EntreLeadership - #167: Marcus Buckingham—Capitalizing on Your Personal Strengths

Episode Date: October 3, 2016

Researcher and business consultant Marcus Buckingham returns to talk about making the most of your God-given talents and how you can use them to contribute to others. The former senior researcher at the Gallup Organization and best-selling author shares plenty of tips . . . plus a new way of thinking about your strengths that can be life-changing. entreleadership.com/podcast Create Core Values Tool E1D LiveStream infusionsoft.com/entre Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation of this episode is Marcus Buckingham. He's a best-selling author, researcher, business consultant,

and I like to call him a strengths guru. The Marcus Buckingham Company is what he runs, but what he does is really build on the strengths revolution that he helped get started at Gallup. So if you don't know who he is, my goodness, you need to. And hey, we're going to give you a brand new tool this month as we start out, how to create core values. So that's going to be good. I'll tell you more about that.

And as always, this episode is brought to you by our good friends at InfusionSoft. They give you a free playbook so you can win as a small business owner. infusionsoft.com slash entre. Now, before we get into this interview with Marcus, I just want to give you just a personal statement that I would ask you to rattle around in your head and heart, let it resonate as you listen to the conversation. And here it is.

It's a challenge. When you realize that your gifts are not for you, right? Gifts is a synonym for talents or sense, or strengths. That's what we're going to talk about with Marcus. When you realize that your gifts are not for you, but for those you come into contact with, it's a life-changing event. Now, I don't mean just, you know, I mean you let it resonate. You let it seep into your soul, that the very things that you are so, so gifted at doing are not for you. I think what happens is you understand the responsibility behind it. That's what I want you. And your,

You're going to hear us talk a little bit about that. But I think that that's a huge context for you to think about as you listen. So let's get right to it. One of my favorite guests of all time. This is probably the fifth or sixth time I've interviewed Marcus. Here it is. Marcus, it's a privilege to have you with us. And I'm such a junkie of the philosophies and all the data and all the work that you've done.

And for our audience, I want to ask you something I've never asked you before. And I'd love to get your thoughts on the origin or the factors, if you will, that led to this obsession with fixing our weaknesses. Before we dive into the strength stuff, where do you think that comes from? I know we've talked before, and you say this is a huge thing in Western culture, Western Hemisphere, but what is the origin of that in your mind? Well, I think we are designed as humans to minimize our downside. because we think it's a good coping or survival mechanism. So we're frightened of our weaknesses.

And in psychology we say, if you know someone's fear, you'll know their need. And so we are fearful that our weaknesses might harm us or undermine us. And so we think in the minds, I need to fix them. Know someone's fear, you know their need. So we're fearful that our weaknesses will prevent us from having the success that we need or will prevent us from building the relationships that we need. getting the job that we want, performing that job, all of it probably coming from the fear that if we don't take care of the things that might lead to our vulnerabilities in life, that we will be

harmed. So on some level, it's like a deep-seated concern that I'm going to be harmed. And when it comes to survival, I mean, that's pretty sensible, actually. I mean, for us to be thinking about where are our vulnerabilities as a family, as a person, as a society, we probably do need to fix some of our vulnerabilities so that we can survive. But when it comes to thriving, when it comes to success or growth or flourishing, the weakness-fixing strategy born out of fear is not a terribly good one. So I think that's a wonderful breakdown. So how do we shift from that fear? and obviously we take care of weaknesses that could be detrimental to our growth and survival

within a healthy culture or environment. But how do we shift? How do we begin to get control of that fear that you so beautifully identified there and begin to focus in a healthy way on our strength so that we can flourish and thrive? Well, I think to begin with, we have to think about our mission in life, our responsibility in life. Every single one of us has been blessed with unique gifts, unique talents. I for one don't believe that's an accident. I think the fact that we are all, perhaps even the same genes, the same family that we were raised in, we have brothers and sisters and close kin who are so different from us, even the people that we're raised with. We are so different from in terms of our natural reactions to the world and the people within

it, how we build relationships, how we think, what drives us, the sense we make of things, how impatient we are, how excitable we are, how assertive we are, all these things vary, person by person by person by person. So we are beautifully unique. And so our first mental shift has to be that the responsibility we have in life is to make that uniqueness useful. that is, and I know this is a grandiose word, but that is our destiny. We have to live into our destiny, and our destiny does not involve repudiating, fixing who we aren't, or fixing the flaws that we have. That's not the way in which you live out the unique gifts that you've been blessed with.

So we ought to change our mindset. Think about our gifts and talents as responsibilities, and that it is our God given responsibility to be intelligent and deliberate about how we contribute those talents to others. I know that sounds pretty lofty, but the moment you start flipping it around and think of talents as responsibilities or strengths as responsibilities is the moment when we start really living into the life and the contribution in that life that we ought to see as the purpose of our life. That's a, gosh, that's just a huge call to arms for all of us to go, really, what have you been blessed with and then how can you contribute it? The moment you start thinking like that is the moment where you start taking your strengths seriously.

