Working on our strengths?

Marcus Buckingham is credited with saying "we spend less than 15% of our time working on things that relate to our strengths".

Talent and personal development discussions are often centred around fixing 'weaknesses'.  Managers feel they quickly discuss achievements then spend the most part of the time identifying and working on 'areas for improvement'.  I wonder how this impacts on experiences of performance management for those doing it and equally those having it 'done to them'.

Certainly the challenge in current times is for organisations of all sizes to drive performance and increase turnover & profitability.  I wonder what impact we could have if we allowed people to play to their strengths, with the focus on how these are leveraged.

As a coach, I frequently have conversations around motivation and job satisfaction.  I notice the difference in my clients energy when I am helping them to understand the areas where they are at their best, compared to that when working on their 'weaknesses'.

Using a swimming analogy, how might we appraise Rebecca Adlington if we lost sight of her prowess at 400 & 800m freestyle? Would we be telling her to really focus on improving her butterfly stroke?

So, do you know your strengths and do you give yourself the opportunity to use them.  If you manage others, have you helped them to understand and apply theirs?

I would love to hear what you achieve!

What drives you?

I was recently introduced via Twitter to Daniel Pink, a thought leader and author of 'Drive'.  He encourages us to forget everything we thought we knew about motivating people, he says the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deep human need to direct our own lives, learn to create new things and do better by ourselves and our world.

He describes the three elements of true motivation as:

• Autonomy - the desire to direct our lives
• Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters
• Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

His book challenges the long-held philosophy of 'carrot & stick' and explores why this approach often does not work.  Pink recognises that people need to earn a living, but once past a personal threshold, the 'carrot & stick' can produce precisely the opposite of its intention.  He says that they can "transform an interesting task into drudge; turn play into work; send performance, creativity & even upstanding behaviour toppling like dominoes".

Personally, 'carrot & stick' has never done it for me, in fact, autonomy and mastery resonate very strongly.

Which ones resonate with you?  Let me know!