Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Marcus Buckingham on Harnessing Your Strengths

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

How many times have you been told to improve on your weaknesses? Annual reviews, feedback, and constructive criticism tell us that our weaknesses are what require our attention, but Marcus Buckingham, the world’s most prominent researcher on strengths and leadership at work, disagrees. Marcus believes that strengths are your areas of development. Companies that focus on cultivating employees' strengths rather than improving their weaknesses can dramatically increase efficiency and promote maximum personal growth and success. In this episode, Hala and Marcus talk about the difference between strengths and weaknesses, facts about the 360 degree feedback technique, how teams can work on their strengths, identifying leaders, and finding the red threads in work and life.      Topics Include: - Difference between strengths and weaknesses - How to measure and evaluate strengths and weaknesses  - How to build up your strengths - Are weaknesses related to strengths  - Understanding feedback and reactions - Facts about the 360 Feedback technique - The uniqueness of each person - How a team can work on their strengths - Best qualities of managers - How to identify leaders - COVID engagement research - The future of work - Marcus’s secret to profiting in life - And other topics… Marcus Buckingham is known as the world’s most prominent researcher on strengths and leadership at work. He is the founder of the coaching and education firm, The Marcus Buckingham Company, and he leads research at the ADP Research Institute. Marcus spent two decades studying excellence at the Gallup Organization and co-creating the StrengthsFinder tool.  Marcus is the author of two of the best-selling business books of all time, First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. He has authored nine total books, including his latest release: Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life. He has been profiled in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Sponsored By: Jordan Harbinger - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Zapier - Try Zapier for free today at zapier.com/YAP Shopify - Go to shopify.com/profiting, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features Wise - Join 13 million people and businesses who are already saving, and try Wise for free at Wise.com/yap First Person - Go to getfirstperson.com and use code YAP to get 15% off your first order Resources Mentioned: YAP Episode #1: First Impressions feat. Dorie Clark: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/1-first-impressions-be-more-likable-nail-your-first-impressions/  YAP Episode #101: Greenlights with Matthew McConaughey: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/101-greenlights-with-matthew-mcconaughey/ ADP Research Institute: https://www.adpri.org/ Marcus’s Website: https://www.marcusbuckingham.com/  Marcus’s Books: https://www.marcusbuckingham.com/books/  Marcus’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-buckingham-86516414/  Marcus’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcusbuckingham/  Marcus’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwbuckingham  Marcus’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcuswbuckingham  Marcus’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/strengthsmovement  Connect with Young and Profiting: Hala’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/     Hala’s Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/yapwithhala/     Hala’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/yapwithhala  Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@halataha   Website: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/  Text Hala: https://youngandprofiting.co/TextHala or text “YAP” to 28046 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast,

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If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young & Profiting Podcast. What is up, Yap Fam? You might notice that I sound a little horse and that's because I have a cold. I don't have COVID, thankfully, just a cold. So I sound a little crappy, but the show goes on.

And before we get started, I did want to remind you about our slick text community. And it is in an awesome community that we have going. I check my messages every single day. So if you have a question for me, if you want to get alerted for our latest episodes, if you want to get daily motivation, all you have to do is text YAP YAP to 28046. And this is for our US listeners only. If you want to join the text community just text YAPYAPE to 28046. This week on YAPY we're chatting with business consultant motivational speaker

and bestling author Marcus Buckingham. Marcus is known as the world's most prominent researcher on strengths and leadership at work. He is the founder of the coaching and education firm the Marcus Buckingham company and he leads research at the ADP Research Institute. Marcus spent two decades studying excellence at the Gallup Organization and co-created the Strengths Finder Tool. I think many of us have heard of that tool. Marcus' 2019 Harvard Business Review Cover article,

The Feedback fallacy, was recently selected by HBR as one of the most influential articles of the last 100 years. He's been profiled in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, the Today Show, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and so many more. His latest book, Love and Work, Had to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It For The Rest of Your Life, was just released in April of 2022. So we are due to have him back on the app to talk about that book. And Marcus uses reliable

data to get at the core of what drives engagements, resilience, and productivity. So this conversation that we had is super valuable and based on fact, I think you're going to love it. It was originally aired in March of 2021. It was episode number one, oh four. So it's been quite a while, but it's still super relevant. And we've cut it down so you can listen, learn, and profit even faster. In this app classic, we chat about why we should focus on our strengths instead of improving our weaknesses. We look at why we should pay attention to reactions

and ignore feedback, and what leaders can do to build the best teams, as well as what Marcus has learned about resilience by researching COVID. If you're a leader looking to get the best out of your team or an employee looking to identify and grow your strengths or an entrepreneur looking to do the same, you've come to the right place. Let's dive right in.

I wanna understand the difference between strengths and weaknesses because this is something that you talk very often about and I wanna ask some follow--up questions about that so with that said could you just lay some foundation for our listeners about strengths versus weaknesses? Yeah sure I am actually joined the Gallup organization when I first came to the US about 25 years ago and Gallup's known for polling but I did decide what it wasn't polling was focused on how do you measure things about a human that are really important, but you can't count. Things like strengths, things like weaknesses. And when you start to research strengths, obviously at the time

I was building something called Strength Finder with my mentor who was the chairman of Garp Don Clifton. And when you really dive into strengths where you discover and weaknesses, you discover that a strength isn't what you're good at and a weakness isn't what you're bad at because we've all got some things that we're really, really, really good at that we hate. So what would you call that? Would you call something where you are really effective at it, but doing it drains you, or pours you, or drags you down. Burn out, burn out of a gale or something like that.