Yeah, that's a powerful answer and a great shift. It is a mindset that we have a responsibility to give away our gifts. The gifts aren't for us. They're for others. Exactly. Yeah, this isn't about, people often think, well, I should focus on fixing. my weaknesses, I should focus on being a better person because I don't want to be full of myself. I don't want to be arrogant. I don't want to be ego driven. And so we take this mantle of kind of,

I must find out where my flaws are and I will work to be a better person. And it just all feels very humble in a way. But actually, the more you pull on that thread, the more you realize that when it comes to your life, you are really only living into your full responsibility. When you look in the mirror and go, what do I possess and how can I contribute it? Not to be arrogant, not to be ego driven, but actually to be of service. If you want to be of great service to your family, to your friends, to your company, to your society, then you have to take your strengths and talents seriously. That is an arrogant that is about giving the best of yourself to others, living out the best of yourself for the benefit of others.

And if we're not here to do that, then I don't know what we're here to do. I love that. You wrote this statement. And I got to say this, quick commercial, folks. So Marcus is on Instagram, and every once in a while, he puts these lovely little quotes out on a notebook. I got to tell you, I love them just personally. I'm going to read one of them because I think it's a nice statement here. And I want you to explain it.

I know what you mean, but I think it's a real challenge to us. You wrote, your weaknesses speak the truth of who they are, and you underline they. and then you said, ignore it. And the next statement is, your strengths, speak the truth of who you are. You gave that one two underlines. Honor it. I thought that was so powerful. Oh, that's funny.

Unpack that. I know it's a simple statement, but unpack the idea there of the weaknesses are speaking the truth of who they are versus our strengths speak the truth of who we are. Yeah, well, I mean, I just scribble these. Oh, I know. You know, these are things that just going on in my life. my head and I'll sit down every once in a while and I'll just scribble a few down. But the funny thing about your weakness is, let's say that you are, you are fearful of public

speaking, or you are fearful that you don't always follow through on your commitments, or you are fearful that you aren't as creative as you need to be in the current job that you're in, whatever your fears are about what your weaknesses really are, that you're not perfect, that you're not as good as everyone says you are, or maybe that you're, that you're, even have a deep-seated insecurity that if everyone turned on the lights really brightly, they would find you out, that there's this kind of charlatan sense that we all go through life with that it's all just a show and deep down we aren't really as good as that at all. Those voices that we all have, you have them, I have them, those voices that tell us that we're not actually

that good, that we really don't follow through as much as we should, or that we're really not as driven as we should be, that yes, there are days when you don't get done everything you're supposed to get done. And what does that say about you? Those voices are very persuasive. And by the way, they're not untrue, because there are days when you don't get done everything you're supposed to get done. There are days when you perhaps don't follow through on a commitment. There are days when you're perhaps not as creative as you should be in your job. There are days when, yes, those weaknesses that you possess, that's not a total falsehood. They speak their truth, your weaknesses, that little voice in your ear,

telling you that you don't possess that talent as much as you should. That's not lying. That voice is telling its truth. Yes, you did not do that. Now, it's a boring truth. If you notice with yourself, for all of you who are listening, if you notice when your weaknesses talk to you, they always use the same. words. I don't know if you notice that. They are boring. They are repetitive. It's like a mantra.

And when you hear yourself in your head, when your weaknesses are speaking to you, it's the same darn thing. They're saying it again and again. And it's heavy. Your weaknesses are heavy. They're like gravity. They're base. It's heavy energy. It pulls you down. And you can stay down there a fair while listening to their truth. But your truth, Who are you and what do you bring into the world? What is your light? Okay, your weaknesses have nothing to say on that. They speak their truth.

It's persuasive. It's constrained and it's boring. Your strengths are the truth of who you are. What were you put on this earth to do? The answer to that question has got to involve a detailed description of what your strengths are. That's your truth. That's who you are. Lean into that.

It is varied. Your strengths speak to you in new language and new words and new ideas and new ventures and new initiatives. Your strengths are dynamic. They're interesting. They're light. And they are the truth of who you are and what you bring. So that's what I was trying to say there.

It's not that we should ignore the weaknesses that we possess because they're untrue. There's some truth in there. But it's not the essence of you. It's just a constrained, put them in a box. They've got a line around them. Name them. Yes, that is a weakness of mine. All right, fine.

Put it over there. Maybe we mitigate it. Maybe we ignore it. Maybe it just goes away. But yeah, okay, name it. I get it. Put it over there. Now, let's honor our strengths as the truth of who we are.

That's super interesting. You know, Marcus, I don't know that there's a bigger question than then why am I here on this earth. What should I do with my life? That's a big question. I think every human in some form or fashion ask themselves. Some people never get the answer. That's something I've always been very curious about. And it's heartbreaking to me.

But I bring that up to ask you this. With all of the research that you've done and observations that you have made, what's a healthy marriage between strengths and passion? Well, it all depends on how you define the word strength. I define it in a very particular way, which may not be the way that some of you listening define it. but I define a strength as an activity that strengthens you, and a weakness is an activity that weakens you.

Other people might say that a strength is what you're good at, and a weakness is what you're bad at. But I don't find that a very compelling definition, because, frankly, there are many things that I'm quite good at that bore me or drain me, or for which I have zero passion, but I'm good at them, maybe because I'm smart enough or I'm just responsible or I've learned a particular competency. But it just bores me to tears.

