Leadership Summit - Marcus Buckingham

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Buckingham_2 A consultant, speaker, and best-selling author, Marcus Buckingham is an expert on outstanding leadership and management practices. He has invested more than 17 years in researching the world’s best managers, leaders, and workplaces. Buckingham is author of four best-selling books, including his latest release Go Put Your Strengths to Work. In his books, he gives important insights to maximizing strengths, understanding the crucial differences between leadership and management, and fulfilling the quest for long-lasting personal success. He recently created a short film series called Trombone Player Wanted, which offers practical help to individuals in playing to their strengths. A graduate of Cambridge University, Buckingham addresses audiences around the globe totaling more than 250,000 each year.

I've heard Buckingham at the Summit before and he's one of my all-time favorites because he covers a topic I'm passionate about and because he's so funny. He's simply a world-class communicator. I've read most of his books and we've gone pretty deep with StrengthsFinder as a staff. 

Highlights:

  • Only 12% of Americans feels they play to their strengths most of the day.
  • Myth: As you grow your personality changes.
  • Truth: As you grow older you become more and more of who you are.
  • His illustration of this using his 6-year old son would be worth the price of the CD of this session.
  • Myth: You have the greatest potential for growth by focusing on improving your weaknesses.
  • Truth: You'll grow most where you're strongest.
  • Shaq at L.A. - We want to work on your game in the paint - "I'm already the best" - Yeah, but you could be the best ever
  • Strengths based conversations are very demanding because they ask people to step up.
  • Warren Buffet on giving $30 billion to Gates foundation - Because he can give it away better than I can and because philanthropy is no fun for me - Who says something like this out loud - But really means it's too important for me to do it
  • How do you move toward living in your strengths: (1) Identify your strengths; (2) Put together a Strong-week Plan every week; (3) Learn to talk about your strengths without bragging and your weaknesses without whining.
  • Discover your strengths by keeping a log of what you loved and what you loathed for one week.
  • S.I.G.N. - Success - feel effective; Instinct - you look forward to this activity; Growth - Time seems to speed by when you do this; Needs - energized
  • The I.N.G. drive the S.
  • After one week pick the three strongest and write a strength statement that is very specific - I feel strong when... (be very, very specific)

Leadership Summit - Floyd Flake

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Flake When it comes to stepping up as a community leader, few résumés compare with Floyd H. Flake’s. His roles are diverse — pastor, university president, congressman, author — and his neighborhood impact in New York City is readily visible. Flake is the senior pastor of the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York in Queens and the president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Under his leadership, Allen Cathedral has grown into a 23,000-member church with senior citizen centers, private school, and hundreds of housing units for members and community residents. Along with its affiliates, Allen Cathedral is the second-largest African-American employer in New York City. Flake served as U.S. congressman from 1986 to 1997 and is the author of The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps for Achieving Your Dreams.

Highlights:

  • The biggest highlight was the video profile on him and his church. Incredible impact in their neighborhood.
  • Leaders move people beyond their self-serving motives but it begins with the leader.
  • Focus on identified needs.
  • The church isn't about walls but about building community.
  • Keep information flowing. But know there are always going to be people who are just mean and stuck.
  • Everyone will go through the fire and the lion's den.

I wish he had told more stories and focused on less information because he was at his best when he was going deeper into his life experiences which are fascinating. I need to get his book.