marcus buckingham

Marcus Buckingham followed Andy Stanley at the Catalyst Conference. This cat was with Gallup for 17 years and now he has his own gig. He's written three best-selling books. His main thing is helping leaders and managers focus on their strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses. He says when we do that, we set ourselves up for maximum personal growth and success.

Here are some of my notes from his talk:

The difference between over-achieving organizations and under-achieving organizations is that the over-achieving ones have great management (leadership).

He says people join organizations...they quit their boss. In other words, they come on board because of the values, philosophy, mission, opportunities of the organization...but they will leave because the boss (leader) doesn't cut it.

The job of a manager, Buckingham says, is to turn a person's talent into performance. He adds that what makes great managers different from average ones is that great managers find out what is unique about each person and they capitalize on it.

With this whole strengths vs. weaknesses idea, Buckingham says weaknesses are not "areas of opportunity," rather, they're areas of least opportunity. So focus on your strengths--that's where you, and your organization will benefit the most.