Every single person in the world has some things they're capable of that if they never had to do it again would be a day too soon. That's right. What do you call that? You can't call that a strength, can you? And say to somebody, hey, build your career around this. Right. Because then you've built your entire life. your purpose in life is now to live out an activity or a set of activities that that you can do,

you might even be able to earn a living at, but it just drains the living daylight out of you. I mean, frankly, there's an awful lot of people that have whole careers built around the mistaken definition of the word strength. There's something you're good at. You know, you've got doctors out there who are doctors because they were good at biochemistry in class, and they took pre-med, they popped out and they became a doctor, and they don't like sick people. They don't like caring for six people. I mean, it's like it's every day I come in, and there's a whole line of more sick people outside

of my office. And you're like, you end up in a job where the actual activities of the job themselves bore you or drain you. It's like somebody who gets to be a lawyer, but deep down doesn't like confrontational detail. Okay, then you can do it, but it's a strange sort of prison. Well, that really does back up your definition. I mean, I think that makes a ironclad case for what a strength actually. actually is because you're right. Being good at something doesn't mean that it's an actual strength.

That's performance. Being good at something is performance. Strengths and weaknesses are antecedents to performance. So if there are certain activities that you are drawn to, when you are doing them, time speeds up, when you are done with them, you kind of want to do them again. Certain activities, that's a strength. You may not yet be good at it, but the actual appetite for it is the thing that will lead you to the practice. And the practice, and the practice will help you get better. You know, Malcolm Gladwell's thing, actually it was Lars Anderson's thing of 10,000 hours. On some other you go, well, of course, if you do something for 10,000 hours, you're going to get a lot better. But the question is, what drives you to keep doing it? What drives you to do the 10,000 hours?

Now, you can call that passion. I call that strengths. There are certain activities that keep drawing you back, that when you do them, you feel in flow, you feel in flow, and you know what that feels like. Your whole energy changes, everything changes, and you go back and do them again, and you can't really understand or even articulate why, but you do. That's a strength. Now, the strength leads to practice, the practice leads to performance. So those things are connected. Strengths with performance is connected, but they're not the same thing because there are some things that you have the performance in, but you don't have the strength in and it doesn't strengthen you. So I like to think that the word strength is made up of very specific passions. Yes. There is no strength without passion.

In fact, those things are almost the same word. Appetite, passion, flow, invigoration, strengthening. That's what a strength is. It's an activity that has those elements for you. And therefore, by the way, you are the best judge of your strengths. No one else can tell you what your strengths are. Somebody can tell you, you know, someone can judge your performance. Somebody else, maybe a teacher or a manager can come in and judge your performance.

But no one can tell you what invigorates you. or what doesn't. No one can tell you what particular activities you're drawn to and which ones repel you. You know that better than anyone, and it's for me actually a crying shame that we don't have actual classes in school that help our children to begin to assess very early which particular activities in life are strengths of theirs. We don't really do that early. And yet we are actually the best judge of our strengths. That's right. That is so good. Okay, we're going to come back that. We're going to come back to that last statement, folks. I think it's some of the most brilliant stuff that Marcus shares. So you parents, coaches, leaders, we're going to come back

to that. There's some brilliant stuff there. But you said, you gave us a synonym around strengths, appetite. And for whatever reason, a light ball went off from me. And so I want to ask you about that. Appetite, there's really something there. You said, when it gives us strength, it gives us that motivation, if you will, to perform those 10,000 hours and to put in the practice and the diligence and the discipline that allows us to have a shot at mastery. Using the word appetite, I want to get your insight on how we as leaders, people who want to become our best, personal growth junkies, parents, coaches, how do we increase the right appetite, and then how do we instill and kind of grow the appetite in those we are leading

and guiding as well? Well, that's a big old question, isn't it? I know. I'm sorry. I just came up with it. That's fine. Well, to begin with, the biggest challenge initially is to figure out what your own appetites are. What are the particular activities you're drawn to? By the way, of course, some people will say, well, wait a minute. What happens if you're drawn to something of an appetite for something that you have terrible performance at?

So somebody who's drawn to sing but really has no ability in it at all. It's funny, if you look at sort of American Idol contestants. Yes. And you see all those funny auditions where you've got people that you're like, good Lord, you have no idea how bad you sound. Right. And yet still you want to do it. Like, what's that? Isn't that delusion?

I mean, they want to be famous. They don't actually like music that much. They like the idea of what they think music will bring them. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. When you look at strengths as an activity that strengthens you, one of the most important parts of that definition is the word, activity. It's something you do. So when somebody goes on an American Idol show, let's say, and decides to just try out for singing, and you go, wait a minute, are you riveted by the activity of practicing scales with your voice? Are you riveted by the discipline that will go into

taking an instrument like your voice and refining and refining and refining and refining it? Do you love the idea of that amount of practice on that activity with no fame? and no money. Do you love it by itself? Because if you don't, then it's not a strength. And as you said, you are drawn to the things you hope will come with it. You're drawn to the fame and you're drawn to the money and you're drawn to the notoriety. So those are mis-yarnings.

Those aren't activities. They are adornments, if you like. So to begin with, it's an interesting kind of discipline to go, wait a minute. you have an appetite for an activity. Let's look at the activities you're drawn to. Not the title. Not the new promotion with the new big office. Not the money.

