Age As A Strength and Seeing Your "Mold" - Jonathan Sackner-Bernstein

Dr. Sackner-Bernstein challenges several entrenched ideas in this terrific Ted Talk.  He shows us the benefits of age and offers an interesting challenge to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule. 

And most of all, he challenges us to like Alexander Fleming, find our "mold".

The Science of Personality - Film Short

This film short by Hogan Assessment systems is an interesting quick introduction to personality and assessments.  The focus on the 5 Factor system in the historical section of the film without mentioning the contributions of Carl Jung, Myers & Briggs and DISC creator William Marston was a little incomplete if not self-serving.  And then tying the 5 Factor Model to Nazi Germany??? That probably won't do much to advance their system.  Never-the-less, it's a well-made movie and offers some helpful information.

The Science of Personality from Signal Factory on Vimeo.

Delivering Your Strengths Is The Point!

In this video short John Maxwell talks about "Gift Distribution".  I call this "Delivering Your Strengths".  Whatever you call it, the point of your gifts or your strengths is to deliver them.  The weakness of the strengths movement is clearly a preoccupation with "Discovery".  Gifts or strengths must also be developed and then delivered.

...and I would add...in a way that makes a difference.  You must learn to become obsessed with delivering your strengths in a way that maximizes your contribution to the organization, team or business unit.

How do you deliver your strengths?

How do you make a difference?

What Do You Love Doing? - Shawn Shepheard

Unique Ability is a book by Catherine Nomura and Julia Walker with Shannon Waller.  It's based on Dan Sullivan's work and concept by that title.  It's one of the best strengths books available.  Here is a quick overview of the concept.

Take Control Over Your Responses To The Unexpected - Dan Sullivan

In this video short, Dan Sullivan begins to make a connection between working in our strengths and maintaining positive attitudes and perspectives.  As Dan says it, "working inside of his unique ability enhances the probability that he will successfully take control of responses to the unexpected".  He is on to something here that very little if anything has been written about.

Discover Your 10X Purpose - Dan Sullivan

Dan Sullivan is a phenomenal business coach who specializes in working with Entrepreneurs.  He is the creator of the "UniqueAbility" concept.  His idea of discovering your 10x Purpose is a powerful one.

Follow Your Talent - Tony Robbins

Introducing... "Live In The Grey - A Resource To Help You Do What You Love"

Mark Cuban Talks About Strengths

Thank you to my strengths practitioner friend Johan Oosthuizen for sharing this video... 

In this short interview with billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavarick's Owner Mark Cuban, he talks about his philosophy of success.  He shares how he started to understand his own strengths at age 12.  Cuban shares his experience selling garbage bags from door to door:

"It was when I was selling them, that I realized that I like to sell, and that I could sell and I realized that selling was about providing a service and creating value for people.  I knew literally back then that I could always succeed".  If you are familiar with the Strengthsfinder Assessment... Cuban is sharing his recognition of the Talent Theme called "Woo".

Cuban continues, "I think when I was 16 years old, I started a stamp company and started going to stamp shows and trade shows, just working a little bit harder than other people (Strengthsfinder Achiever Theme) and trading up from one stamp to the next.  I remember I started with a quarter and bought one stamp and left with $50.00"

Cuban shares, "I've always been passionate.  I would stay up till 3 or 4 in the morning, even though I had to get up and go to school, and read Linn's Stamp News and Scott's Stamp Journals and have them all memorized.  Even when I was in college, I'd be in the library reading business books and looking for business biographies (Strengthsfinder Input Theme) and just reading all I could about business.  When I had Micro Solutions, I started with no money, I'd pull all nighters in front of borrowed computers teaching myself software and how to program (Strengthsfinder Learner Theme).  

I've always just really enjoyed the competition of business (Strengthsfinder Competition Theme).  The ultimate sport is business, and you have to do it 24x7x365 days forever.  There's always somebody out there trying to kick your butt.  There's always somebody who looks at your business and says, 'I can do that better - I have a better idea', and you have to compete with that person."

Cuban also talks about the importance of passion.  He shares, "Love what you do...it's not who you know, it's not how much money you have access to.  It's really about finding something that you really love to do.  I had no idea that I loved computers and technology.  I took one class in computers, then I bought a little PC, a 99/4A from Texas Instruments for $99.00 and started teaching myself to program.  I found out 4 hours later that I had been working this entire time and I loved it.  That was the difference.  I failed a lot of times and I didn't know where I'd find my success, and then all of a sudden, I started playing with PC's and technology and it just clicked."

Cuban concludes, "I think the most important thing is knowing your strengths and weaknesses and knowing what you enjoy doing.  If you look at it as job, you've already lost. It's not going to be your passion.  Your going to count the hours.  If you look at it as something you love to do, and then you know what your strengths are, then you can leverage those strengths in your business and helping others.  Once you recognize your weaknesses, then you can work with people that complement you.  In every one of my businesses I've had a partner that's very anal... Martin Woodall, Todd Wagner are incredibly perfectionist people.  I'm a slob.  I'm a big picture, think about what's around the corner... How's technology going to change things?  How can I change this industry?  I need to make sure that there's somebody there to dot the i's and cross the t's and keep me in the baselines.  Recognizing my weaknesses is just as important as recognizing my strengths and my core competencies and having a passion to do it."

That last paragraph is a pretty good summary of the Strengths Philosophy as I teach it.

Process Usually Trumps The Specific Product

When thinking about building a life based on your strengths, process usually trumps the specific product.  In other words, the most important thing is selecting work that consistently, on a daily basis involves performing tasks and activities that you are both good at and enjoy doing.