And it's funny, that happens in school, doesn't it, where you can continually get A's in a class. But you're not there. I mean, emotionally, you're not there psychologically. You're not there. You sort of procrastinate that class. Somehow, you end up with an A because you're smart or you're diligent or something. But when you really push in it, what you find is that

all of us respond to situations in life, activities, people, contexts in a way that's either positively or emotionally, it's either a little jolt up or a little pull down. Nothing is really emotionally zero, and so weaknesses, any activity that we consume, even if you're good at it, a strength is any activity that strengthens you, even if you're not good at it yet. So a strength is far more apatite than it is pure ability. And so that pushes you towards. You realize that the person who knows what your strengths and weaknesses are

better than anyone else in the world is you. So then how do you start to understand like what's a strength for you and what's a weakness? Like how do you measure that and evaluate that? Well, probably the simplest thing, and we've done this with 10, 11, 12-year-olds. By the way, for your listeners, just know, unfortunately, know what at school or in college or a work,

know what is interested in finding out your, and that I know it sounds weird to say, but know what, I don't mean this to sound cynical, but know what is really interested in what is inside you as a human and what your natural strengths are, because the whole approach to education and work is basically that each one of us is an empty vessel, and we can fill it with whatever education we wanted to fill it with, test you occasionally to see how full your vessel is through exams or tests, and the best student or the best worker is he or she who's the fullest. So the

idea that each one of us is beautifully unique with unique strengths and weaknesses is sort of lost on school or on work. But for you, if you wanted to figure out what your particular natural strengths are, the simple and weaknesses, the simplest thing to do is to use a regular week of your life. Just take a blank, maybe it's a blank pad, maybe it's a a page on your phone or whatever, draw a line down the middle of the pad and put, I loved it, at the top of one column and loathed it, at the top of the other column, and then take it around with you for a week. Any time you find yourself looking forward to it, but particular activity before you're doing it, scribble it down in the moment in the

loved it column. Any time you find yourself with time just flying by and what felt like five minutes, you look up and it's an hour scrimmaging it down. Anytime when you're done with it it felt like it just clicked, it just clicked. It was almost like you knew how to do it without having to learn how to do it. So rapid learning, scribbling it down in the love of the car. Anytime you see the inverse, before you're doing it, you're pushing it off to the side of your desk with something. You're trying to shove it under the filing cabinet. When you're doing it, time saw it drags on it. You get to the end, but you're at an empty husk.

Anytime anything like that, scrimming it down in the low tick column, just spend a week using the raw material of your life to show you where is the positive valence at the level of the activity and where is the negative. And you're good to end of the week, you don't have a list. You'll have a list not of like theoretical terms, like strategic thinking or executive presence or growth orientation or entrepreneurship. Not that, you'll have a list of actual activities,

some of which, super draw you in. And some of which, for your drain, you, as you said, burn you out. That is a beautiful starting point to begin to identify for yourself where you get strength from life. And because strength and appetite and appetite and practice and performance and practice are this beautiful ongoing loop, the more detailed you can be about, which particular activities do you back, those are your strengths. You may not be good at them yet.

You may not, but you may just be drawn to them repeatedly. But the beautiful thing is you use your life, not someone's theoretical models, but your life to help you know what are the particular aspects, activities, situations, contexts, moments, that strength in you. Those are your strengths and you can do it at 11 years old. I love that. I love tactical advice. So I think everybody who's listening should take heed and do that activity to find out their strengths and weaknesses. Now I know that you're you have a very strong belief that you should not really focus on your weaknesses. A lot of people

have it backwards. They they focus a lot on improving their weaknesses, but you say focus on your strengths. Why is that? And how can we start to build up our strengths even better? And how did you come up with the fact that you feel that weaknesses really aren't where you should focus? Well, to begin with, just to sort of clarify, I don't feel it, I don't think it, I'm a researcher,

so I sort of go into any situation with a blank canvas. We went in, this was about 25 years ago now, but we went and basically studied highly performing managers or team leaders and lower performing team leaders. And companies would give us their top 100 managers and their bottom 100 managers. And we'd do this again and again and again and again. So you're constantly looking in the world of researchers

called a study group and a contrast group. So you just keep talking to the world's best managers and team leaders. And you ask them a whole bunch of questions about what do you do when you do to get the best out of your people. And although every single one of the members, and by the way, it got to be about 80,000. So 80,000 interviews like the one that you're doing with me now. But we transcribe everything that was said and then pour over the transcripts looking for, well, looking for similar narratives, basically.

And of course, what you find, the first thing you find is that all of these really great team leaders are really different from one another. And I don't mean just different in terms of race or age or nationality, but just different in terms of their style. Some of the best team leaders are very future focused. Some of them are very now focused. Some of them are very focused. Some of them are very now focused. Some of them are very conceptual. Some of them are very tactless.

So they're all different in terms of their style. But one of the things that they all shared was a deep realization that each person on their team, A, was enduringly unique. Even if you have 10 salespeople, you don't have 10 salespeople. You have 10 individuals who happen to be in selling. And each one of those people sells in a slightly different way. And what you

as a leader have to do is not try to make them all the same. You as a leader have to figure out a bit like playing chess versus checkers, right? Chess or the pieces move differently. The best team leaders realize that each of these pieces move differently. First of all, you've got to figure out as a chess playing team leader, who's the knight, who's the rook, who's the queen, who's the bishop, who's the like you, you try to figure out the uniqueness of each person, and then they said, if you've got a rook, don't try and turn it into a bishop. It's like if you've got somebody who naturally sells by building relationships with people

and getting to trust you, what you do is you help them to maximize that intelligently. And if you've got someone who really sells simply because of the force of their personality, they close quickly. They're just a closer. That's what they do. It's what I love to do. You help them to cultivate that intelligently. You don't try and turn them into someone who you go, well, Johnny will done for being a good closer. But now we need to work on fixing your relationship. They don't do that. And they don't do it not because they're trying to be nice, I mean, maybe some of them are. But they're doing it because they realize you've always got as a team leader.