No, no, no, no. Don't yearn for that job. Don't yearn for that position because of the adornments of it. You've got to yearn for the job because of the activities in it. What are those? So that's the first thing I think we've got to get super clear on as leaders of people. We got adornments and activities mixed up. people applying for positions they shouldn't apply for because they haven't really looked deeply

of what the activity is. They just want the stuff that comes with it. That is a huge statement. I'm interrupting for a moment, folks, because if you don't write that down, you need to go back. They're looking for adornment of what they're doing, not the activity. That is, I think that's a brilliant statement. Well, I don't know if it is brilliant or not, but you can see, I mean, I leave the company here and you've got, you know, people get, people get distracted. They go, oh, I want, oh, look at that bobble over there. I want that job. And you go, wait a minute, let me tell you, let me tell you the activities of that job.

Let me walk you through a regular week of that job. It's one of those things, guys, when you're talking to people about new positions that they want in your companies, or even when yourself you're thinking about what you should do, what you've got to think, the way to help a person to crystallize what they're doing is you're going, okay, it's 9 o'clock on a Thursday morning, what are you doing? It's 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, a regular week in this job. Exactly what are you doing? Put them in the moment.

don't talk about the outcomes even just put them in the moment of a regular week of the life and see whether or not the activities that they're talking about and you're talking about in that job at 9 o'clock on a Thursday morning and are the actual activities of that job and then go now that activity do you love that because that's the job that's the job let's get into the actual activities that you're going to fill a moment with at 2 p.m. on a Monday afternoon And then we can decide together. And we may not know, you may go, you know what, I don't know if I love that or not. I've never done it.

In which case you go, all right, well, that's fine. Just know, this is what the job is. And what you're going to try and ascertain is whether or not that activity is a strength of yours. That's the way in which you figure out whether or not jobs fit you or whether or not you're going to have particular success. You look at the, you don't, it's not up at 10,000 feet. Success is at two feet. It's like, what are you actually doing? And so often I think what we do is we join

We join companies because of what the company stands for Which is fine, it's the why Or we join companies or teams because of the people that work there Which is fine, that's the who Or we take jobs because of what they will pay us Okay, that's fine, that's the how much So the why and the who and the how much Those things aren't irrelevant, we should at least be

aware of them. But how good you're going to be at that job, how much success you're going to have. It doesn't depend on the why or the who or the how much. It depends on the what. What are the actual activities of the job? Are you drawn to them? Are you drawn to them? Are you drawn to them? Are you drawn to them? Because if you are, then you'll work and you're work and you have better ideas and better innovation and more practice and more energy and more resilience and more grit and more, more, because the activity itself has energy for you. So if any of you are thinking about how do I get my more successful. You've got to look at the actual activities of the job and see whether or not those activities themselves are energetic. Do they draw you in? Do they lift you up? And the weird thing about us all, of course, as human beings is all of us get kicks out of appetite for,

energy from different activities. So one person's thrill is another person's boredom. Yes. Or pure dread. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, this is true because we've all heard the phrase, oh, you know, do what you love. You never work a day in your life. And that just couldn't be any more garbage. I mean, you work hard. I work hard. You know, if I'm hosting a radio show or speaking or hosting a live event, there are certain amounts of that that are hard and you're exhausted, but it's a good exhaust. It's almost like you're exhilarated and you do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do. And I think that's a really wonderful breakdown there. I want to get back to something Marcus said in the previous answer. And that is his chagrin that,

hey, we're not, certainly in America, teaching young people in our schools, illuminating for them who they really are and their strengths and therefore setting them up for a much, much better future. We've talked about this before in previous interviews, and I love when you talk about it. And I've long said, I wish you would be the Secretary of Education. Certainly people would rather listen to you talk than most people. But to that end, you know, the importance of as parents, how do we come alongside the West. education, systemic kind of process of, hey, we're putting these kids out in an assembly line fashion. How do we come alongside of that as parents and really lean into our kids and help them understand, all right, we understand this is what you have to do in the school system,

but here at home, this is what we want you to lock it in on so that you know who you truly are and thus you're making future decisions, whether it be college, internships, what have you, starting an entrepreneurship type career. and going after it. How do we lean into that to come alongside and help where they're not getting that in the school system? So luckily, there are some schools in some places that are trying to do this. I had a friend in Canada who runs a big school district up there, and they had an awful lot of problems with truancy and at-risk behaviors for their middle schoolers, particularly with their First Nation kids who didn't really feel part of the system and were dropping out of

school at alarming rates. And this was a few years ago. He was like, we have got to do a better job of keeping kids in school. Why are these kids leaving school or why they're not putting their energy into school? And it was because they didn't really feel there was a future for them. The school, for many kids, you stay in school because your parents tell you because it will lead to something. It will give you more choices in life.

But if you don't see school as instrumental in a future, if you can't see how it helps your future, then why am I? even there? What am I doing? And so he pushed down on it and when in the end kind of landed on the idea that these kids, they don't know their own voice. They can't speak into their own future. The school is in a sense ignorant of who they are as individuals, what their voice is. And so it does seem alien that we're just learning these rote subjects to pass tests for what. And out of that forewotness led to truancy, led to dangerous at-risk behavior drugs. gangs and so forth. And so his take, which I loved was, you know what, we got clear metrics here.

