CCV played host to John Maxwell's "Real Teamwork Conference" this week. Some people say writers don't make good speakers, but this certainly is not the case with John Maxwell. During the conference John discussed in detail the 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork.
I thought it was interesting that he echoes what Marcus Buckingham discussed at the Willow Creek Leadership conference that individuals should not work on their weaknesses in the area of their skills, but rather focus on increasing their strengths. This is backwards from what we're taught in school. His point is that even if you work hard on improving your weaknesses you'll only be average at best. Instead, it's better to be a 10 in your strengths. This concept only applies to skills not to attitudes or disciplines (a point that is important, this isn't an excuse to have a bad attitude or be lazy).
To build on your strengths John recommends establishing a person growth plan. He discusses how to do this in detail in his book "Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow's Success". This book will certainly be on my reading list.
The quote of the day though was, "Most people don't lead their lives they accept them." Very true... and at times I'm guilty as charged.
I gained a ton of new insight from the day with John and look forward to applying it as we kick-off the new year.
Yes, it's a good and freeing thing to work on your strengths, and it does increase your contribution to the whole!
My impression of John Maxwell is that he's more of a strong communicator & public speaker, and not so much a writer. He's pastored for decades and does conferences and such, and his books are more fo a transcript from his talks (supplemented with stories & data by research team), somewhat akin to Swindoll or Lucado or Hybels or Rick Warren books. They write books too, but it comes primarily from their speaking gigs.
Posted by: djchuang | December 05, 2004 at 02:10 AM