“If you want to turn talent into performance,” explains Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their seminal book called First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. (Simon & Schuster, 1999), “you have to position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to do. You have to cast her in the right role.” This begins when leaders and managers choose to not eradicate people's uniqueness. Instead, they build on it. As they further explain, “People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.”
Margaret Wheatley in her book, Turning To One Another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future (Berret-Koehler, 2001) understands this point about building on strengths, but adds an important insight, especially given what we have experienced during the last two years. As she writes, “But I alone can’t ask to be seen fully for who I am and my unique value. If I want you to acknowledge my gifts, I have to be curious about yours. I have a responsibility to look for and honor yours. We create enough space for our own self-expression only by inviting in everybody else’s uniqueness.”
She further expands our understanding when she notes, “Whenever we get past categories, and stereotypes, when we greet each other as interesting individuals, we are always surprised by who we are. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn’t fit that judgement…. Bernie Glassman, co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, says the only thing we have in common is our differences. When we understand that, he says, we discover our oneness.”
For leaders and managers to be successful during the next two years, we need to teach and coach others on how to avoid eradicating uniqueness in their people and teams plus help them to see the best in people. This will begin when we no longer accept stereotypes and instead focus on the unique value each and every person brings to work, and to society as a whole.
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