Go Put Your Strengths To Work by Marcus Buckingham

[David Zinger]

I am interested if anyone read Buckham's book and what they thought of it in relationship to employee engagement.

[Chris Tyler]

Yes I've read the book (as well as his earlier books "First, Break all the Rules" and "Now, Discover your strengths".) I'm a big fan of the concepts. It's only natural that when you praise someone about a strength and encourage them to use it that they become more engaged. Everyone loves to hear how good they are and wants more of that. Teams with high employee engagement also result when strengths are leveraged within the team.

[David Zinger]

I like his circular definition of strengths as something that strengthen you. It would seem with that definition that we would be very engaged in our strengths and if we can job craft work to fit more strengths we may build more engagement into the workplace.

[Andrew Rondeau]

David,

I am a huge fan of Marcus. I have and read all his books. I have also had the opportunity to 'see' Marcus in action several times. He is a great public speaker.

The view from Marcus is a mindset change. Over the years, it has been 'drummed' into us by our managers and at the performance review to develop our weaknesses.

When was the last time you have a performance review? Did you spend 3 minutes on your strengths and 57 on your weaknesses?

Great managers turn that mindset around and constantly provide opportunities for individuals to use their strengths.

Andrew

[David Zinger]

I like the companion piece to this book. The 6 DVD series Trombone Player Wanted. It makes for a great lunch and learn series if you want to build strengths in your workplace over 6 lunches.

Click here to go to a link for a free 18 pages review I did of this series.

[Amy]

I've been using Buckingham's eLearning materials with employees for a few months and it is excellent. I've also taken a group of employees through Simply Strengths workshop using an external facilitator, again, excellent.

[Chris Tyler]

If you're interested, Oprah and Marcus have partnered on a free workshop available at www.oprah.com/workshop regarding his "Go, Put your Strengths to Work" book for personal development. Online, self-paced

[David Zinger]

Chris,
I knew he was on the show. Oprah is really getting into more education work all the time. Maybe she'll want to get involved in this network. Thanks for the tip, I will check it out.
David