We're going to reduce our truancy rates. We're going to increase our graduation rates. And we're going to do it by creating a whole set of curricula around strengths. And he began with the simple idea that kids at 12 or 13 don't have a voice. They don't hear their own voice. And so they then try and take on the voices of others. They experiment with new clothes and tattoos and piercings. and they're trying to find their voice, really. And so he decided to build a year-long curriculum all about filling your voice box. And it literally gave people at beginning it. They had no money.

There was no budget for this. He just gave every kid in the class an empty cardboard box and said, this is your voice box. And by the end of the year, you're going to fill it with your voice. And there were various, which is a lovely metaphor. I just loved that metaphor. And he said, look, this is the only class in which you have all the right answers. And the very first class we're going to do, we're going to do. whole thing and when was the last time a day flew by?

When was the last time for every one of you a day flew by? And we're going to build out from there. And of course, every kid knows when the last time was a day flew by. And so the first activity he had them do was just do a two-minute speech. They had to take their phone or their, he'll flip camera around. Or somehow, you know, everyone seems to have some sort of smartphone these days. Take your phone around with you and for one day, just do a basically almost a Snapchat story on when was the last time a day flew by.

And then bring it in and then play it first. and talk to us about what was it about that day that made it speed by so quickly for you. And no kids like, what are you talking about? Everyone's like, yep, I totally get that. And then you get 30 kids in a room. And they're not all saying, when I was skateboarding down by the beach and chilling with my squad. Like that, some had that. But the variety, the variety of when people are at their best, as a student, as a 12-year-old kid,

the richness and the texture and the specificity and the detail of this was when a day goes by for me this is what I'm doing was mind blowing I actually went up there the other day it's on one of the schools on Vancouver Island so you fly to Vancouver you hop in a plane you fly to Vancouver island and to walk into this middle school with 2,000 kids and you walk into these classrooms with these boxes like piled high covered with pictures and music and books and just stuff the detail of this is my voice, it's just, it kind of brings tears to your eyes because you're like, oh, if we just listen to these kids talk about what are the particular activities of a regular week of their schooling life or their regular life that invigorate them. And we honor that.

Not that we exactly know how to apply it. Like, what will these kids do with their lives? Well, who knows? They're going to find different competencies and skills and jobs and careers. But to begin very early, saying to them, hey, the regular raw material of life will illuminate you. It will reveal things about you that are weirdly unique. And we're not going to shut that down. We're going to be curious about that. We're going to investigate that. And then we're going to hopefully have school help you channel it intelligently. But to begin with, let's just get you listening to your voice, which was his way of talking about strengths. So I think all of us as parents, if we, if we start off when we say to our kids, listen to the way in which you react to the world. When was the last

time a lesson flew by? That's not meaningless. That's you. Time speeds up when you're playing to your strengths. Time slows down. And as you said, you dread stuff. And then it feels like, what's five minutes feels like an hour. Okay, that's a really different feeling than when something that takes an hour feels like five minutes. And it's not just when you're playing music. or listen to your music, or mucking around with your friends, or at a movie. It's not just the fun stuff. There'll be certain classes, certain lessons, certain activities, certain things at your school where time speeds up.

Okay, that's really interesting. Let's at least listen. As parents, we ought to be saying to your kids, our kids, be curious about the way you react to the world. Let's listen to that bit. Because that's the raw material for helping you. you think about A, what kind of student you want to be, perhaps what kind of subject you want to study, and perhaps what kind of career you want. We might not necessarily know that at 12 or 13,

but you know what? We can actually build the discipline with you. We can teach you the discipline of letting life illuminate you. We can do that. Yeah. Anyway, you said that when you said curiosity, and that's really, that exercise is sparking that curiosity of who they really are and it resonates with them. And it really does build for the future. You know, I was thinking while you were talking, Henry David Thoreau, great American poet once wrote hauntingly, most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. And that horrifies me. It saddens me. It horrifies me as a parent, you know, to help them find their voice so they can sing their song. It really is important stuff. And you tweeted something recently as an appreciation about your daughter's teachers, I believe.

And I want to follow up with this. I wrote it down because I think it's perfect right here. And I wanted you to explain it. It's not that I disagreed with you. I cocked my head a little bit because I think it speaks into this idea of sometimes we think, well, it's all about personal development. We forget about our role, not in our strengths, but in others. But you said this. You said, talent develops only in response to another human being.

And then you thanked your daughter's teachers. Talent develops only in response to another human being. I think that's a big statement. I want you to unpack that for us. So it's one of the things that I'm most interested in at the moment, actually. Virtually anything of any worth that human beings have ever created has been done as a collaboration. almost, I mean, it's almost impossible to even think of some lone genius all by her or himself, unaffected by, unconnected to anything else, anybody else, just coming up with something worthy, valuable. Anything that is of any real value to us as a society or companies or families is done in constant.

with somebody else, which in the world of work we call teams, I guess. In the home life, we call families or friends. But we are deeply social creatures. Our ethics, our morals have been developed over many, many, many, many years to ensure that we can live together happily. Arguably, our emotions developed so that we could modulate our own. relationships? What is anger for? What is self-righteousness for? All of these things have certain social aspects to them. We are social beings. So you think about your talents. Do your talents really develop in isolation? They exist in isolation. Regardless of any teacher you may have or any mother or father you may have, you were blessed with certain uniquenesses and they exist

regardless of whether or not somebody's around you. But how do they develop? How do they grow? They grow in response to another human being. They grow in response to another human being's ability to see them, to pay attention to them. Somebody else's attention on you is a creative act. Attention is a creative act.

