Willowcreek Leadership Summit

It's been years since I've attended a satellite broadcast of the Willowcreek Leadership Summit. What a treat! Bill Hybels has been a tremendous influence in my life -- probably in the top 25 influencers in my life.

This year's Summit was really good. I wouldn't call it outstanding. But definitely very good.

Marcus Buckingham's talk is standing out most in my mind two weeks later. If you go to the site you can see his slides and also download 6 podcasts that cover the topic of his talk and his new book, "Go Put Your Strengths to Work"

Buckingham always seems to make me think new thoughts. Some of the things he says you know are true but you've never thought of them. Like: "You will grow most in your areas of greatest strength (rather than in your weaknesses)." That seems counterintuitive and yet you know somewhere deep inside you that it is true!

Other things he says you hope are true. Like "A great team member volunteers his strengths to the team most of the time." Gosh we want this to be true. But we're so afraid of being called proud or selfish that we hold back our strengths and instead spend most of our time in our weakest areas. Afterall, don't "team players" do whatever is necessary to help the team? Buckingham says yes and no. He says that while we certainly do, at times, need to work in areas where we are thin, we don't really help our team to our fullest potential unless we can work in our strengths at least half of the time.

The challenge Buckingham put to me was to figure out how to bit-by-bit put more of my strengths to work this week than last. He has a strategy for this. I haven't gotten to that podcast yet.