The Strengths Zone

Several years ago, I was at a company event where Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge , offered up what he called the "best-kept secret" of successful leaders.  His answer?  Love .  The author professed that the secret sauce to effective leadership is to stay in love with the people we work with, the products we provide and the customers that we serve.  Staying in love requires that you fall in love in the first place - and true love takes time.  While common career advice is "do what you love" or  "follow your passion",  the reality is that most people are not pre-wired with passion just waiting to be instantly matched to a lifelong career.  Even people who study technical skills (doctor, teacher, lawyer) would say that deep passion for their craft required time and experience. Those hoping for the perfect match from the start are typically disappointed (most of us know at least one former teacher).  In the book So Good They Can&

All of the StrengthsFinder Talent Themes are sorted into Strengths Domains "There’s nothing hidden in your head The Sorting Hat can’t see, so try me on and I will tell you where you ought to be." All devout Harry Potter fans will recognize this line from the Sorting Hat song which appeared in the first Harry Potter novel.  According to legend, students are sorted by their personality traits, their shared values and their wishes. The students in each of the houses of Hogwarts all shared similar qualities.  For example, the  Gryffindors  were brave and courageous, while the Ravenclaws were smart and creative.   If you are familiar with the series, each of the four houses competed based on their individual and combined talents.  Each house leveraged their unique qualities to build their brand and get things done.  However, no single house was dominant   (did I mention Gryffindors can also be considered by some as arrogant?!?).  In the final chapter, when ever

Create a culture of performance development around this cadence of core principles in 2019 It's January - time for football playoffs, resolutions and Performance Management.  My resolution for 2019 is to re-frame Performance Management as Performance Development .  A quick search of Performance Management online indicates that the traditional method of rating and ranking employees in American corporations has it's roots in the military and WWI.  Evaluations were popularized in the 1960's and 1970's as a way to set uniform performance standards and expectations in rapidly growing organizations.   Striving for uniformity is just not going to cut it in today's customized world. Individualizing performance management and making it it an ongoing developmental process is what the workforce is looking for.  Over 40% of the U.S. workforce are Millennials, and their share continues to grow.  Gallup research shows that the new workforce are most interested in opportu