Now for you, as a CEO, you'll know this more and more and more over time. You're always thinking about return on investment. You're always thinking about where's the ROI? And I'm in the business. I'm in a human Where would get the most growth and the best team leaders seem to understand what neuroscientists have only just begun to measure Namely that you will get the most growth the most development the most performance improvement by figuring out where somebody already has Some kind of comparative advantage and then you maximize it. Now, we can talk about how to maximize it in a minute,

but that is a mind-blowingly important thing for you to understand in your career, because everywhere you go in school, obviously, if you get, in fact, we ask this question every year for the last 25 years, your child comes home to be asked out of parents, your child comes home to be asked out of parents. Your child comes home to following grades, English A, Social Studies A, Biology C, algebra F. Which grade deserves the most attention from you? And there isn't a single year hallow

where less than 70% of American parents focus on the F. If you give them the choice of those grades, every parent, by the way, every teacher, goes straight to the F, because we have frightened of the F, and then you get to work. When you start your career, you'll find that we turn the word F into something called an area of opportunity, or an area for development. So in the world of work, we have strengths, John and I have those, and then air is a development. The best manager in the world go, wait a minute. That is completely basakwards. You have strengths, which are your areas of development. And then you have weaknesses that we need to manage around.

Every single effective sports coach, if you look at them, like look at Tom Brady. Tom Brady has very specific strengths as a player and a whole shed load of weaknesses. If you only get the best out of Tom Brady, you do not say to Tom, okay, let's just ignore your strengths for a while. Let's really focus on turning your weaknesses and he has so many. I mean, mobility being the most obvious one of them.

And let's try and turn you into Patrick Mahal. When we say it like that, we know that sounds stupid. And yet the really sad thing is that for most of you who are listening in your careers, that is exactly the advice you're going to get. Find out where your lack of mobility is. We'll call that an area for development. And we'll put together an individual development plan for you so that you can emerge this well-rounded, perfect human.

Well, I'm sorry. The most successful people in the world, the most successful team leaders in the world, realize that each one of us is injuringly unique. And over the course of our life, we don't turn into someone else. We get more and more and more of who we already are. And the real challenge for us is,

can you get to become an incredibly intelligent version of who you are? Best team leaders figured that out so fast. I'm not going to turn my night into a rook. I got to figure out how to maximize these really beautifully unique people. That's so interesting. And I know that I had a guest. Her name is Dory Clark. You might be familiar with her. She was on my episode number one a long time ago. She's a career expert, a reinvention coach. And she said that sometimes your weaknesses can be your biggest strengths. So do you have an opinion about that? Have you seen that where your weaknesses are actually somewhat related to your biggest strengths as well?

Well, that's an interesting question because normally the way that it's positioned is the other way around. You'll hear an awful lot awful lot of people say yeah but that strength better watch out for it. That strength of yours can also become a weakness. Yeah exactly. Right, you'll hear it twisted around. So some people say well look you're naturally very good at confrontation. Your mind doesn't go blank somehow the words come really smoothly and you are just whenever there's a confrontation moment you're you're not really good in the middle of it but watch out, don't use it too much because then it'll turn into people think you're rude or aggressive so you need to kind of download it or they'll say the same way of empathy, you know, well

you're really empathetic but you know what you're too soft, you're too soft, you can't always be empathetic you know, in fact most people's coach are not saying this was true of hers, but because she actually framed it really interestingly the other way around. Most of what you'll hear, most of what your listeners will hear, is the other way around where people will spend really well-intended people like your mother will tell you, because they want to help you, tone that down a little bit. You're best boss that you first meet. When you first meet a boss that you really like, they'll spend a lot of time going, well, this is great, but you need to, you need to turn

it down a little bit. The first thing that all of us should remember is no good advice. Basically, when you peel it back, sounds like, be lesser for you are. That is never good coaching advice or career, but be lesser for you are. That is never good coaching advice or career but be lesser for you are. Now that doesn't mean that somebody can't help you go wait a minute Marcus. Sometimes when you're confronting people with your grades at sometimes you seem to actually be pushing them further away from where you want them to get to. How can you be more... Now what's great Marcus with you is

your words come really quickly when you're angry. I don't know if some people shut down. You don't. You get angry at it and you just get cold and crests when you're like, wow, crazy town, that's so good. How can you use it in a way that actually gets the outcome you want? Sometimes with kids, I'm sure you've seen this with other kids that you have, with relatives that you've got, whatever, kids.

It's always like a strength, so too big for their little bodies. So when they have natural strengths, sometimes it's like they haven't grown into them yet. In fact what a career is really is kind of growing into your natural strengths so that you can use them really intelligently. Your strength you you can never have too much of a strength. If anyone ever tells you you've got too much of that strength block that comment out because what they're really saying, they might be saying is you're not using that strength quite effectively enough.

Okay, that's a legitimate piece of coaching advice and that might make you pause and think, huh, I wonder how I can tweak or fine tune or adjust that so I can use my natural proclivities to actually get done what I want to get done. The other way around is kind of an interesting framing that your weaknesses are also part of your strengths. I would say this, what weakens you can't also strengthen you. So if you define a strength and a weakness the way I did up front, which frankly most people don't,

they normally say a strength is what you're good at and a weakness is what you're bad at. But if a strength is what strengthens you and a weakness is what we consume, then what weakens you, can't also strengthen you. It's a logical monsecret. But some of the things that strengthen you in some situations can prove effective for you and in other situations they won't prove effective for you. For example, you might be somebody who is strengthened by persuading someone to do something they didn't intend to do. You love selling and you love the clothes. And then because you love selling and because no one really helped you understand

which bit of it you really loved. And when you were selling for that medical device company, you got clothes all the time. It was so great because you got the little signature on the thing and you're like, yeah. And then you got promoted. I don't know why, but you got promoted to work for a pharmaceutical company like Amgen or something or Genentech. And you went in and you, you know, you're quote unquote, good at selling, but you go in there and you suddenly realize that in pharmaceutical sales, you've never closed.

