I wrote last month about the educational experts at Azusa Pacific University, who are pioneering the concept of strengths in our schools. There are also teachers out there on their own who are trying to get strengths movements started in their classrooms. I heard from one of those teachers about a year ago, when Donnie Fitzpatrick up in Campbell River, British Columbia called me to ask for some advice.

His challenge was this: he wanted to teach his students how to have their own voices. Kids don’t have their own voices at 11 or 12 years old. They don’t have the confidence, and they’re too busy trying to find the answer that the teacher wants, or trying to fit in with their friends. Donnie wanted to show them Trombone Player Wanted to help them figure out, essentially, who they were. He asked me what pointers I could give him on how to use the film series in the classroom.

Although I was intrigued, I basically told him that I didn’t have any pointers. The truth is, I didn’t make Trombone Player Wanted for those kids. I made it for adults in the workplace. I didn’t know whether it would work with pre-teens, or whether the kids would even be attentive enough to absorb it. “How are you going to get them interested?” I asked. Donnie had an idea of his own: “I’ll just tell them they probably wouldn’t be interested in it because they’re only 12 years old.” That’s the kind of pedagogical genius you only get with years of experience.

A year later, I’ve just returned from a visit to Donnie’s school, and I have to say, I’m extremely impressed with what he’s done. First, he put together a 5-week program for the kids to have them explore what their own strengths and weaknesses were. It worked so well that he expanded it into a full 9-month curriculum. The results have been extraordinary. The sometimes ingrained tendency of kids to think “teacher knows everything and I don’t seem to know anything” has been turned on its head by the realization that they are the authorities on their own strengths and weaknesses. The kids are brimming with confidence. Students who wouldn’t speak in class have suddenly opened up.

I saw all the great work that Donnie’s students have done as they’ve come into their own. They’ve created a video program about their strengths called “When the Day Flew By.” They played a “Family Feud”-style game, complete with a buzzer, to test their knowledge of the 3 myths, what is the definition of a strength, and so on. They’ve given great artistic flourishes to writing out their strength and weakness statements. I saw wonderful examples of strength statement clarifications that even some of our adult workshop participants could learn from. One example that sticks in my mind was a student who went from “I like playing guitar” to “I feel strong when I double pluck my guitar in front of a small group of people so that they can hear how it truly sounds.” I love the specificity of that — they’ve really gotten to the essence of the strength. Together, Donnie and his students have created a wonderful interactive experience that lets the kids take responsibility for who they are and how they relate to the world.

After my time with Donnie’s highly engaged classroom, I found myself thinking about some of the research the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has done at the opposite end of the educational spectrum, investigating bad behavior among students, such as dropping out, drug use, and other high-risk activities. What they’ve found is that the underlying cause in so many cases is simply that the kids don’t believe they have a future. And why bother if you have no future? School would be nothing but a waste of time. So there is an absolutely crushing need in our school systems for a program or series of curricula that teach kids to understand themselves in a detailed way, so that they can see a vision of what their future is. And the future isn’t, “what career are you going to move on to?” The future is a matter of finding their voices. You won’t believe you have a future if you don’t know what your voice is; and you won’t discover your voice until you know what your strengths are.

Donnie plans to expand his program in his school and his district, and I will definitely keep up with him — and of course, let you know all about it here on the blog.

Marcus

Lately, I’ve been busier than usual with appearances on various TV and radio shows. Everyone wants to talk about the economy and what people can do to help themselves out in the current downturn. We’ve all seen the stories: some of the most reliable companies in U.S. history are seeking bailouts, unemployment is rising, and people can’t stop comparing the current economic climate to the Great Depression. In the face of this grim news, I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, but neither do I want to contribute to the gloom. As tough as times may be, there are things you can do now to take control of your career.

The word “control” is really the key. In uncertain times, people want to know what they can control. Well, you can’t take charge of the economy on a macro level, can you? You can’t get General Motors on track, or somehow turn consumer confidence around. But you can take charge of yourself. You can make the effort to discover what you really love to do, and then take the steps to build your career around that. If you focus on what you love to do, the money will follow.

It can be tough to keep that focus, even if you’re currently employed. You can let yourself get distracted by concerns about your company’s business or potential layoffs. But wallowing in anxiety about what could go wrong is simply counterproductive. Don’t worry about the future; plan for it. Now is the time to double down on your Strengths and figure out ways to volunteer more of yourself, contribute more and make yourself known and indispensable.

