Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham has dedicated his career to helping individuals discover and capitalize on their personal strengths. Hailed as a visionary by corporations such as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Master Foods, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, and Disney, he has helped to usher in the “strengths revolution,” persuasively arguing that people are dramatically more effective, fulfilled and successful when they are able to focus on the best of themselves.

In his nearly two decades as a Senior Researcher at Gallup Organization, Buckingham studied the world’s best managers and organizations to investigate what drives great performance. His research laid the foundation for a string of The New York Times best-selling books that use empirical data to challenge preconceptions about achievement. First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) kicked things off in 1999, followed by Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald Clifton), The One Thing You Need to Know, Go Put Your Strengths to Work and The Truth About You.

Buckingham’s latest book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, was inspired by the overwhelming response to his appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show—100,000 unique contributors posted messages online after the show and 1.7 million people downloaded his three-hour workshop video. The book tackles head-on the numerous studies revealing a drastic decline in female happiness over the last 40 years, and offers strategies for reversing this disturbing trend.

In addition to The Oprah Winfrey Show, Marcus Buckingham has been featured on Larry King Live, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and The View. He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review.

Buckingham founded TMBC in 2007 to create strengths-based management training solutions for organizations worldwide, and he spreads the strengths message in keynote addresses to over 250,000 people around the globe each year.

A member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management, Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University with a Master’s Degree in Social and Political Science.

• 5. 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. Excellence happens all the time in an organization, but it can be tricky to harness this excellence and make it work for you. So often, when companies try to reproduce what their best performers do differently, the result is just another lifeless policy that ends up constraining people instead of freeing them to do their best work. The trick is to help people put innovative ideas into practice without stifling the personal strengths that give them their edge. In this speech, Marcus discusses a customized best practice delivery system for both managers and employees. Using 9 distinct Roles to identify each person's unique combination of strengths, Marcus gives individuals tips and techniques on how to put their particular edge to use. And managers will get lots of raw material to be better coaches based on the specific strengths of their team members. At the end of the speech, you will know how to move beyond the one- size-fits-all approach and find those practices that are best for you.

• 4. Finding Your Strongest Life

  In the four decades since the beginning of the modern women’s movement, women have secured greater opportunity, greater influence, greater independence, more free time, and more money.
  
  Despite all those important gains, however, recent longitudinal research indicates that women have become more unhappy, anxious, and stressed during that same time period, and that they get sadder as they get older (while men, in contrast, get happier as they age). Marcus Buckingham will explore the data behind the startling findings on women’s happiness and discuss the lessons to be learned from happy, successful women who buck the statistical trends.

• 3. The Difference between Great Managing and Great Leading

  The many facets of great managing and great leading could be detailed endlessly, but Marcus Buckingham draws on a wealth of examples to uncover the single controlling insight that lies at the heart of each. Lose sight of this “one thing” and even your best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources, including his own data and in-depth interviews with individuals at every level of an organization, from CEOs to hotel maids and stockboys. He cuts through the thicket of often-conflicting possibilities and zeroes in on what matters most, revealing the surprisingly different keys to great managing and great leading.

• 2. Strengths-Driven Performance

  During Marcus Buckingham’s 17 years with the Gallup Organization, he helped to guide groundbreaking research on the world’s best leaders, managers and workplaces. This research was used as a basis for his best-selling books First, Break all the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. His subsequent best-selling book Go Put Your Strengths to Work forms the foundation for the “Strengths-Driven Performance” keynote address.
  
  Mr. Buckingham will present key data from a number of different industries demonstrating the correlation between performance and engagement. He discusses the factors at play with engaged teams vs. disengaged teams and drills down to the specific lever that recent research indicates most impacts engagement: the extent to which employees have the opportunity to play to their strengths.
  
  When employees have the opportunity to apply their greatest strengths at work, they turbocharge their careers and everybody wins. Companies find their employees are more productive and their teams are more effective. Despite this, research shows a majority of people do not fully use their strengths at work. Mr. Buckingham will examine current corporate levels of engaging the strengths of employees and look at the psychological and practical obstacles that can get in the way of creating a strengths-based organization. Throughout his presentation, he will offer a number of different strategies to support people in leveraging the best of themselves and others in the workplace.

• 1. 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.
  
  Managers play a significant role in creating an environment within which individuals can thrive, discover their talents and use their best selves daily. Great managers help people to identify and leverage their unique strengths. Mr. Buckingham will discuss the four key demands a manager must fulfill in order to provide the kind of environment that enables people to achieve peak performance on a regular basis: Select the right people for the right roles; Clarify expectations of the manager and of the employee; Engage team members by paying constant attention; and Accelerate performance by maximizing strengths and neutralizing weaknesses. In short, his presentation will address how great managers turn talents into performance.