There's no close. There's no signature. You're just influencing doctors to write prescriptions. And so you go in there thinking, I'm really strong at selling, but actually not, what strengthened you was the clothes and you went and joined a pharmaceutical sales company where there's no clothes.

So in that sense, your weakness and your strength is stayed the same. What strengthened you stayed the same? What weakened you stayed the same? It's just that in one context, it was super useful to help you be effective in the job and in the pharmaceutical sales, that very same thing, that very same part of you actually proved to be diminishing for you, super frustrating for you. And if any of your listeners have ever found that in their career, you go, wait a minute, what happened to me? Because I was killing it away. And I moved over

here and suddenly I'm like, I may actually still be able to, quote unquote, do the job, but I'm like, every day I wake up and I'm in a really bad mood. Why am I so often? It's because there's some part of your previous job that was strengthening to you. Some activity or situation or personal context, in that case the close, was strengthening to you and you move into a job where there's none of it. And I would be so helpful if you want to learn it 11 or 12 or 13. But unfortunately for most of us, we have to sort of figure this out as we go along during

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value bombs away. The two big takeaways that I have is, again, going back to writing down what you love and what you loads and really taking the time to think about that and to figure that out so that when you are in situations where you feel burnt out, you know exactly why and so that you can make the right career decisions and kind of evaluate your future experiences based on what you're actually good at. And so that you don't make a big career change and then you end up hating your job. That's when you were doing really great.

So I definitely agree there. I also love your feedback about feedback that you shouldn't just listen to everyone. Even if they have good intentions like your mom or a boss that might really want you to succeed, but they just don't know how to give proper advice and they give you bad advice. So that's super important. Yeah, and on that point, by the way, if you look at many of your listeners, we're going to bump into this so much of this, where somebody will say, you need to let her take feedback. Or, hey, come and sit down.

I want to give you some feedback. And of course, in today's high tech world, there are so many tools and functions and features that allow you to get feedback all the time from people. And if you're in the corporate world, you work for Disney, you'll notice, you actually have formal ways of getting feedback. Sometimes it's called a performance review or a performance appraisal or an at least half a month a year now, it seems to happen with little apps and stuff. Now, you're getting feedback all the Lord. And it used to happen once a year now it seems to happen with little abs and stuff. Now it's you're getting feedback all the time. What I would strongly suggest your listeners is block all of it out. All of it. Feedback never, ever helps you excel,

ever. The reason why that is, well there's one small exception, sorry, there's one small exception. Sorry. There's one small exception. When success in a job requires you to know a certain fact or a certain prescribed sequence of steps and you're getting the steps wrong, let's say you're a nurse and you're there's a step sequence to give a safe and painless injection and you miss one of the steps. It is entirely appropriate for someone to come in and go, hey, you're Mr. Step. Or if you got a fact wrong, like, the American Independence War was this date and you say that date, then somebody can say, you got that date wrong.

So when it comes to predetermined facts or steps, then feedback is fine, because someone might tell you that you missed one. But excellence in any job, you're a seat guy right now, right? You go 40 people, you're charging around like a mad prune, and no part of your job is a prescribed sequence of steps. I mean, yes, you need to know how to turn this particular technology on that you need to know how to do that.

You need to know how to save the file and then cut it up into bits and like, you need to know how to do that. And if someone can teach you how to do that, great. But other than that, everything that you're doing, everything that you're learning, every moment that you're kind of doing your very best work is a function of inside out. It's you taking your natural patterns of loves and lows

to your natural synaptic connection patterns and turning them into behavior. Stimulially of life is hitting you all the time and you're just choosing making a choice here, doing this, not that, thousands of these. Every day when somebody tries to give you advice, when somebody tries to give you feedback, when you really look at what they're saying, even with the very best of intentions, what they're really saying to you is

you would do this job better, Hullala, if you did it more like me. Because all I've got is my own experience. I'm telling you, Hey, you need to do a bit more of that. You need to do a little less of that. You should do this. You should do that. And it's basically someone taking their own experience and even with the best of intentions, smothering you with them.

And so instead, you shouldn't ask for feedback, and if you are a manager of other people or a colleague, never give feedback. Instead, what you can do and what's so legit to do is say what your reaction is. Just be way more humble. Don't cross the feedback bridge and start giving advice, that's right,

to just stay on your side of the bridge and say, look, my reaction was this. So, Hull, if you said to me, Hey Marcus, you know, I just really didn't understand what you just said. That's your reaction. That is so legit. I can't say, yes, you did, Hull, that you totally did. I can't say that. Your reaction is your reaction.

You're the owner of your reaction. You can say, I didn't understand what you just said. Or you could say, I was really bored by what you just said. I can't then go no you won't bored. You abort So that's your reaction. Tell me your reaction if you go through your career and you'll blind or deaf to other people's reactions to you Okay, that's a miss. You need to listen for their reactions. Just smile and close your ears when they start giving you feedback on what you should do differently. The only way they actually, they can help you know what

to do differently or better, is not only if they react when something didn't go well, but actually the best thing to listen for is for their reaction when something really, really, really worked well that you did. You're, and this again is one of those mind-blowingly obvious things when you say it, no one teaches you this, the raw material for your future greatness is your current goodness. Your raw material for your future greatness is not your current failure. It's your current areas where you're already doing something where people went, that was cool. That presentation you gave, you know, not everything about it was great, frankly, but this

part I went in like crazy. If you built a whole presentation where you did more of that, that moment there, I don't know, I just lended, I couldn't stop myself from leaning in, it was so you nailed it, your energy was fantastic. That room, if someone's telling you their reaction about what worked, that's not them being nice to you. That is them giving you raw material to help you know, what should I tack towards? What should I do more of?

What should I fine tune or refine? Because frankly, most of us we charge through life and we're trying our best. We do a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of this. Other people's reaction to what worked, whether it's an email you wrote, whether it's a campaign you started, whether it's a relationship you built,

whether it's a presentation you gave. If someone is reacting to what bits of it worked, oh my word, that is the best, best coaching advice you can ever get from someone. So different, by the way, than when someone's telling you what you should do differently, which as I said, normally turns out to be,

you wouldn't do better if only you did it more like me. So when any of your feedback, just your alarm bells should go off. Oh my gosh, this is excellent. I love that when you said smile and close your ears. When you hear feedback, that's such a good tip for people. And a lot of people think that they're supposed to get feedback and they don't realize

that most feedback is actually negative. Like when somebody asks you for feedback, you're thinking, well, what's the one negative thing I can think about this person and give them some constructive criticism? You're not thinking about good feedback, right? And I know that you actually have this opinion about 360 reviews. You call them gossip.

So tell us about your opinion on 360 reviews because we did that. I don't work at Disney anymore, but we did that at Disney. And I have a great story about how somebody who was just kind of out to get me gave really bad feedback, which had not like, if you asked any of my past managers of the past 10 years or any of my past coworkers, everybody would be like, that doesn't sound anything like Hala. But it's just one person who was out to get me.

So talk to us about 360 feedback. Well, again, as there were things else, I don't have an opinion about anything. You go. Sorry, but tell us about the facts. Right, I mean, and I only say that because, as you know, in this day and age, sort of everyone's a thought leader.

I think this, I think that, I think this, I was a chef, but now I'm a life coach. It's like how does everyone's a thought leader? So it's important if you have data to start with, well, the data show, because then you're not really just putting your opinion out. You're going, this is what we can see in the world. When it comes to 360s, first of all, you're right.

In many, many cases, there are an opportunity for someone anonymously to log little hand grenades at other people. So there's that whole part of it, which is just dangerous and politically damaging and psychologically hurtful. But even if you de-anonymize it, the basic, there's two basic, huge floors with any 360. For any of you listening that are forced to go through a 360, just keep your mind focused on these two floors. Again, you may have to smile and just kind of pretend, but know that these two floors are right there at the heart of all 360s. The first is that you can learn about success from studying failure. If somebody is using a 360 to point out where your gaps are, you can learn a lot from studying your gaps. Remember, you learn nothing about success from studying

failure. Let me let this just all be really clear. There's so much stuff, our failure is such a great teacher. No, it isn't. Failure teaches you about failure. If you wanted to learn about failure, studying it up the where zoo. It teaches teaches you about failure. If you wanted to learn about failure, study it up the wazoo. It teaches you nothing about success. In fact, some aspects of failure are really similar to success. So if you study failure and then say, don't do that, you won't succeed. It's like saying, if you study really unhappy marriages, you actually, this is true, you find out that people argue a lot.

You count the arguments. They're a lot of arguments. So what you would then say is, well, to have a happy marriage, you shouldn't argue. But you actually study really happy marriages, you count the number of arguments. There are exactly the same number of arguments. Or rather, there's no statistically significant difference between the number of arguments and a happy marriage and the number of arguments and a rotten one. It turns out that the difference between a happy marriage and a rotten one is the number of arguments. It's what goes on in the space between the arguments. And in the unhappy marriage, you lean away from one another and each argument is proof of the need to be armoured against the other person's attacks.

And somehow in a happy marriage, the arguments are assigned for more reaching toward one another, more intimacy, more curiosity. So if you just studied really unhappy marriages, found out that they argued a lot, you'd go, well, well, then if you want a good one, don't argue, which is completely wrong. It's like saying, health is the absence of disease. In order to learn about health, we should study disease. No. If you want to learn about disease, you study disease, which is fine, do that, but don't imagine that's health.

Health is a totally different thing. So that's the first thing with 360s. They're predicated on the idea that to get better, you should figure out where you're kind of failing according to your 360 colleagues and then fix it. Okay, completely wrong. You will learn more about how you're going to excel from those places where you excel. Very quickly, the second thing that's problematic, hugely problematic with 360s, is that based on the idea that I am a reliable Rater of you on anything. And it turns out after 50 years of research on this, it turns out that the only thing I'm a reliable

Rater of is my own feelings and experiences. I'm a pretty good rater or rater, rather, of whether I'm bored by a presentation. I'm a good rater of a restaurant that I just went to. Will I go there again? I can rate that. I can rate whether I will advocate that restaurant to friends and family. I can do all of that because it's all about me rating me. Turns out I am a terrible writer of your strategic thinking or your empathy or anything in you. I'm a terrible writer of it. And it turns out there's a thing called, and this is going to sound

long and kind of convoluted, but it's called the idiosyncratic rate effect. And it basically means when I rate you, my rating of you is idiosyncratic and it reflects me more than it does you. And we know that because when I rate 10 people on something like empathy, presumably if I was really seeing them through a window if you like, the ratings would change because I'm looking at 10 different people. But we know, measurably, the ratings don't change. My ratings move with me.

I am in a sense revealing myself and some rating these 10 people. 360s are supposed to be a window into other people. They're not. They're a mirror. They're just me bouncing me back at me. And for those of you who are listening who are stat heads, you'll know

that if your measurement system has systematic error in it, which this is, systematic error, the more data you add, doesn't get rid of the error. It adds to the error. It's like if you've got one broken thermometer, you've got one bad measurement. If you have 15 broken thermometers, you've now got 15 bad measurements and you're no closer to knowing how hot it is outside. So that's what a 360 is. It's a systematically error-filled, badly designed focus on failure. And unfortunately for many of you listeners, you're going to bump into this. Some well-intended team leader is going to go, hey, here's this new Nifty 360. It's part of our human capital management system and it's going to help you get that up.