And if don’t currently have a job? Believe it or not, the current economy actually provides you with a moment of opportunity. Obviously, your first priorities are to get your finances stabilized, and to find your next job. But now might be the best time in a long time to allow yourself to focus your career on an area that really strengthens you. In economic high times, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking you have to keep plugging away, maybe in a job that doesn’t really suit you at all, just to keep pace. You can’t afford the luxury of thinking what your true interests and Strengths are; you just have to keep going. But when the economy is slow, you don’t have to feel like you’re missing out on once-in-a-lifetime opportunities if you step out of the rat race for a while. Instead of keeping up with the Joneses, you can focus on keeping faith with yourself. Take the time to figure out what it is you love doing, and then focus your energies on finding the job that matches your passion.

If you’re interested in watching or listening to my recent appearances, you can watch The Dave Ramsey Show (click here for part two of the interview), check out NPR’s Marketplace piece on economic anxiety in the workplace, or listen to my chat with Jean Chatzky on Oprah & Friends. (Speaking of Oprah, if you missed it the first time around, my appearance on her show will be re-aired on Friday, December 19).

And finally, you can take a look at my talk with Business Week below.

Marcus

To the extent that The Truth About You is a book aimed particularly at helping young people find out what their strengths are and what to do with them, it’s fitting that our tour ended at Azusa Pacific University. In a sense, you could say that Azusa Pacific was the jumping off point for applying strengths concepts in education. Years ago, my mentor, former Gallup Organization chairman Don Clifton, met at Azusa with a man named Edward “Chip” Anderson, and Chip became the first educator to really take hold of this idea of teaching people based on their Strengths. Together, Don and Chip wrote a book called StrengthsQuest to introduce strengths to the world of education. Today, you can see the results of their work: hundreds of thousands of students not just at Azusa, but at Harvard, Baylor, SMU and other schools, are taking StrengthsFinder when they begin college. The information they get from StrengthsFinder can help them figure out what subjects to take, what to major in, and how to make the most of their academic careers.

I had time to meet with some of the Azusa faculty before my talk, and we discussed how to take this movement even further in academia. I’ll be working with them in the new year to design curricula that can take us beyond merely discovering one’s strengths to actually building a strong life. And learning how to capitalize on your strengths is, after all, what The Truth About You is all about. It’s a great feeling knowing that we are working to carry on in the spirit of what Don and Chip started, and taking it to the next level.

I’d like to take a moment to thank everybody, particularly the wonderful folks at Thomas Nelson, for making this tour such a great experience, and for pulling things off so flawlessly. In a month in which everybody got a little freaked out about the economy, we managed to help people focus on the things that will keep them at their most effective in these challenging times — namely, their strengths.

The tour is over now, but I’ve enjoyed writing the blog, so I’m going to keep posting every week to tell you what’s on my mind and share the fun we’re having encouraging people to grow by embracing their strengths.

Marcus

After flying home for a momentous election day, I turned back around and flew to Oklahoma City and drove to Stillwater to speak at the Oklahoma State campus there. It was my first time in Stillwater, although I’ve spoken at the OSU campuses in Oklahoma City and Tulsa before. The venue was right across the street from Boone Pickens Stadium. The OSU football team will be playing a big game against #2 Texas Tech this weekend. Go Cowboys! I must admit that’s hard for a Cornhusker to say, having spent six years in Nebraska. Their football program right now goes to show the power of a great leader, as they’ve fallen on hard times since Tom Osborne quit to run for Congress.

One highlight of my trip was the chance for a one-on-one interview with OSU president Burns Hargis. We’ve embedded the video below for those who’d like to take a look.

In Stillwater, the most interesting question was probably this one: “What did China do in order to move their numbers?” If you’ve heard me speak recently or have been reading the blog, you know that China has had an amazing turnaround this decade in their focus on strengths over weaknesses. It’s sort of counterintuitive, but they didn’t move those numbers so drastically by trying to move their numbers; the numbers exploded because of an increased focus on performance and on being competitive. In business, in their schools and in sports (particularly because they hosted the Olympics this year), “competition” is the watchword of the country. When you make things more competitive, inevitably people start focusing on their strengths, because that’s the way to win.

Where China has made a virtue of competition, the U.S. has made a virtue of participation. Not at the extremes, of course — at the Michael Phelps and Tiger Woods end of the spectrum, the greats always strive to get better. But America’s participation emphasis has created not a strengths-based nation, but at best a confused nation. China is pragmatic; the millennials are not. They’re not thinking about “what does it take to perform?” We’ve tried to make them good at everything, and although being well-rounded has its uses, you don’t win by becoming beautifully well-rounded. If we’re going to compete with China, we’ll have to get back to the question of “How do I win?” We have to focus on strengths.

