employing people’s strengths and making them feel worthwhile and important at work; the bigger responsibility lies with each of us as individuals. Buckingham says it this way;

“Managers must be open, but it is your responsibility to give them the raw material they can work with.”

You are the raw material. See yourself as the expert and authority on YOU. Who knows your strengths better than you do? Be proud of them, own up to them, and articulate them. Why should managers have to guess what they are?

In the podcast, Buckingham suggests how to best have that conversation with your manager in a way that connects with your productivity at work. It’s great coaching.

Two: In my own experience I find that this doesn’t happen very much because even if they want to have the conversation, both employees and managers have a difficult time identifying strengths in the first place. I’ve long recommended Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton as a book which can help people label strengths with some useful language, but the recommendation is never quite good enough, for few will commit to the reading and the study much less the later application.

In the podcast, Buckingham does suggest some easier ways, saying “There is a certain wisdom to our appetites.”

He urges us to pay attention to how activities make us feel, explaining that strength is found in an activity that strengthens you, and a weakness is revealed in an activity that weakens you. Again, no one can know these answers better than you do. Which activities invigorate you, and which deplete you? Which energize you, and which drain you? When they are done and accomplished, what kind of things make you feel ‘correct’ and validated?

If you’ve struggled with this notion of strength identification, I strongly encourage you take the time to listen to Lisa’s podcast. Then, click over to www.MarcusBuckingham.com and read the latest interview offered there Buckingham had given to Training + Development on Engaging Generation Y. The combination of the two (podcast and interview) is provocative; you’ll want to join his strengths revolution too.

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Postscript:
I had the honor of doing a podcast with Lisa too; back in August we had chatted about her book Focus Like a Laser Beam, and you can listen to it via the links Lisa offers here.

This is the index for Lisa's entire series, truly a source of rich conversations.

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Thanks for the link Rosa. I'll put the interview on my 'to do' listing. Marcus is "right on" about this!

[Rosa Say]

Aloha Steve,
During his conversation with Lisa, Marcus is very open and forthright about why his approaches to date are not making significant enough progress (i.e. his strengths revolution), and I found his honesty terrific. He (and his work via the Gallup research rigor) has been easy to trust in for me, and listening to this conversation I felt good about giving him that trust, for he demonstrates that he is still learning within his own philosophies and mission. ... Kudos to Lisa for her presentation for us.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Rosa - thanks so much for sharing the podcast I did with Marcus with your readers. It was a fun conversation. As you know from our conversation, I like to keep things natural and real and I found Marcus to be really genuine.

[Rosa Say]

Lisa, you do keep things natural and real, however you are also becoming a terrific interviewer! The high degree of preparation you bring to your Fireside Chats is very apparent, and you are also becoming a trusted connector with a truly wonderful line up of guests - please keep that fire burning!