Diversity Exchange

Do You Know Your Strengths?

"You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think"  --- Christopher Robin in "Pooh's Grand Adventure:  The Search for Christopher Robin."

Not sure if you have ever read any of Marcus Buckingham's books (First, Break All the Rules; Then, Discover Your Strengths; Now, Put Your Strengths to Work), but I've read the most recent one Now, Put Your Strengths to Work and saw him speak at a local Society of Human Resources Management lunch meeting.  He's a dynamic, powerful speaker.   See my notes below and if anyone is interested in the material, I'll gladly share.   

Personally, I do agree with his theory on "strengths" -- which is that we need a paradigm shift to start focusing on our strengths so that we can go from good to great, rather than focusing on our weaknesses/development opportunities where we would go from very bad to just bad.  Marcus was on an Oprah show last Friday, April 18.  The Oprah Show contacted Marcus last April.  He and his crew came to Chicago, filmed a three hour Workshop and then coached the participants - talented women from all walks of life - over the following five months.  The workshop participants shared their stories of how they've been able to significantly increase their performance, at work and in life.

I've also learned his company helped publish a new book for parents on how to discover the strengths of your children:  Your Child's Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them by Jenifer Fox.  I think this is an incredible way to view yourself and your children/loved ones.  This was further validated while I watched "Dancing with the Stars" last night.  Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic Gold Medalist, revealed that she was born with club feet!!!  I was astounded, when the hostess asked her how she overcame her disability, she politely said "Well, I had a lot of corrective surgeries as a child.  I had some obstacles to overcome, but I just focused on my strengths".  Cool.  Likely she had parents that helped her focus on her strengths too!

Here's my notes from that presentation: 

Psychologist, physicians, etc. all study what's wrong (depression, disease, etc.).  Marcus believes that thinking is flawed, its like “study what’s bad and then invert it to make it good”.   He noted Martin Seligman (former APA President) who said something like 500,000 articles on depression and only 400 or so on happiness.

Premise of the talk (and the book, and the training DVDs, that he’s selling) is that we all as individuals, need to capitalize on our strengths instead of trying to develop our weaknesses.  Here’s the tangibles I got out of it:

• Copy of book GO Put Your Strengths to Work
• “Access” online to his new “Strength Engagement Track” (taking a test)  and free electronic download of 2 videos that are in a series of 6 altogether.
• Benchmarking study on the Strength Engagement Track and high performing teams
• Nice reprint of his HBR article “What Great Managers Do”
• Information on an all girls school that is teaching “Strengths Based” curriculum (very cool)
• A copy of his powerpoint, including more data on the “high performing teams” he studied.

For my personal development, I will be reading the book and taking the Strength Engagement Track, as well as looking at the other materials.  He has very interesting, innovative ideas.  He is calling this the “Strengths Movement”.  A PBS special is coming soon.  (Made it more credible to me.)

He gave a very dynamic lecture, urging participants to be leaders in the “Strengths Movement, but also noted that the airlines are right - “put your own mask on before assisting others”.  He talked about this not only as leveraging your strengths at work, but a paradigm shift that includes using your strengths, finding and nurturing your children’s strengths, etc.   

Other things I paid attention to were how interesting this book is and how it applies to individuals and companies. 

Rebecca Drzewiecki
Aon Consulting
Human Capital - Talent Solutions
Southfield, MI  48075

What Exactly IS the Big Deal About Talent?

So you might be asking...What exactly IS the big deal about talent?  For the first time ever, Aon has talent as a strategic imperative, aggressive recruitment efforts, high profile development programs at junior and senior levels of the company, and in general is generating a lot of “buzz” around talent topics that's causing many to sit up and take notice. It’s all for good reason.  Much like what you may have heard from a wide variety of media sources, good talent really IS hard to find.  How come?  Some interesting trends are taking place that we simply can’t afford to ignore.  The demand for talent intensive skills is rising.  The value of intangible assets – everything from skilled workers to patents to know how – has sky rocketed from 20% of the value of companies in the S&P500 to 70% today.  The supply side reflects major demographic shifts.  Research has shown that America's 500 biggest companies will lose half their senior managers over the next 5 years due to the impending baby boomer retirement. And more women, dual income earners, single parent income earners, gay and lesbian workers, people of color, people with disabilities, and older workers all represent the "newer" entrants to the labor force over the past decade.

Aon’s leadership development initiatives are tightly linked to the organization’s talent management strategy.  No aspect of talent management resides in a silo anymore, if any ever did.  Each component – whether it’s recruitment and retention, assessment and evaluation, compensation and benefits, performance management, learning and development or succession planning – influences all the others and multiplies its impact. What does this mean for an Aon employee?  Numerous opportunities to learn, teach, and grow at all employee levels. The diversity business networking groups, the womens and minority developmental councils, and local diversity councils will be connected to the target and selection processes to much of our development programming. The Early Career Development Program targets high potential college graduates and provides direct hire and rotation opportunities in different parts of our business to strengthen business and leadership competencies.  The Management Development Program is open to all managers and provides a comprehensive blended curriculum that addresses the legal aspects of managing, performance management, and managing and leading people.  The Catalyst Americas Leadership Program targets senior mid level leaders and focuses on strategic decision making and leveraging talent.  And the Global Executive Program targets executive leadership across the globe and addresses Aon’s critical business imperatives and what’s at stake now in a four day intensive experience.  All are designed to create Aon’s bench strength and bolster a continuous pipeline of talent within the organization.

Learning open to all Aon employees can be found on the Aon Corporate Education System (ACES).  ACES has 2 different libraries of online courses:

• Skillsoft Business Skill Library - has 128 online business skill courses including communications, project team work, and financial analysis.
• Desktop Software Library (previously Element K) – includes technology courses of Microsoft applications such as Access, graphics and Powerpoint and advanced Word.

And the newest addition in learning technology at Aon is the pilot of Momentum through Mentoring (MTM), a web based mentoring tool that helps protégés self select their own mentor through a searchable database.  So now there’s an infrastructure in place to more deliberately match need and knowledge together.  Talk about harnessing intellectual capital!  We’re well on our way.

Explore the options and make 2007 a great learning year for you!

Talethea Best
Aon Leadership Development