We drove back to Oklahoma City in the worst hailstorm you’ve ever seen in your life. Hail was hammering like drums on the roof of the car. On stage, I implored the audience, “you guys will tell me if a tornado warning happens, right? You’re not going to leave me on stage while you run for cover?” They laughed a little, but later one of my hosts said, “I didn’t want to tell you, but we’re kind of always under a tornado warning here in Stillwater.” Fortunately, I didn’t get whisked away to the Land of Oz or anything. Although I am back in California….

Marcus

We actually had two events in Tennessee, because after we originally scheduled an appearance at Belmont University, the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce sought us out. I spoke there to an audience of about 300 people, and it was a great event. I imagine not many people know this, but Rutherford is the 12th-fastest growing county in the entire country. It’s good to know that in a dynamic area like that, civic leaders are interested in learning about strengths.

The main event at Belmont was kind of a kick, at least partly because I was appearing on the same stage where, just a few weeks ago, Tom Brokaw moderated the town hall debate between Obama and McCain. Apparently, the Curb Event Center was built specifically to be able to accommodate a presidential debate, and it shows. They have an underground garage with a special, highly secure secret entrance, which we got to use ourselves. And I’m not sure what the presidential candidates had in their green rooms, but the one I used was certainly impressive. Although Brokaw was still sitting there, which was weird. He kept telling me to shorten my responses.

So it was fun to be on the same stage as the presidential candidates. Although there was no moderator peppering me, I did get some penetrating questions. One that cuts right to the heart of the matter for a lot of companies is this: “how do we change our whole performance management systems so that they are strengths-based?”

I’ve said before that you can carve out room to play to your strengths whatever your company’s official policies are, but this is still an important issue. Most people fight against performance appraisals inside companies, and I think the reason is that traditional appraisal systems aren’t conducive to putting your strengths to work, for four reasons:

1. They’re remedial. They spend the most time on your “areas for development,” which is just a euphemism for Weaknesses.
2. They’re manager-driven. Your manager tells you who you are, and how you’re doing.
3. They’re infrequent, scheduled every year or six months at best. If that’s your only performance discussion, it’s just too few and far between.
4. They’re isolating. Your appraisal gets put into a drawer somewhere and nobody gets to see it.

Bottom line: if you’re going to change your performance management systems, you have to change those four things. You have to make your forms and more importantly your focus explicitly strengths-based. Rather than dwelling on perceived deficiencies, challenge each person to figure out: what strengths do you have and how can you use them to drive the performance we need? How can you develop and cultivate them? That’s where most of the coaching part of the conversation should take place, as opposed to a person’s failings.

Reviews should be user-driven, not manager-driven. It’s no accident that the most popular web sites these days are YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn — people are tripping over themselves to voluntarily share who they are and what they’re doing with the world. But we don’t really give them the chance in the workplace. And it would be simple. All you have to do is say to someone, “write down two things you do each week, just keep track, and bring them to your performance review.” Then you’d have a real, employee-driven performance management process.

This process has to occur frequently. As individuals, you should be asking yourselves each week, and as a manager, you should be asking your direct reports each week about this. Also, though, you should be asking: “what can I do to help?” That’s all you need. It takes 10-15 minutes per week.

Lastly, performance management needs to be community-building, not isolating. It should be the corporate equivalent of MySpace or Facebook — you’d see what people are doing, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and you could look around and see a constant and intense focus on performance. That kind of openness goes on outside the corporate world; it’s time to bring it inside. Only now we’re not talking about a social network; we’re talking about a performance network.

I’m excited to say that we’re working with Accenture to build an application that helps companies with all four of these issues. We’ll post more on that when we announce it….

Marcus

Consistently ranked among the best liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report and others, Rhodes College provided yet another beautiful campus setting on our tour. Most striking here was the English Gothic architecture everywhere. They’re rightly proud of it.

At Rhodes, we had an audience of about 300 people. I was surprised and pleased to learn that a few people from Genentech had flown in from Wichita and elsewhere to attend my talk. I’ve done some work with Genentech over the years, and I’ve always enjoyed the culture that they’ve built there: very performance-focused, high-energy, smart people.

I’ve talked a lot about Generation Y in relation to The Truth About You, and at this event someone asked a specific question about that cohort: “What will the implications be for Generation Y when they join the workplace?”

My immediate thought was that Generation Y are going to be managed by their parents, i.e., Baby Boomers. But it’s going to be a bit of a surprise. Managers are going to find that they can’t manage like they parented. Doting and fawning are fine to a point in parenthood, but there’s a reason the phrase is “helicopter parent” and not “helicopter manager.” As managers, they will have to be performance-focused, demanding, and intent on getting the job done.