You have an audience that actually creates the performance. So we develop in response to somebody else's expectations of us, somebody else's attention on us, somebody else's awareness of us, somebody else's challenge around us, and the desire to please that person and satisfy their challenge of us, that's how we grow. I'm not suggesting that there aren't some people that are loners. There are some people that are loners. but if you look at what thriving looks like for a human being, what does flourishing look like for a human being?

It is a communal pursuit. Flourishing happens in relation to other people. Loneliness is a killer. Loneliness is almost the opposite of flourishing. If you look at people that are, sorry, if you look at people that are homeless, homeless people are people who are homeless, people without homes? No, homeless people are friendless. That's how they get homeless. So the web of

relationships is the thing that keeps all of us afloat. If you and I lost our houses tomorrow, we wouldn't be homeless because we'd have people that would take us in because at the moment anyway, we've got friends, we've got a web of relationships. So there's something deeply connected about all of us and talent flourishes in that web of connection. And it with us. And it with us. when we are alone. That's what I was trying to say in 140 characters. No, that was phenomenal. So this is a real challenge to leaders.

It seems to me that that statement is a call to action to leaders to be more aware, more perceptive of our role in the influencing and creating a relationship that allows the talent around us to develop, to flourish. It really is a backer.

and forth relationship. Isn't that what we should take away as leaders? Absolutely. We've massively overcomplicated, in my view, we've massively overcomplicated what leadership is. If you look at what the practices of the best leaders are, in fact, there is one, for those that are listening, like, and I want to grow as a leader, what do I do to grow as a leader? The one ritual that all of the most effective leaders stick to, if you want to grow as a leader, you should put this ritual into your life. The best leaders do frequent light coaching conversations with each person who reports directly to them. How frequent?

Every week, one-on-ones. These aren't group meetings. Every week, seven-minute, ten minute, fifteen minute, that length of time in which you're simply asking each of your directs two questions. what are your priorities this week? And by the way, the word priority is kind of important because it implies that someone's thinking about what's important and what's not. Don't give me a to-do list.

What do you think is important this week? And then, of course, the critical question, how can I help? What do you think is a priority this week and how can I help? That rhythm of asking those two questions for each of your people every week, there's something beautiful and human about a week. A week is a human construction.

It's nothing to do with the sun around the earth or whatever. it's the moon, it's just we made a week. There's something beautiful about that rhythm of every week going, what are you working on and how can I help? I know it sounds so banal, but what you're really doing is you are paying attention to that person in the context of their work. Who are you? What are you doing? How can I help? A year isn't a marathon. It's 52 sprints. And the thing, world today for leaders, we have to realize the world move so quickly that the goals that you set out for yourself at the beginning of the year are irrelevant by the third week of the year. We need to pivot and tweak and adjust and course correct our plans. So if we have to do that with

our plans, then of course we have to do that with our people. We have to have light touch conversations that are coaching conversations, not feedback, coaching. Next week try this, next week try that. Next week, tweak. That's the practice of leadership. Now, some leaders will go, but I'd love to do that, but I'm too busy leading to which we should say, well, then stop everything else you're doing and just do these light touch coaching conversations. If you say, well, I can't do that. I've got too many people. Then you have too many people. That one ritual helps us to answer the question about for a leader, what's the perfect span of control? And the answer to that question is,

the perfect span of control is the number of people that you can have a light coaching conversation with every week. For some people, that might be three. For somebody else, somebody else might be able to do 23 of those. So there will be some variance,

leader by leader. But the basic way to think about it, if you can't be talking to your people every week about near-term work, you are not leading. I don't know what you're doing. but you're not leading because what your people need

is that kind of detailed attention that's frequent. How frequent? Every week. That's a great challenge. All right, our time is almost done. And so I want to flip this. This is great stuff for everybody.

But I want to flip this to you and I'm just curious. I'd love, never ask you this. What are your top strengths? What are my top strengths? Have you done your top five? You know, I mean, I've done this.

done this, I live it. I think it's so fantastic, but I'm just curious. No one's ever, I've never anybody asked you that. I'm curious. What are yours? Well, it depends which of my assessments I'm taking. With Strength Finder, which is course the, it's the one that we built, Don Clifton and I created Now Discover Your Strengths, I guess 2000, 2001. Anyway, Strength Finder is all about how you see yourself. So we asked you 172 paired items and then it sort of measures you on 34 themes and you give you a top five. My top five are so futuristic, which is wouldn't it be great if, you know, that kind of vibe. Context, which is how do we get here? How do we get here?

So futuristic context, which of course means I miss the present, but I'm always interested in the future in the past. Focus is my third one. So I like working in series, not in parallel. I don't really like having 14 things going on at the same time. It confuses me. I like working one thing, get it done, then another thing get it done. Individualization, I naturally think about individual differences. That's just how my brain goes, I guess.

And then ideation, which is sort of leave me alone and let me try and understand how this all makes sense, which, yeah, I guess those are the Strength Finder top five. And then when I did Standout, with Standout, we took a different approach. It's called a situational judgment test. And really, we're trying to get it, not how you see yourself, but how do other people see you? How do you come across to other people? It's a leadership assessment. So it's really, why do people hook onto you?

