In Marcus Buckingham’s latest book Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life, he tells us that to do anything great in your life, you will have to take seriously what you love and express it in some sort of productive way. I have enjoyed Buckingham’s work for a number of years, especially his work on strengths, and his 2007 book Go Put Your Strengths to work.
When Buckingham talks about strengths and weaknesses it may be a bit different from how you have always thought of them. For Buckingham, a strength is an activity that strengthens you, while a weakness is an activity that weakens you. It does not necessarily matter if the activity is something at which you are particularly good. There are just some activities that we love and some that we loathe. I worked with someone who was particularly good with budgets, and as a result was always asked to do our team’s budget work. But even though she was good at this activity, she hated it (loathed it), and it always weakened her. Do you have a similar example in your work – something you are particularly good at, but you hate doing? My wife Tammy is particularly good at accounting work, but she does not really like it, and it weakens her when she must do it. Continue reading →