The Cranky Middle Manager Show #312 The Future of the MBA Ken Starkey
The Cranky Middle Manager #246 Working Your Strengths Chuck Martin
Posted on 20. Jul, 2010 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Today Wayne Turmel talks to Chuck Martin, co-author of Work Your Stengths, a Scientific Process to Identify Your Skills and Match Them to the Best Career For You. Where is the line between ambition and futility? We also examine a crusading failure and learn for the Tao te Ching. Internation, eclectic… yup those are our strengths on this show.
Chuck Martin, one of the co-authors of Work Your Strengths. This is a good one, folks.
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How to Create and Manage Remote Teams July 3oth and August 27th
Web Presentation Basics- for those who have to present online and want to learn how not to suck at it. July 26th and 29th and again on August 23 and 26th
If you have questions about these workshops, group discounts or any Greatwebmeetings.com training program, contact me.
Show Notes
0:00 Welcome to the show, gang. Today we are talking playing to your strengths and what can happen when you don’t. As exhibit A we give you Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, great general, lousy human being who fought in the First Crusade. Always wanted the one job he was completely unqualified to have and it didn’t go so swell for him.
4:10 Our quote of the week is from the Tao te Ching and it basically says, knowing yourself is the first step to real wisdom. Obvious, maybe but are you making wise career choices?
4:50 Welcome Chuck Martin, co-author of “Work Your Strengths”. Lots more brain science today gang. Basically we’re born with certain cognitive functions (Executive Skills to be precise, even though many executives lack them). These are things like Time Management, Response inhibition (guilty) Task Initiation, Flexibility and more.
10:15 Does the fact you’re weak in an area mean you can never learn to do that job? No, but it ain’t going to be easy. Successful people find out how to supplement their weaknesses by finding people who can fill in the gaps. That’s what assistants are for- if you’re lucky enough to have one.
12:15 Why don’t we naturally hire people different from us if it’s so smart? It’s because we value our strengths over others. If you hire all big idea people and no execution skills you know what you’ll get…..
14:45 What’s the difference between a strength and a skill. You can take a course in PC assembly, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be natural or easy for you. This , of course, leads to the big question: why bother training people?
19:48 What do sales managers have that good sales people don’t? Why do good sales people not always make good managers and vice versa?
25:00 At what point does diagnosis become destiny? Can you screen people out of certain careers too early? This makes me very nervous.
28:47 Every team needs someone who is good at Jeopardy (the strength is working memory). I also reveal I was once a contestant on Jeopardy, even though I got stomped on the show. Men and women also have different strengths and executive skills. Men do tend to be higher in Metacognition, women tend to be stronger in Organization.
Chuck’s Resources
Chuck reads my BNET blog, believe it or not