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I've been scouring over Marcus Buckingham's books and the Gallup.com website in the last few weeks and it just seems to me that he makes so much sense and his ideas are really resonating with me. I've gathered the strengthfinder data for my staff and now I'm looking at the best way to go about incorporating and putting into practice Buckinghams ideas. I realize this is a process not an event, will take time and can't really be cookbooked but I wonder if anyone else is as intrigued as I am by this philosophy of thinking and any suggestions anyone might have to really put this into play in the everyday work world.

Thanks
Tim

Mark's picture
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Tim-

Buckingham's work is excellent. It's why we recommend his book! We read LOTS of books to get it down to the few we highlight. I like his approach and have seen it work.

The whole key is knowing this stuff BEFORE you hire. Done right, it causes you to change the way you hire... and for most folks, that's a good thing.

A caution: don't do too much people stuff to your staff all at once. We've talked about your challenges this summer... don't become perceived as flavor of the month boss. ;-)

Mark

Tim G's picture

Mark--You must know dentists pretty well. We're famous for getting an idea, jumping on it, watching it sink and then jumping on something else. It must be in our DNA. Right now I'm simply gleening ideas. Looking at strengths as opposed to weaknesses is completely contrary thinking in the dental world. Let me tell you how each instructor I had in school would start when grading a project or a patient procedure--"This is what I see wrong here"..... I guess that's why Buckingham's caught my attention. 4 more weeks and I'm back to full staff. YAHOO. Thanks again.

Mark's picture
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Tim-

You're not describing Dental school... you're describing schoolS. Drucker says this over and over again - focus on strengths of people, and opportunities in the market, versus problems to fix.

Good luck!

Mark

davidmould's picture

Up to now I haven't invested much time in reading about managment. I would rather learn through observation and draw my own conclusions. I have been fortunate that I have had some great role models.

At the company I work for they do run a "management seminar" that is as close to mandatory as can be for certain grades. In there we do DISC and they give you First Break All the Rules.

As mentioned not being an avid reader of management theory and principles it sat on my shelf for more than 1 year, however [fortunately] I ran out of books to read so picked this up for a plane journey.

The whole book really clicked with me and I went on to read both Now Discover Your Strengths and The One Thing You Need to Know.

Now the challenge is going to be to accomodate the learnings about both myself and my team into the fairly strict appraisal framework that we have but I do believe I will get some small success, but as they say " the start of a thousand mile journey is a single step".

I'll try and post updates as the successes, and equally important for learning purposes, the failures develop.

kklogic's picture

We actually had Gallup in to administer the test and do a one-day seminar on it. They cautioned us against using this in the hiring process because you can be sued. They said that there are successful priests with no Empathy and successful CEOs with no Command.

All this said, I absolutely love SF. I work in a high C / high D environment (as a high D / high I). Translated to SF, that means lots of Responsibility, Achiever, Activator and so on.

My top 5 were Learner, Strategic, Futuristic, Includer and Maximizer. I didn't initially feel good about that either! After it all sunk in, I can feel good about those talents and will work hard towards turning them into bona fide strengths. I finally see where I can bring value to the organization.

I have done DiSC, Emergenetics, Myers Briggs, Caliper and SF. I liked all of them, but found this to be the most useful for me. I like the methodology in the actual test (allows little manipulation of the test). To quote our instructor "the other test show you the house, this shows you the rooms." I found that to indeed be the case.

trandell's picture

After hearing about this book from a conference attendee, I picked up "StrengthsFinder 2.0" by Tom Rath. It's a concise collection of the 34 talents and gives access to the upgraded quiz. I find it quite interesting.

Hexemom's picture
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I am a school administrator and I used the StrengthsFinder with my entire staff of (65+) teachers. It was a powerful way to improve the somewhat sour climate in our building. Teachers began talking to one another about their strengths and have actually sought others out because of one of their praticular strengths. I am so pleased to report that it has even changed the way many of our teachers talk about students too! I love the section in the book about how to mange people by strength theme which gives concrete examples about what a person with a particular strength may enjoy and/or be exceptional at doing.

BTW Mark and Mike . . . thanks for this site, your tools and your podcasts. I accidentally came upon them and even though I am not in the "business world" I have learned and applied a lot from you!

Mark's picture
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BTW, you're totally welcome. Management is management...glad you're here!

Mark