A little different in the Strength Finder. And when I took that, my top two were creator, stimulator. Creator is a bit like ideation. It's like people hook on to me because I take time to make sense of things. And then Stimulator is energy. I can't stop getting excited about an idea when it has coherence. I like stories. I like drama.

I like words. I put creator and stimulate together. And I think probably if I'm a leader at all, it's because people get hooked into an idea and they like the energy that I bring to that idea. And they follow me, if they follow me at all, for that reason. That's my spike, if you like, that people hook on. too. Love that. What can you tell us about the future with Marcus Buckingham? What are you working on that you can share or tease us a little bit? Always excited to know what folks like you are thinking or being challenged by. Well, at the moment, I'm doing, I'm fascinated by the fact that we all want to grow as leaders. And yet if you look at the, and I'm going to take a slight turn to the right from what you might expect, but if you look at the world of,

enterprise software. And you say, all right, well, we know that companies and organizations grow or fail based upon the quality of each leader. And each leader runs a team. And then you go, right, well, as we look out there, what tools, what software tools are we given to leaders to be able to run their teams better? Where are those? What's the strangest thing is that we have absolutely none. There are no tools focused on helping team leaders to go, who the heck is on my team, what are they doing and how are they feeling? There's no integrated tool set to help. a team leader get the most out of their teams or the people on their teams. It's the strangest thing. We have human resources information systems that help us know who to pay and who reports to

who on boxes on the org chart. But we don't really have anything that says a bit like an Xbox game where, you know, if you're playing NBA All-Stars or something on Xbox, you are the player. You create the team. You invite the people onto the team. You set the plays that we're going to run. You change that with every game. You have a chemistry score, but like an engagement service. that tells you the mood of the troops, if you like. We know what that feels like these days as a team leader who can create their own team, invite people on, remove people to span the team and all that good stuff. You've got that in the world of games.

And weirdly enough, the world of work actually is like that right now. Most work these days happens on dynamic ephemeral teams. People coming together, cross-functional teams. Weirdly, there is nothing aimed at team leaders to help them get the most out of their teams. We can't even see the teams. There's no way even to see which teams exist. And so what I'm excited about right now is I can talk about some of these ideas all I want. But most people go and live out their strengths in the world of work,

well, if we're going to live out of strengths in the world of work, we better have tools that are built on the practices and premises shared by the best leaders. We better build our talent tools, our leader tools, around what the best leaders do anyway. And we don't have any. So I'm spending probably 80, 90% of my time right now building these tools because I am fed up when you have ideas or training and then you have tools. In the end, the tools trump the training. Tools trump training.

And at the moment, the tools that we give leaders inside companies are HR tools, their human resources tool, which is fine for HR. But where's the tool set for a really dynamic entrepreneurial leader trying to get the best out of his or her team? Where's that? Okay, if I don't build it, then somebody else is going to build something and I don't think they necessarily know necessarily what the practices and principles of the best leaders are. So I'm super fascinated by building really, really useful, mostly at the moment software tools filled with content. I got some great content, but it's not going to get used if people don't see it as a way to actually get the best out themselves and their teams. So that's what I'm working on.

Oh, that's fun. Well, there it is, folks. We got a little bit of a tease there. Always fun, Marcus, to talk with you. I really do admire your work. I'm just energized. And to borrow a phrase from the conversation earlier, this activity of asking questions flies by for me, but the man has a schedule and we have to honor it.

But hey, man, we do appreciate you for being with us. Not at all. I really enjoyed it as ever. Well, folks, I enjoyed that so much. Just one thing out of many I wrote down, I want to share with you that I think is a breakthrough observation, a wonderful comment that I think we as leaders really need to understand. Those of us who are called, we feel like, hey, we've got something to give to the world. We're leading people. This is huge.

He said, attention is a creative act. The audience creates the performance. There's really two separate statements there. but he put them together. Attention is a creative act. If we want to create great things, create great teams, create wonderful products, we have to give attention to the people that we are leading that are a part of that project, that are part of that journey.

Attention is a creative act. So you want to be a more creative leader and see things grow organically and take off in a healthy environment? Attention. And he gave a couple of really, really simple tips. Two questions to ask every week. priorities, how can I help? That's who you're asking the people that directly report to you. The second half of that statement, the audience creates the performance. I don't think we can ever forget that we as individuals. This is about individual performance. This is about

maximizing your potential, living the life of significance. We can't ever forget that we are constantly performing in front of an audience. Maybe an audience at home, maybe an audience of a team, maybe an audience, whatever it is. You have to know that when you have an audience in front of you, it is their participation that has created the opportunity for you to perform. That is a tremendous responsibility. And I think when we think that way, we're going to bring our best, we're going to make sure that we are operating in our strengths.

