Ready; Set; GO!

I've been a fan of Marcus Buckingham since reading First, Break All the Rules, in which he and co-author Curt Coffman explore what the world's greatest managers do differently. FIRST provides managers with solid lessons for bringing out the best from their direct reports.

In Go Put Your Strengths to Work, which was released earlier this month, Buckingham shifts the focus to what individuals can do for themselves to capitalize on their strengths in the workplace.

Buckingham begins by reviewing the essence of the strengths movement.

"The radical idea at the core of the strengths movement is that excellence is not the opposite of failure, and that, as such, you will learn little about excellence from studying failure." [p5]

"... a person or an organization will excel only by amplifying strengths, never by simply fixing weaknesses." [p9]

With this premise as the backdrop, the book lays out a 6-step process for bringing strengths to the forefront of one's professional life, and minimizing attention and time spent on areas of weakness.

"This book is about how to exercise. It's about how to get unstuck and step confidently into the second stage. It's about how to identify what is best and most effective in you and then apply it in the real world. It's not a book of theory. It's a practical book, one that teaches you a powerful new discipline. Learn this discipline, practice it each week, and you will soon find yourself able to take control and unleash fully the force of your strengths." [p11]

The core of the 6 steps involves identifying both strengths and weaknesses, then implementing strategies aimed at spending more time on the strength activities, and less time on "weakness" activities (i.e., those activities that drain you.) The book is chock full of rating scales, worksheets and templates to assist the reader with each step. The jacket of the book contains a special code to access a website with online support tools and information (which I have not yet had time to explore.)

Buckingham is at his best in describing strengths activities. He explains that you are successful at strengths activities. You are instinctively drawn to them. Strength activities "feel" natural and a part of your growth; they "fill" innate needs for you. You experience a natural high when engaged in strength activities; you lose track of time.

Although he didn't devote too much text to it, Buckingham drew upon his management consultant credentials to provide a number of valuable tips for strength-based managers. A key is that managers understand the value of having employees focused on their strengths.

If you're a manager, this sounds radical, but, in fact, this is exactly what you want your employees to be doing. You want them to be pushing you to load them up on their strengths. Why? Because you want them to be both productive today and resilient tomorrow. You want them to be creative, come up with new ideas, and seize the initiative. In corporate speak, you want them to take responsibility for their own performance and development.

I definitely recommend GO (in case you couldn't tell.)

The exercises are already providing me with a better understanding of my strengths activities. For example, I identified that I get a charge out of placing (non-sales) phone calls to strangers to obtain information about their areas of responsibility. I am almost always successful at achieving the purpose of such calls and look forward to the next round.

Prior to reading the book, I would not have thought about purposefully volunteering for that task. Now I see that spending more time doing a strengths activity not only accomplishes the task, it also invigorates the person playing to their strengths!

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Related Posts:

• Playing to your strengths on teams
• How team members identify their strengths activities

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Blaine Collins is the author of the Stronger Teams Blog, a place to explore useful ideas and strategies for improving teamwork, collaboration and team leadership in professional organizations.

Comments

[Steve Sherlock]

Thanks, Blaine. This seems to be a necessary addition to my collection of Buckingham's books and at the same time a practical extention of his previous writing to help bring strengths to the forefront of all activity.

[David Zinger]

Blaine,

A strong review about Go Put Your Strengths To Work. I think you provided a strong finish to the book reviews as we March into April with our strengths.

I like how Buckingham stated how important it was to bring our strengths to the team and that the very thing our team needs from us is our strengths.

Keep calling strangers and keep up the fine work.

David

[Blaine Collins]

Steve, Practical is the right word to use. I highlighted the messages about identifying strengths activities, which are presented in Step 2. The other five steps have pragmatic tools at every turn. MB recommends reading the book over 6 weeks to allow yourself time to sufficiently work the outlined processes.

David, I agree. The light really goes on when you think about how win-win playing to one's strengths is for individuals, their teams, their managers and their organizations.

[Rosa Say]

During my last trip to the local Barnes & Noble I bought 3 copies of this book Blaine, one for me, and the others for 2 of my exec coaching clients who know each other. We're tackling it as a group reading starting April 1st, and I'm pretty anxious to get started with them!

I like the idea of approaching it as "about how to exercise." One of my signature strengths after all was Deliberative!

[dave]

I just finished reading (smoking-n-signing) MB's book this morning. While I am a huge MB admirer, I bogged down in Step 5...even to the point where I become discouraged about the whole mgmt gig. I suspect this chapter does nothing other than to uncover feelings that have always been there.

MB's map to putting your strengths to work via approaching your manager and guiding him through it is way to complicated and unreal for me...same as the steps sales gurus lay out for trainees. Point, counterpoint, dance, side-step, etc.

I couldn't even comprehend having this discussion with my manager nor could I one of my associates having it with me.

Other than this step by step stuff, this is a great book that is helping me to get my mind around things I am good at.

[Chris Owen]

OMG! Will the Australian Tax Office really believe that I NEED all these books for my professional library?? Sigh! I doubt the ATO will but I know I do!

[Blaine Collins]

Rosa and Dave, I must have messed up Saturday because I had a long comment to reply to your's, but it is not here. In short, Rosa, I think this will work well as a group activity. Plan ahead a bit for Step 5 because I agree with Dave that it bogs down.

Dave, I had the same feeling. MB seems preoccupied with preparing for managers to have a negative reaction to someone capitalizing on their strengths activities. I understand the caution, but many, many managers will "get it" and be glad their direct reports are being proactive. I do like the idea of talking with a trusted friend about strength and weakness activities because verbalizing something helps to gel the ideas.

Chris, you just reminded me, tax returns are due in 2 weeks! Happy reading.

Thanks for all the comments!