In his almost always brilliant blog, Seth Godin explains this principle using "Staples" as an example.  Godin begins:

"The people who started Staples didn't do it...

because they love office supplies.

They did it because they love organizing and running profitable retail businesses. They love hiring and leasing and telling a story that converts prospects into customers. Postits are sort of irrelevant.

You shouldn't become a middle school math teacher because you love math. You should do it because you love teaching.

I hope Staples has a senior buyer who actually does love office supplies. I hope that textbooks get written by people who love, really love, the topic they're writing about. It's easy, though, to fool ourselves into believing that going up the ladder means we get to do more of the thing we started out doing.

It's often the case that the people we surround ourselves with (and the tasks we do) have far more to do with job satisfaction and performance than the subject of our work."

Don't run to fast by that second to last line...  "It's easy, though, to fool ourselves into believing that going up the ladder means we get to do more of the thing we started out doing."  This is a strengths based explanation of the Peter Principle which simply put says, "People get promoted until they reach a position of incompetence.".

Just because you were great at your last job doesn't mean you will be even average at the one you get promoted into.  Consider the world of professional sports.  It is extremely rare for a world class athlete to go and become a world class coach in the sport they excelled at. In fact, name almost any world class coach and I will show you a fairly average performer.  In many cases, a weak performer.

This is played out everyday in business when the great sales person gets promoted into management only to fall flat on his or her face.  And the reverse is true.  An average sales performer slips into a management role and ends up finding his or her area of excellence.

In his book, "Inside Apple", Adam Lashinsky explains how founder Steve Jobs recognized and applied this insight.

"From the moment Jobs returned, corporate culture changed.  Employees would focus on whatever it was they did best and nothing else. Under Steve Jobs only one executive owned a P&L, and that was the chief financial officer.  By creating a system where by only a financial executive would mind the budget, Jobs forced functional executives to focus on their strengths.  Steve let people’s talent define their jobs, not jobs define their talent.”

Lashinsky quotes Jonathan Ive who is the now famous Apple Design Team Leader, 

“I was terrible at running a design business, and I really wanted to just focus on the craft of design. I worked out what I was good at and what I was bad at. It became pretty clear what I wanted to do. I was really only interested in design. I was neither interested, or good at building a business.” 

Lashinsky continues,  “Apples approach to career development is yet another way it ruins contrary to the norms at other other companies.  The  prevalent attitude for workers in the corporate world is to consider their growth trajectory - what’s the path up?  Companies spend an inordinate amount of time growing their people for new responsibilities... But what if it turns out that all that thinking is wrong?  What if companies encouraged employees to be satisfied where they are because they’re good at what they did?  Instead of employees fretting because they were stuck in terminal jobs, what if they were excited in having found their perfect job?  There are many professionals that find it liberating to work at what they are good at, receive competitive killer compensation, and not have to worry about supervising others or jockeying for higher rungs on the org chart.”

Strengths @ Facebook

Facebook has a comprehensive multifaceted strengths program that is deeply embedded in the culture.  In this short clip, Head of Learning, Stuart Crab explains some of the ways Facebook does it.

Character Strengths

This video is a wonderful introduction to character strengths.  Unlike talent, character strengths can be chosen and developed at will. 

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Who Is The Most Important Person In The Organization?

I am a huge fan of Harvey MacKay's books, speeches, newspaper columns and blogposts. While cleaning out some old emails, I ran across this post from November 2012. Harvey began the article with a provocative question...

"Who is the most important person in the organization?"

MacKay's wise answer... "Everyone"

Then Mackay continued with a short story:

"A sea captain and his chief engineer got into an argument about which one was more important to the ship. Finally they decided to trade places for a day. After a few hours, the captain suddenly appeared on deck, covered with oil and soot.

"Chief!" he yelled wildly waving aloft a monkey wrench. "You'll have to come down here! I can't make the ship go!"

"Of course not!" replied the chief engineer. "We're aground!"

This story demonstrates that everyone is important. As I like to say, "The boat won't go if we all don't row." You must be committed to each other."

This is a terrific strengths story. We need all of the strengths in play on every team if we want a healthy high-performance organization!

Flow...The 17 Triggers - Steven Kotler

The Rise of Superman: 17 Flow Triggers from Steven Kotler

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance - Steven Kotler

In this "Google Talk" Steven Kotler talks about very recent advances in the Science of Flow. Flow is a state of extreme engagement, where the highest levels of performance take place in every field from art to accounting to athletics.

The One Question All Successful People Can Answer Immediately

In her article posted on "The Muse", Sarah Chang talks about, "The One Question All Successful People Can Answer Immediately".

The Question:

"If You Were A Super-Hero, What Would Your Super-Power Be?"

She's right. Two extensive studies have been done that completely support the idea behind knowing the answer to this question. "Awareness" of strengths and "Alignment" with those strengths are really the only common denominators of success across different roles, positions and functions.

What You're Really Meant To Do - Robert Steven Kaplan

Society constantly creates definitions of success for us...

This includes a barrage of input about and from:

Peer Push - "Come Work With Us"
Plant - "Who's Hiring"
Posting - "Who's Hiring"
Parental Push - "You Should Be A ______"
Promoters - "This Will Make Your Life Better"
Place - "It's Close By"
Pay - "I Can't Afford To Make Less"
Position Prestige - "The Title Sounds So Successful"
Programs - "The Television Version Of A Job"

In this "Google Talk", Robert Steven Kaplan shares a better way...

Passion - "What You Love"
Purpose - "What You Think Is Important"
Personality - "Fits With Your Temperament"
Potential - "What You're Naturally Good At"
Process - "What You Enjoy Doing"

If you like this talk, let me suggest his book by the same title!

Nick Campbell: Doing Your Best Work