There’s potential for confusion and resentment on both sides. Generation Y workers will be thinking, “hey! I’m not used to this. You didn’t parent me this way. Why are you being so demanding now?” And the Boomer managers will be thinking, “well, this isn’t home; this is work. It’s a whole new ball game.” The irony is that this generation has been created by a certain kind of parenting style, and what the Boomers have created as parents is going to deeply frustrate them as managers.

On the positive side, the best way to help anyone in any generation is to help them find the path of least resistance to high performance. And that’s exactly what Generation Y has come to expect: customization. There’s a real chance that Generation Y will have a positive impact on the workplace, because the way they want to be managed is the way that everyone wants to be managed: with a job tailored to who you are and a manager who cares and gets to know you. We’ve just added 72 million voices to the workforce calling for things to move in that direction. I’m optimistic that this will change the working world for the better.

By the way, I think we finally lost Sarah Palin. She seemed to be following us around, as she was about 50 miles outside of Memphis while we were there. But today we’re back in sunny California, and I haven’t seen any signs of her yet.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and for those who are curious about how I’ll be marking the occasion, let’s just say I narrowly missed having to dress as a purple Teletubbie. I’m not sure whether this is better or worse, but for some reason, my daughter bought me a Ken doll costume. What is definitely better is that this means instead of dressing as a red Teletubbie, my wife is going as ’60s Barbie.

 

On Monday, I spoke in San Diego to 250 H.R. executives in the biotech industry and discovered that I am the worst salesperson in the world.

Let me give you some background. Over the last year, we’ve worked hard to develop a new program we call Strong Manager. It’s designed to help managers get the greatest performance out of their people by focusing on how to attract the right people, focus them, engage them and then accelerate their performance. It’s a great program, and we’re really proud of it. We’ve poured our hearts and souls into making it a great experience for the managers who go through it.

In the Q&A following my speech to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, somebody spoke up: “It’s all very well to focus on ourselves, but what can we do as H.R. executives to take this back to our organizations?” As I answered the question, I managed not to mention Strong Manager at all. It was designed to be the answer to this question, and somehow I managed to talk around it seven ways from Sunday. It goes to show what happens when your instincts aren’t aligned with your activity. What’s the opposite of an instinct? Whatever that is, it seems that I have that for sales.

So anyway, if anybody is interested in a management program….

Marcus

We got to Ithaca early on Friday morning. As cold as Cambridge was (exceedingly cold, for the record), Ithaca topped it. But the campus, on the hills overlooking Fall Creek, was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

We had about 400 students and faculty members turn out for our event. Many of the questions were ones I’ve heard before, but one of them was a candidate for the Strengths question Hall of Fame. A 25-year-old woman about to graduate from Cornell’s Hotel Management School (arguably the best in the country) said, “I love this strengths idea, but… not to be facetious, but how does that work in the real world? What happens if you work for a boss or a company that doesn’t let you do any of this at all?” It’s a good question—it must be, because everybody thinks it. Everybody wonders the exact same thing.

Let’s set the record straight about the real world.

In the real world, when you ask people, ordinary people working in a vast range of jobs, “do you have the freedom to modify your job to fit your strengths?” over 70% agree or strongly agree that they do have that freedom. Others are neutral. And only 16% of people disagree or strongly disagree. So you’ve got 84% of the people in this world who have at least some freedom to maneuver.

So, if you want to be truly realistic, most people can play to their strengths; the problem is that they don’t. You may in your mind think that people are going to stop you, but in most jobs, there’s nobody looking over your shoulder every hour of the day. It’s just that people don’t know what to do, or how to start on the strengths path. Well, the answer to that is the same as before: start something this week, even just a small thing. Your manager won’t even know what you’re doing. Start small and create a constant and deliberate push toward certain activities and away from others. That’s what a Strong Week Plan is all about: using the room to maneuver that you know you’ve got. That is the real world.

After talking with people at the Johnson school, we drove to Syracuse and flew home from there just in time for my son’s soccer game on Saturday morning. And so to the end of one of the longer weeks of my life.

I learned two things right off the bat in Dayton. One, people in Ohio seem perplexed that we went to Cleveland and Dayton instead of the capital, Columbus. “Why didn’t you go to Columbus?” was a constant question. So I discovered that Columbus is apparently the center of the universe in Ohio. I also learned that, while Dayton is not the capital of Ohio, it may be the capital of the basketball universe. They are basketball mad in Dayton. I spoke at the University of Dayton Arena, and 700 people showed up — probably just because they’ve never had such good seats at that arena in their lives. They’re very proud of the history of that building, and rightly so. The building has hosted more NCAA regional finals than any other in the country, and the athletes who have set foot there are a who’s who of greats: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, even baseball hall-of-famer Tony Gwynn, who played basketball for San Diego State!