• Marcus Buckingham spoke two weeks ago and there's still so much positive buzz around the office about his presentation. He takes complex things and breaks them down. People said, 'How can I take this and make it happen for me?' People left wanting to do something, wanting to take action.
  Coca-Cola North America
• Marcus is the most engaging and useful business speaker working today. His advice is grounded in research and at the same time appeals to common sense.
  Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
• Marcus Buckingham's presentation was thought-provoking and extremely relevant to our clients' current issues. His presentation style was engaging, entertaining and extremely genuine. We've completed the client survey for his speaker agency and have given Marcus Buckingham a "10 out of 10" on every question!
  Reed Elsevier
• Marcus Buckingham was GREAT! I got a lot of positive feedback from all our company's participants, and consider the meeting to be very successful overall. Working with Marcus Buckingham and his team was a fantastic experience.
  Masterfoods
• Marcus Buckingham was just starting to interest and charm 4,000-plus Walgreen store managers when the fire alarm in the huge Las Vegas ballroom went off. Disembodied hotel voices announced all was OK, but the crowd grew noticeably anxious as bright lights continued to flash. Not Marcus and before too long, not our audience. His well-researched and very well-delivered remarks overcame adversity few speakers ever encounter. Our managers ranked Buckingham the #1 speaker of the meeting, topping the perennial favourites - our CEO and president. What impressed us all was how well Marcus had done his homework. This was no generic speech - it related to our business and our people, in a motivating, challenging and useful way.
  Walgreens

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  September 2011

  Stand Out. Find Your Edge. Win At Work.

  StandOut introduces the next-generation strengths assessment from Marcus Buckingham, co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths, the book that launched StrengthsFinder. The product of a massive data set and rigorous statistical testing, the StandOut assessment unveils your two key strength roles and shows you how find your edge and win at work. Where other assessments stop at description, StandOut takes the next step and provides practical advice on what to do to make the most of the strengths you have.

  
  
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  September 2009

  Find Your Strongest Life

  In Find Your Strongest Life, Marcus Buckingham reveals the powerful key to bring fulfillment, peace, and control into a woman's life. In today's world, can a woman truly 'have it all'? A fulfilling career full of passion and performance? A belief that she is truly becoming the best, authentic version of herself? And a happy, healthy life outside of work? Countless women would roll their eyes at the possibility. It all feels disconnected, out of control, and relentless. Buckingham reveals the powerful key to help women draw enough strength from life to feel fulfilled, loved, successful, and in control.

  
  
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  October 2008

  The Truth About You: Your Secret To Success

  Perfect for high school and college students, young professionals, and people simply wanting to revitalize their career, The Truth About You helps you develop the kind of clarity and passion that drives a successful and satisfying future. Marcus Buckingham will help you discover the real truth, the truth about you . . . it will be your secret to success.

  
  
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  March 2007

  Go Put Your Strengths To Work: 6 Powerful Steps To Achieve Outstanding Performance

  Marcus Buckingham's new book answers the ultimate question: How can you actually apply your strengths for maximum success at work? Research data show that most people do not come close to making full use of their assets at work -- in fact, only 17 percent of the workforce believe they use all of their strengths on the job. Go Put Your Strengths to Work aims to change that through a six-step, six-week experience that will reveal the hidden dimensions of your strengths. Buckingham shows you how to seize control of your assets and rewrite your job description under the nose of your boss.

  
  
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  March 2005

  The One Thing You Need to Know: ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success

  In The One Thing You Need to Know, Marcus Buckingham offers a dramatically new way to understand the art of success. Buckingham offers readers an invaluable course in outstanding achievement -- a guide to capturing the essence of the three most fundamental areas of professional activity: great managing, leading, and career success.

  
  
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  January 2001

  Now, Discover Your Strengths

  Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton have created a revolutionary program to help readers identify their talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy consistent, near-perfect performance. At the heart of the book is the Internet-based StrengthsFinder Profile, the product of a 25-year, multimillion-dollar effort to identify the most prevalent human strengths. The program introduces 34 dominant "themes" with thousands of possible combinations, and reveals how they can best be translated into personal and career success. In developing this program, Gallup has conducted psychological profiles with more than two million individuals to help readers learn how to focus and perfect these themes.

  
  
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  May 1999

  First, Break All The Rules

  Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small, entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup's research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee's talent into performance.