Marcus Buckingham

Biography

In a workplace ruled by efficiency and competency, where do personal strengths fit in?

Marcus Buckingham has dedicated his career to addressing this complex issue. Using his nearly two decades of experience as a Senior Researcher at Gallup Organization, he has challenged entrenched preconceptions about achievement to get to the core of what drives success.

The definitive treatment of strengths in the workplace can be found in Buckingham`s best-selling books: First, Break All the Rules (coauthored with Curt Coffman; Simon & Schuster, 1999); Now, Discover Your Strengths (coauthored with Donald O. Clifton; The Free Press, 2001); The One Thing You Need to Know (The Free Press, 2005); Go Put Your Strengths To Work (The Free Press, 2007); The Truth About You (Thomas Nelson, 2008) and Find Your Strongest Life (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

His latest project is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller StandOut, a book and strengths assessment combination that uses a new research methodology to reveal your top two "strength Roles" -- your areas of comparative advantage. StandOut goes beyond description to give people practical innovations that fit their strengths, and provide managers with quick insights on how to get the best from each of their team members.

The goal is to move companies toward greater success and productivity by creating a workplace in which employees spend more than 75% of each day on the job using their strongest skills and engaged in their favorite tasks, basically doing exactly what they want to do. Companies that focus on cultivating employees` strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses stand to dramatically increase efficiency while allowing for maximum personal growth.

If such a theory sounds revolutionary, that`s because it is. Buckingham calls it the "strengths revolution," and he founded The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC) in 2005 to help jump-start a worldwide conversation about how to get people focused on their strengths.

As he addresses more than 250,000 people around the globe each year, Buckingham touts this strengths revolution as the key to finding the most effective route to personal achievement and the missing link to the efficiency, competence, and high performance for which companies constantly strive. He challenges conventional wisdom and shows the correlation between engaged employees and business fundamentals such as turnover rates, customer satisfaction, profits and productivity.

In his role as an author, independent consultant and speaker, Marcus Buckingham has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. He has appeared on numerous television programs, including "The Today Show" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and is routinely lauded by such corporations as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Master Foods, Wells Fargo, Microsoft and Disney as an invaluable resource in informing, challenging, mentoring and inspiring people to find their strengths and sustain long-lasting personal success.

Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University in 1987 with a master`s degree in social and political science.

Publications

StandOut:
The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution

StandOut is a revolutionary book and online strengths assessment that goes beyond describing people's strengths to provide targeted, prescriptive strategies for how they can leverage the best of themselves to win at work.

StandOut guides people in discovering and activating their top two strength Roles -- their instinctive way of making a difference in the world. Based on decades of research and analysis of the world's top performers, StandOut offers sharp, practical, customized ideas that can help people to maximize their strength Roles at work every day.

Titles

Strengths-Based Innovation -- Find Your Edge: Win at Work
What does it take for people to stand out at work? How can an organization`s best practices and innovations be shared most effectively? Marcus argues that the future of Learning and Development will focus on delivering to each employee only those innovations and techniques that fit his or her particular strengths.

The Difference between Great Managing and Great Leading
Although many people assume that leadership is simply the next step for those who have proven themselves as managers, Marcus presents compelling evidence that, in key ways, great leaders must do the exact opposite of what the best managers do in order to excel.

What the World`s Best Managers Do Differently
What sets great companies apart? Survey data gathered over decades` worth of interviews with thousands of managers and workers around the world reveals one simple truth: there are no great companies. Every company is made up of separate teams, and the performance of those teams, no matter how successful the company may be, varies widely. What makes the difference? The manager.

Strengths-Driven Performance
What is the correlation between engagement and performance? Marcus explains the specific lever that most impacts employee engagement: the extent to which they have the opportunity to play to their strengths.

Finding Your Strongest Life
Recent survey findings created headlines about a shocking decline in women`s happiness over the last several decades. While many in the media rushed to conclusions about the impact of the research on feminism and on women today, Marcus avoids easy judgments and examines the causes and the appropriate response to a contemporary crisis for women.