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KDI organizes panel on “Improving Follow-through, the Achilles’ Heel of Coaching”
This panel addresses the problem of follow-through on developmental plans. It was featured at the 2009 midwinter conference of the Society of Consulting Psychology in San Diego, entitled “Excellence in Leadership: Psychologists and Managers Working Together.”
Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser advise managers to stop over-relying on their strengths and learn to develop versatility in a Harvard Business Review article.
Despite all the talk of “play to your strengths,” there is a potential downside to strengths-based development. Strengths, it turns out, can be overused and become unproductive. Most of us can readily see strengths overused in other people. We readily recognize the direct leader who verges on abrasiveness, the inclusive leader who tries too hard to please everybody, the operational leader who gets lost in the details, and so on. But we are often blind to our own tendencies to go overboard. This article describes the costs of strengths overused and provides guidance for how to recognize and correct for this often under-appreciated source of leader ineffectiveness.
November 26, 2008: Rob Kaiser of Kaplan DeVries assembles thought leaders to expose the half-truths and hidden dangers in focusing only on strengths in development. New book: “The Perils of Accentuating the Positive,” Hogan Press, March 2009.
"Never mind weaknesses, focus on strengths,” goes the thinking behind a seductively appealing movement in modern management development. But this is only half the story, and neglecting the other half can derail the best of intentions and the best of leaders.
The Perils of Accentuating the Positive is a new book edited by Robert B. Kaiser and will be available from http://www.hoganpress.com in March 2009. The book pulls together some of the leadership field’s most respected authorities to share big ideas with a clear line of sight to practical applications for helping managers avoid the traps and hidden dangers in strengths-based development.
For an overview of the book, see the article, “Strength Test: Debunking an Unbalanced Approach to Development,” featured in the Center for Creative Leadership’s Leadership in Action magazine. Download article.
See reviews of the book here and here.
Read Rob Kaiser’s article linking the strengths movement to the global economic crisis, Too Good to Be True, in the March 2009 issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine.