Does Your Manager Focus on Your Strengths?
Markus Buckingham’s newest book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work has a very powerful insight. What is it? Managers spend too much of their time having conversations with their direct reports about who they are not versus who they actually are. "Most performance appraisals spend two minutes on what you do well and twenty eight minutes on 'areas of opportunity' – your weaknesses! So, most conversations between managers and their people are around flaws and how to fix them. You are talking to people about who they are NOT rather than who they ARE. The world believes the way to achieve success is to find your flaws and fix them. We live in a remedial world fascinated by weaknesses.
Actually, you won't get the performance improvement you want by getting people to work on their weaknesses. "
Wouldn’t it be nice if companies spent more time leveraging your strengths versus focusing on your weaknesses?
Let us know what you think…
Comments
Judy
Strengths make so much sense. We have such limited time and energy that strengths can become a way to determine what to focus on.
Of course the nay-sayers will have to chime in. I can't wait to hear someone say, "your weakness is that you focus too much on strengths."
David
Posted by: David Zinger | March 23, 2007 05:58 PM
I've done Marcus Buckingham's Discover your strengths video serries twice now and it is LIFE CHANGING!!!!
Posted by: Heather Young | February 10, 2008 07:59 PM
I live in Brazil and don´t have time to watching Tv. Is it possible receive as a gift your book?
My adress; Rua General Severiano nº 70 ap.201 - Botafogo - Rio de Janeiro - Brazil CEP 22 290 -040
Thank you.
Posted by: Maria Lúcia Esteves | May 23, 2008 08:05 PM