Reflections LEAD: Marcus Buckingham

The session by Marcus Buckingham was a review for me in many ways. I've read three of his books on the strength movement so far and have been living with these ideas for the past three years. I found that I took the least notes for Buckingham but also got a lot out of the reminder in what he had to say.
I want to spend this time reflecting upon one of the three things that he said in relation to the 3 skills that you should learn. I'm sure that for many people there is one or maybe all of the skills that will be difficult to embrace. For me the third one is the most difficult, "you need to be able to talk about your strengths without bragging and your weaknesses without whining." It probably has something to do with the way I grew up but it is a constant battle for me to be able to comfortably name my gifts and even to be comfortable in having others name them. It makes me uncomfortable to have people talking about what I do well as it feels like I'm drawing attention to myself and placing myself above or ahead of others.
It isn't that I don't know what my strengths are, I'm fairly clear on those. It is somehow connected with the false notion that in any given setting everyone should be able to do whatever is needed. It is an inner battle at times to recognize that there are some things that no one else is going to be able to or even want to do that I can do very well. This thought process made it very difficult for a lot of years to accept compliments from people. I would simply discounted what people said with something like, "oh it was nothing, anybody could have done that." Finally a good friend and mentor took me aside and said to me, "When you discount the praise I give to you you treat me like I don't really matter. So when I give you praise just shut-up and say 'thank you'."
Ok, it might have been a bit blunt, but it worked!
Having gone around the barn to get to this point now what? I think one of the significant conversations that we need to have in team settings centers around some "whats" of why we do what we do.

• What draws me to this job, ministry, situation, opportunity, etc.?
• What make me come back on a regular basis?
• What experiences in the past make this situation easy, hard, fun, challenging?
• What can I bring to this ____ that will make me go home at night feeling like I can't wait to come back?
• What does this current situation remind me of in my past? Why?

I think these questions would help us get at some of those underlying feelings and emotions that are always tied together with our current settings. It probably isn't something that you come into a planning meeting and just dump on people and tell everyone that we are going to get all reflective now, but rather questions and conversations that happen on the side after a meeting or in more informal times. Having someone ask us these questions and be willing to take the time to listen might help us all identify our strengths and why we are willing and even wanting to use them.