How Do You Rate?

As I prepare to hit the road with a trip to the Ingram Micro VTN Invitational event in Chicago next week, I had the opportunity to participate in some prep work by the event keynote speaker, author Marcus Buckingham. Attendees were invited to participate in a StandOut Strengths Assessment in preparation for the keynote. Our results will be compiled and shared during the keynote. Sound intriguing?

My attention was piqued enough to take the assessment, which is a series of questions about personal and workplace scenarios, with your responses indicated your likely reaction to the situation. The completely assessment measures your responses against nine strength-related "roles" and reveals what your top 2 roles are — those areas that allow you to be at your best. The final result is a downloadable PDF that provided insight about my personality and how it fit best in particular roles with a business or other organization. (Here's the scoop: I am an equalizer, a level-headed person whose power comes from keeping the world in balance, ethically and practically; and a creator, who makes sense of the world, pulling it apart, seeing a better configuration, and creating it.)

As a senior researcher at Gallup, Buckingham studied managers and organizations to investigate what drives great performance. His research laid the foundation for a string of best-selling books that use empirical data to challenge preconceptions about achievement. (First, Break All the Rules; Now, Discover Your Strengths; The One Thing You Need to Know; Go Put Your Strengths to Work;The Truth About You.) His latest book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, was inspired by the 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. Buckingham founded TMBC in 2007 to create strengths-based management training solutions for organizations.

I am the first to admit I may not always look forward to keynote speakers, but this one has grabbed my attention and I'm looking forward to sharing his tips with you as I cover the VTN event live April 10-13. You can follow our coverage of the entire event at BSMinfo.com/insideingrammicro2011.