Okay, whenever you see that, like again, you may have to smile to be politically savvy, but just please don't let your career be determined by other people's faulty thermometers. It's so crazy because I know that so many corporations do this and so many of us are going through these feedback reviews and there's so many like messed up outcomes as a result of this. There's so many managers who are focusing on the wrong things and team members who are just drowning because they're worried about their weaknesses not focusing on their strengths. It sounds so so broken, you know, and that's just really sad to me that it's so broken right now. I know that you have like 20 years of research experience and

so you've researched a lot of different topics, you have many different books, we're on the topics of managers. So over the years, you've done lots of research studies on this, what makes the best qualities in a manager while we're on this topic? Well, that's hard to say, right? Because every manager is different. What we do know is that every really, really great manager has the ability to individualize. If you can't individualize, you can't build a great team because a great team isn't built up a bunch of the same people as the team, if you will. People always say there's no I-M team. As of the point of a team is to remind you that you're not that special.

It's like, no, no, that's a complete misunderstanding about teams of four. You bring teams together because a team is the place in which lots of different people, lots of unique eyes actually make a contribution together and they achieve something together, they couldn't do by themselves. The point of a team are the eyes.

So individualization, if you wanna be a really good team leader, cultivate, and some part of this is a skill, it's not just a natural strength. Some part of managing is learning how to see the clues. Can you see where somebody has rapid learning? Can you see where one of your team members just gets in the zone and they just seem to be in flow. Can you see where people are naturally volunteering? And not in a misinstinct kind of way.

When some people's instincts are, they're instinctively raising their hand for a job because the job comes with certain benefits, money, prize, prestige, American Idol, all those people like volunteering. Are they really volunteering for learning a hundred words, or songs to a hundred words to a hundred songs, practicing all those times by yourself? Are they really volunteering for the actual activities of what it takes to be an American Idol, or are they volunteering because they want the praise and the money or the attention? We've got a lot of misunderstandings in our lives because no one's ever really taught us to inventory what our own natural strengths are. So as a manager, individualization is a really important thing.

But the second thing I would say, and this is less, Hullar, an attribute, and more just a behavior. And by the way, and you know what I mean, you should do this too, because this is free. And it's just everything. The best team leaders check in with each person on their team for 15 minutes each week individually. And the conversation in that 15 minutes, and you could call it a check-in

or a touch base or a conversation or a one-on-one, the word doesn't matter. But that 15 minutes isn't about feedback on this week. Hey, let me tell you how you did. Let me tell you, no, it's a short-term future-focused conversation about next week, in which the manager is just asking two questions. What are your priorities this week?

And how can I help you? What are your priorities? How can I help you? And the best managers realize you don't do that as a group. I mean, you can get your team together as a group if you want. But every week, each individual on that team is basically invisibly raising their hand

and going, can you pay attention to me? Can you pay attention to me? Can you pay attention to me? Every human being's got like an attention bucket, but the bucket has a hole in it. And so you fill my bucket in the course of a week by going, okay, what are your priorities next week? When are you working on? How can I help? And then

you think, well, I've done that. So I don't have to do that now for another five months with that person. No. No. Next Friday, you kind of got to do it again. And then you kind of got to do it again. And you got to do it again. And if any of your listeners are thinking, well, I can't do that because I've got too many people. Then you've got too many people. It's like, what's the perfect span of control in a young business like yours? It's not a span of control. It's a span of attention. And the perfect span of attention is how many people can you as a team leader legitimately check in with every week for 52 weeks. And also if you are a team leader or you're aspiring to be one in your career and you're listening team leader or you're aspiring to be one in your career

and you're listening to this and you're thinking to yourself, well, that sounds boring. I don't want to check in with each of my people every week. I want to be strategizing. I want to be, you know, I want to be doing the cool sexy leadershipy stuff. Then don't leave people because if you don't want to check in with each person and find out what's going on in their head and how can I help? Every single week, because things change so quickly. If that doesn't interest you, don't lead people. Because this thing is check-in thing.

Isn't like, in addition to leading, it is leading. And if that doesn't interest you, then go be smart by yourself. Or maybe you and one other person. But if you want to try to get the most out of a team of people, you've got to check in with them each week about near-term future with your strengths lens on. So you're looking for where they've shown some signs of real achievement, rapid learning in the zone.

And you're trying always, in the face of a changing world, right, the goals that you put together for your company back in June were irrelevant by July. That's how quickly the world, and? The goals that you put together for your company back in June were irrelevant by July. That's how quickly the world, and it's not just COVID. That's just every year is like that. We have a whole lot of conversation about goals, by the way, but with your team leader, yes, you need to individualize, but then this frequent light touch check-in. No one will tell you this, by the way. I don't know why, but no one will tell you this. And yet, I promise you, if you're leading a team right now and you get in this habit, it's like brushing your teeth.

You don't need to have a perfect coaching moment every check in. Some check in, you'll just go, oh, and okay, and I'll do my best. And that's all you got that week for that person. But that would be great, because next week, you're gonna ask them again, and again, and again, and again, it's like your year is

52 little sprints as you pay attention to each person. Last quick point on the day to the day to show that the modality doesn't matter. Whether you're doing it in person, whether you're doing it on the phone, in app, on a text, on an email, it actually doesn't matter. What matters is that it happens, not the way in which it happens. So weirdly, crazily, the most powerful team ritual you can put in place as a manager is not a team ritual. It's a one-on-one check-in with each person.