And I just think there's so much to chew on there. So that's something I'm going to be penciling in in my Moleskin journal. I'm going to be looking at that on a regular base. attention is a creative act the audience creates the performance how do we put that into practice every day and by the way Eric the producer wanted me to share with you my top five I took string finders 2.0 I haven't had the opportunity to take standout but for fun my top five are strategic maximizer competition activator ideation which by the way those last two activator and ideation can

drive people absolutely bananas because I've always got an idea and the minute that it touches oxygen, right? It leaves my mouth. There are times I want to activate on it, and I'm absolutely befuddled as to why no one is moving on it. So I have to be careful sometimes. I'm just poking some fun at myself, but that activator ideation is,

woo, baby, little energizer bunny sometimes. And thankfully, I have people around me who have different strengths and know how to funnel and filter the activator ideation combo. Hey, if you want to learn more about Marcus, go to TMBC.com. That's the Marcus Buckingham Company, TMBC.com. TMBC.com. I think you need to, as a leader or as a person who is dedicated to personal growth, if you don't have a consistent diet of what Marcus Buckingham is putting out, I think,

I think you're handicapping yourself. I really believe that. I believe so much in the strengths-based stuff. I could just waste an enormous amount of your time going off about how important it is in your personal life, professional life, in the lives of our kids, the lives of our students, but I won't do that. So I'm really excited to tell you about the October giveaway here from the Entree Leadership team. I love the stuff they're coming up with because I see this stuff played out every day here. This isn't a Chotchke.

This is stuff that we live, that our leaders do a great job. of modeling every day. So it's fun for me to talk about them. So the October giveaway is how to create core values. Well, how do you create them? If you heard the Pat Lynch-Linjoni conversation, you've heard anything he's ever said about core values, this is important to bring back up.

He's once said it's not a core value until you're willing to get punished for it. Now, let me just say this very quickly. And I rarely brag on Dave Ramsey because I don't ever want it to come across like I'm kissing up to the man. But this guy lives out what Pat Lynch-Oenio just said. He takes public punishment for some of the core values that drive the stands and positions

that this organization takes. Who we work with, how we work, what we will do, what we won't do. I've seen it over and over and over again. So how do you create core values? This resource this month will help you understand obviously the importance of core values. They're not just slogans you slap up on the wall. They're guide. pillars, if you will. How do you then communicate these values in a way that they become a part of the vernacular, a part of the culture? They have to be these core values guiding principles.

So we're going to help you figure that out. And then we have a cheat sheet so that you can really begin to throw things up against the wall because this is a, I'm going to tell you this, I think it ought to be a slight bit painful process, that you're so driven to make sure that you're so clear on. what the core values are, and this cheat sheet will help you dive into this. It is an arduous experience, but one that I think is very rewarding, and it should be arduous, because this is not something that you should just lightly take. We also have the core values. We're going to give you all the core values of our organization, not for you to copy, but for you to understand why we chose those

core values, so forth and so on. So again, these core values are all over this company. They're on the stairwells, they're on coffee mugs, they're on walls in our conference center, they're everywhere. And most importantly, they're on the lips and the tongue of our leaders. And thus, our team. So make sure that you take us up on this offer. Text the word, EL values, no space, EL values, text that to 3344-44-4. 3-44-4 or, of course. You can always go to the website, entreleadership.com, click on the podcast. Go to this episode. We'll have a link there for you as well. Hey, two events I want to tell you about. I'm so proud to get to host Entree Leadership events and I see the reaction of the audience. So when I tell you about these events,

I'm telling you this from my head and heart, what I see. We have two great events, super excited. I want to remind you, we've been telling you about Entree Leadership one day live stream. So this is an event we do all around the country, but for the first time, and we will not replay it. We're going to open it up for people to be able to watch on projectors, on computers, on phones, tablets, iPads. If you've got a screen, you can participate. It's in two and a half weeks.

It's going to be in Kansas City, October the 19th, October 19, live in Kansas City. So if you'd love to come join us live, it's going to be great, great energy, it's going to be so much fun. And if you'd like to participate in the live stream, watch it with your team. watch it with your family. Hey, I don't care. Whoever you think will benefit from it, dive in. It's only $24 for you podcast listeners. That's a $5 savings. All you need to do is use the code EL podcast. EL podcast is the code. Going to save you $5.com. Go to Entreeleadership.com slash E1D for all the information.

And speaking of the other event I want to tell you about, our Entree Master series. This is a deep dive. I mean, this is where we roll out the Playbook. such a great and experiential event. It's super practical. We're not just going to load you up with information. We're going to help you apply it. Now, our October event, this month, is already sold out. And we expect this February event to sell out as well.

Here are the dates. February 19 through 23. That's here in Brentwood, Tennessee. We are just minutes from downtown Nashville. And our campus is a lot of fun. So we're going to have a lot of fun with this event. It is here on campus. We take you around.

We give you some inside baseball. And it is always a rewarding event. So the Spring Master Series, February 19 through 23. Now, this event is limited to just 180 owners leaders. Okay? It always sells out. But we're going to have a special price. From the moment you hear this as we air this podcast, when it airs on a Monday,

you've got through October 14th for this special offer. This special offer is $200. That's no small offer. $200 off for podcast listeners. What that means is this. You can spread the word if you'd like, but we're not announcing that anywhere else except for this podcast.

The only people are going to hear it are you people. So go to ontaryleadership.com slash EMS. Contact one of our advisors. Tell them about the fact that you are a podcast listener and you want the $200 discount. So, Entreeleadership.com, talk to an advisor. They will take care of you and mention this discount. I want to thank Marcus Buckingham for his time

and wisdom always a treat to talk with Marcus, and I know we're all better for it on behalf of Eric the producer and the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you folks so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.