Catalyst: Marcus Buckingham

In all great teams they all have a great manager running them.

Companies will say that their culture make them strong.  That's untrue, organizations don't have one culture.  They have as many different cultures as they have managers in relation to the day to day activity of the company.

How long you stay with a company and how long you're there results massively with the person you report too.

If you lined up all managers against the wall you'll see that they all have the same approach to getting the best out of people.

The job of  manager of people is to turn one person's talent into performance. Your job is to reach people and speed up the talent of the person and the goals of the team.

Good manager's aren't soft on you.  They are often harder on you than you are on yourself.  They show you what excellence is.  They should be coaching you, balancing you, figuring out how to get your talent into performance, even if it works the person out of the position they are in.

Good manager's don't do it for the success of the company.  The best managers in the world have a natural ability to see very small increments of growth and get a kick out of it.  They naturally want to see their people grow.

You need to see people not as a means to a performance end (what can you get done) but instead look at people as an end unto themselves.

Great managers find out what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.  Average managers generalize.  "Oh, I know accountants, they're all shy".

You need to have the perception to find out what's unique about each person.  Then spend 80% of your time working with the person and getting them to push and work to their strengths.  Put them in positions that work their strengths.

We need to become strength focused and not focus on weaknesses.  We focus on weakness and take strengths for granted.  We focus on divorce instead of marriage.  If you study bad and invert it you get not bad instead of good.

We think building strengths will be less successful than fixing weaknesses.  Most of us bet our success, satisfaction and career on fixing what we aren't.

Ask yourself, what percentage of your typical workday do you spend working to your strengths?  In the U.S. 14%, U.K. 9% work to their strengths for most of the day.

Myths we've been indoctrinated to believe are true.

Myth 1: As you grow your personality changes.

As we grow our values, circumstances and achievements change. 

Truth 1: As you grow you don't change your personality into someone else's, as you grow you become more and more the person you are.

If I gave you a personality test every year until you die, it may change by .6% or .7% but will stay the same.

Myth 2: You'll grow the most in your weakest areas (that's why we call them areas of development). 

When a child comes home with an A in English and an F in Algebra, which area needs the most focus?  Parents say it's Algebra, but you should invest most time in the A.  You need to recognize the F but should spend most time on the A.

Truth 2: The areas where we will grow the most are in our areas of greatest strength.

Myth 3: The myth that what the team needs for you to do is chip in and fix the need.

Truth 3: What the team needs is for you to identify your strength and offer them most of the time.

The best teams aren't made up of the same people doing everything equally well. 

A team becomes well rounded precisely because everyone in it isn't.

I hate confrontation in life.  For me to be confrontational is not the best way to spend my time.  the best way is to find someone who is good at handling confrontation and having them deal with it.

It's not going to be easy to stay on your strength path for the rest of your life.  People will try to stray you off it, by offering you more promotions etc outside your area. 

There will be times when you'll get an opportunity which plays to your strength but you think your strengths could never fill the opportunity.  you need to seize those opportunities.

posted by Tom at 5:27 PM