Super light touch. If they go beyond 20 minutes, well, maybe you decide that three of them in the year will go beyond 20 minutes because you just want to full a debrief. But most of them are just 10 to 20 minutes of light. What are you working on? How can I help? Hold tight, everyone. Let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsors. Yeah, Pam, if you're ready to take your business to new heights, break through to the six or seven figure mark or learn from the world's most successful people. Look no further because the Kelly Roach show has got you covered. Kelly Roach is a best-selling author, a top-ranked podcast host, and an extremely talented

marketer. She's the owner of NotOne, but six thriving companies, and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur, and I highly respect her. She's been a guest on YAP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client. And I remember when she came on Young and Profiting and she talked about her conviction marketing framework, it was like mind blowing to me. I remember immediately implementing what she taught me in the interview in my company and the marketing efforts that we were doing. And as a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done. All Kelly has built. In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven promotions in just eight years, but

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, app fam. As you may know, I've been a full-time entrepreneur for three years now. Yet media blew up so fast. It was really hard to keep everything under control, but things have settled a bit, and I'm really focused on revamping and improving our company culture. I have 16 employees, so it's a lot of people to try to rally and motivate. And I recently had bestselling author Kim Scott on the show. And after previewing her content in our conversation, I just knew I had to take her class on masterclass, tackle the hard conversations with radical candor to really absorb all she has to offer.

And now I'm using her radical candor method every day with my team to give in solicit feedback, to cultivate a more inclusive culture, and to empower them with my honesty. And I can see my team feeling more motivated and energized already. They are really receptive to this framework, and I'm so happy because I really needed this class. With masterclass, you can learn from the best

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Get unlimited access to every class and right now, as the app listener, you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com slash profiting. That's masterclass.com slash profiting for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com-profiting. And so, do you recommend, like, I have a CEO of a company and I have subteam, so do you recommend that each leader does this with their subteam or do you recommend that I do that for every single person? No, absolutely not. Your role as a CEO is totally different, which we can get to and event if you want to,

but no, your role right now is a CEO. You're building teams of teams. You're building teams of teams. In fact, you're most important job right now, as a CEO is, how do I ensure that I'm putting in place the right ways to build lots of teams like my best teams? It's like, we found out obviously, to build lots of teams like my best teams. It's like, we found out, obviously,

you ask people this question around the world, 84% of people say they do most of their work on teams. 84% is a few people in the shed, at the bottom of the garden, all by themselves, permanently doing just well. There are a few people like that. Most of us though, even the smartest of us, we're doing work on teams.

65% of us say we do most of our work on more than one team, and that that team isn't reflected on the org charge. It's a dynamic, ephemeral team that came together for six weeks over here, or it came together for four months over here. So most of us have a formal team, and then a couple of other kind of coming together teams. But teams are work, and I don't mean team work, you know, and other kind of coming together teams. But teams are work. And I mean team work, you know, that kind of cliches. Oh, you got to be more teamy.

No, no, no. Work is teamwork. So what you should be doing as a CEO is you should be going, am I building more teams like my best teams, which begins, of course, with anybody that the most important decision you make, by the way, in your growing company is who you make team leader. So it goes your team leaders. So it goes everything.

You could be the smartest person in the world, and if you're putting in place, people that don't get a kick out of individualization, that really actually want to tell people what to do because they're into control. They don't want to check in with everybody each week individually because it boils them to tears and they're way more interested in themselves. If you keep doing that, I don't care how smart you are, Hala, your company is going nowhere because no one will want to work there or if they do come work for you, they won't stay. You join a company, you may join your company because of you, because you're cool, because you're out there, because you're exciting, because of your innovative, but how long they stay and how productive they are well there with you doesn't depend on you. It depends massively on that little local

team. So yeah, the show answer the question is, each one of your team leaders should be doing this. And if they don't want to do it, that is a red flag for you. I think this is such a great point. You made me think about something that I've said before on this podcast that you can be a great employee and you could be great at what you do and it doesn't mean that you have to eventually lead people. There's lots of people who aren't great at leading and they can lead in their own way as an individual contributor and not have a team and that's how they perform well just because somebody performs well doesn't mean you just promote them to lead a team because it's a very different skills. And so I think that's a brilliant point that you make and it just like really drives

that point home. And to put specificity to it, it really sort of means you're not going to be a great leader rather than saying it that way. You can always say to people, look, let me tell you what leading is. Leading is figuring out the uniqueness of each person and then paying attention to that person in the work, that person in the work, that person in the work for 52 weeks of the year. Are you interested in that? Because if you are not, then in terms of going all the way back

to the definition of a strength and a weakness, if that doesn't strengthen you, and by the way, we could try it out, we could try it out, why don't we try it out? And the thing we're trying out isn't some elusive concept called leadership. We're actually just trying out an activity.

We're going to maybe put you in a dynamic or a femoral team. We'll give you a little project. We'll give you a project for about six months. I don't know, six weeks, whatever it is. You can try it out and see whether or not checking in with each person about near-term future work. When you can't tell them what to do, you have to manage by remote control, not more control, you have less control. Let's see whether or not you get any sort of kick out of that because if you don't, that's the job of leading. And if that, right now

for whatever reason, doesn't thrill you or doesn't give you any jolt or anything, then the money, if it comes with more money or the bigger title, if it comes with a bigger title, that's not gonna carry the day. It's like in the end, if you want to build a really great career, the what always trumps the why or the who with. Even if you super believe in the why, by the way, I'm a huge fan of Simon Sinek stuff, so find your why. Okay, that's cool. And obviously the people you work with, the who, that's important. But if what you're doing every day at 10, 13 in the morning on a Tuesday, what you're doing at 3 p.m. on a Friday, if the activities themselves don't strengthen you, then that will always in the end burn you up. Burnout comes not from losing your why, it from comes from doing the wrong what in service of the why. So in that sense if you want to know if you want to be a team leader in your life having an