Dayton didn’t disappoint when it came to taking questions from the audience. One man presented a novel twist on the challenges of implementing a strengths-based focus. He basically said, “I think this strengths movement of yours is great. I’ve got my family thinking about strengths, my employees, everyone — but I just can’t get started myself. I’m too frightened to start on myself, too stuck. All of my HR systems fly in the face of it.”

I have to admit that my first response, which I shared with the audience, was a bit glib. “You know what’s great about most H.R. systems and performance management systems?” I asked. “Nobody pays much attention to them anyway.” I was half-joking — but only half. H.R. professionals will tell you it’s impossible to get people to follow the system and fill out the forms and all that stuff. That’s actually a good thing for the strengths revolution, because it gives you the leeway to take a strengths-based approach. You don’t have to wait for anybody to put it on a form. In the end, what matters is performance. And if you get performance, nobody’s going to criticize you for that.

So if you’re coaching or managing, you can start right now to tweak things and orient your team toward strengths. You can ask your team members, “how can we refine your schedule to let you play to your strengths? What situations can we put you in?” Because there’s room for you to start with the people you manage.

And, I told this man, that means there’s also room to start on you. It’s so easy to start with just the small, no-sweat stuff. Start this week. You don’t have to commit to anything, you don’t have to commit to a major life change. Just pay attention and write down what you love and loathe about your week. That’s easily done, right? From there, just write one strength statement. And then next week, commit to doing two things to put that strength into practice. Not massive things, not risky things, just simple, small things. For the next month, focus on just that one strength, and do just two things each week to put it to use. They can even be the same things, each week. Just get that feeling of being in control. And once you do it for 28 days, you may find that it has become a habit.

Another great question came from a Gen Yer, a 23-year-old in the audience. “If we’re not going to come across as a self-involved, self-absorbed generation, how do we talk about our strengths?” Gen Yers have a lot of great qualities, but she was aware of this stereotype that some older people, often those doing the hiring, might have about them. My answer was that at this time people want specificity. They want you to know yourself and what you bring. And a great way to give them what they want without sounding egotistical is to use the language of strengths. Instead of “I’m great at this,” talk about “this is where you’ll see the best of me, I’m most creative, I’m most reliable, I’m most passionate.” Don’t walk in and brag; just walk in and be specific. “Where I am the best” and “where will you see the best of me” are not the same thing.

So, I think we made some real progress in bringing Ohio over to our side in the strengths revolution, but ours isn’t the only battle in which Ohio is a swing state. After the talk, we had trouble getting into the hotel because it was blocked off for some V.I.P. — oh yes, Mrs. Palin. At least we felt incredibly safe that night. But after that, it was nice to go where their elections are finished for a while: Canada.

We landed in Toronto the morning of the 23rd and were surprised by rather pleasant weather for this time of year. The unpleasant surprise: I’d forgotten my green card back in the U.S. Fortunately, I was able to get it overnighted to my hotel, because as much as I love spreading the strengths message to any audience, I’m not sure I want to spend several hours trying to make the case to border agents that letting me in without documentation would be a “strong” thing to do.

One highlight in Toronto was meeting up again with Captain Michael Abrashoff, whom I’ve seen a number of times on the speaking circuit. He’s a great guy, and I highly recommend his book, It’s Your Ship. It’s about personal responsibility, and I’m all for that. After the speech, I appeared on Canada’s national TV network, the CBC, to help them kick off their “Working Life” series on finding success and satisfaction at work. Canada could use a shot in the arm as far as strengths go. The U.S. numbers aren’t where we want them to be, but Canada’s are even lower: 60% of Canadians say they prefer to focus on their weaknesses rather than their strengths in order to improve, and only 11% — half the U.S. total — say they have the chance to play to their strengths most of the time. We discussed The Truth About You, and I hope that it can help get some momentum going toward strengths in our northern neighbor. You can see video of my CBC appearance here.

And now I’m on the way to Cornell. I’ve never been there, so I’m looking forward to it, and as always, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Marcus

Today I’m in Las Vegas for Epicor’s Global User Conference. It’s just a speech without any Q&A, but it’s a great opportunity to introduce The Truth About You to 2,000 people. Tomorrow, it’s on to Dayton, Ohio, where, as it happens, Sarah Palin will appear tomorrow as well. I’m staying one floor below her at the same hotel. In fact, I think she may have kicked me out of my room! Or more accurately, it may have been the Secret Service. I’ll be talking to about 700 people at the University of Dayton, and I hope to let you know soon how it goes!

Marcus