activity that we can go oh leadings that all right well let's try that and let's see what you get any kind of thrill out of that. And if you don't, as you said, that doesn't mean you're a bad person, it doesn't mean you couldn't be incredibly successful in your career. It means you're probably going to be successful mostly because of your own efforts, your own insights, and less about your ability to build teams, or teams of teams. Everyone shouldn't aspire to be you. And if I look to your job, your life, there's gonna be a whole lot of activities

that a lot of us would go, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna, I don't like. So all of us have got different thrills that we get from life. And of course, that doesn't mean my wrong or right. It just means, it just means we're us. So the last question I ask, oh, my guess is what is your secret to profiting in life? You know, the Western philosophy says, I think therefore I am, right? Cogato

Al-Ghosam, I think therefore I am. But there is an African philosophy called Ubuntu, which basically says, no, we only exist in relation to other people. You're not out there by yourself thinking. Everything isn't cognitive. It's not I think there, but I am. It's I am because you are. We all exist in beautiful relationship to one another. So my secret to profiting in life with me,

but for you too, and for your listeners would be look to your left and looked to your right. Because you are because of who they are. Who are you moving through life with? That includes your life partner, the person you choose to do life with, includes your colleagues. Your beautiful uniqueness is manifested not by itself. It is manifested through the attention, the challenge, the curiosity of someone else helping you to demystify yourself

so that you can contribute. So look to your left, look to your right, and remember that the goal of any great relationship that you have in life is to make each one of you bigger. And you should only surround yourself with people whose goal is to help you be bigger, the biggest version of you, not threatened by you, not blind to you, not controlling of you, not trying to be you. The goal of any relationship is that that other person sees you and wants you to be you. The goal of any relationship is that that other person sees you and wants you to be bigger. And I think the thing that I've learned in my life anyway, I've done, my career is a little bit like yours over the years. Writing books, speaking, being individually productive, starting a company, having a company grow like crazy, having another bigger company,

coming and buy like, like, now I'm here doing this with you. It's been an interesting scavenger hunt for love. But the biggest lesson I'm going to take from my life is that I am because you are. And so who's the you in that sense? Who am I surrounding myself with? For every one of your listeners, they aren't in Ireland. They're not by themselves. They're super connected.

And so think very carefully about who you're choosing to walk through life with. And if they're wanting you to be bigger, hold on tight. Because that's the way I'm actually doing the full of life. What a great conversation. Marcus is so sharp and I loved nerding out about all the facts surrounding resilience, feedback, and productivity in the workplace. Before I get into takeaways, I think it's important to recap how Marcus defines strengths and weaknesses. facts surrounding resilience, feedback, and productivity in the workplace. Before I get into takeaways, I think it's important to recap how Marcus defines strengths and weaknesses. So, a strength is something that energizes you, and a weakness is something that drains

you. Keep in mind though, that according to Marcus' definition, weaknesses aren't necessarily things that you're bad at, and strengths aren't always things that you're good at. Now, I'm sure all of my listeners at one point in their life have been told that they've got to work on their weaknesses. But Marcus makes a valid point that the companies that focus on cultivating employee strengths rather than improving their weaknesses can dramatically increase efficiency and promote maximum personal growth and success.

So the lesson is to put your energy and effort towards what lights you up instead of working hard to improve on what drains you. You can help those around you do the same by paying attention to where they show signs of rapid learning and achievement. Compliment them on what they're exaling at. Help feed and foster their strengths. Marcus also says that you learn nothing about success by studying failure. You learn more about success by studying successes.

This is also something where he's like turning a thought on its head. And it reminded me of my conversation with Matthew McConaughey back in episode number one, one of my favorite episodes. And Matthew talked about journaling and how he writes everything down. And even when things are going great for him, he writes it down.

And then when he's having a bad day or a bad week, he can look back at something that was positive and going well and see what he was doing differently and efficiently. And then he takes that and he tries to apply it to his situation that he's in that's not going so well. And Matthew is doing exactly what Marcus is talking about. He's learning about his future success

by studying his past success, not by focusing on his current or past weaknesses or failures. I think this is totally brilliant. Now I think some of the best actionable advice from this episode that you can do today to profit tomorrow is to start the list of loves and lows. So over the next two weeks, keep a running list of activities that light you up and those that drain you and at the end of the two weeks look back at your list and make a plan for how you can maximize the time that you spend on the activities that you

Love and reduce the time on the activities that drain you Marcus says that the sweet spot to avoid burnout at work is to spend at least 20% of your time on the activities that you love And he calls these activities your red threads You got to take these red threads seriously both you and your coworkers and your employees as well There's so much need for it love in the workplace and young and profitors. That starts with us. As I wrap up, I want to shout out all the listeners who sent me DMs and tagged me on post lately.

It's been really fun to get to know everybody on social. My Instagram really has taken off lately. I used to be just big on LinkedIn and now Instagram is really popping for me. It's really fun to talk to you guys. So many of you guys are active on Instagram and DMing me and stuff. So if you guys want to follow me there, it's at Yap with Hala. I'm also on Twitter at Yap with Hala, although probably not as active as I am on Instagram and LinkedIn.

And if you're not following me on LinkedIn yet, just search my name. It's Hala Ta-Ha. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you know, you didn't get so sick of this raspy voice, and you want to show us support, the number one way to thank us is drop us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to another episode of Young and Providing Podcasts, and thanks to my awesome Yaptime.

You guys are amazing. I couldn't do this without you. This is your host, H Halataha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast.

My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money.

Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule. Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like, know yourself better, where we discuss questions like, are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever, and every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happy.

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