Follow Passion - Find Fulfillment and Excellence

Norman Plate remembers sitting in his first-grade class, appreciating the gifts of his teacher and knowing that he was called to teach. Yet subtle messages throughout his early years led him to believe that the field of medicine would be a more appropriate career choice.

Finding himself with less aptitude for the sciences than liberal arts, Norman steered his career toward law, another highly regarded field. He attended law school and had a successful law career serving the Utah Attorney General's Office followed by the Ohio Attorney General's Office, where he rose to the position of Senior Deputy of Attorney General/Chief of the Corrections Litigation Section. While Norman had found success, he had not found satisfaction. His work felt like work. He recalls that he always knew when payday was - the reminder of why he was working.

One day, a colleague who was teaching at Capital University Law School suggested that he pursue an Instructor opening there to teach Legal Research and Writing. This colleague obviously saw Norman's natural teaching gift.

Norman pursued the opportunity with the support of his leader at the Attorney General's Office. Once he began to teach, he tapped into those latent feelings that he was meant to teach. He loved teaching; it brought him to life. It truly wasn't work.

Before Norman's one-year contract at Capital had ended, he received a call from a friend who teaches at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, in Lansing, Michigan. An opening existed for a Visiting Professor in Research and Writing. Norman ended his career with the Attorney General's Office, and with the blessing of his leadership at Capital, he accepted the position at Cooley, with a sense that he was finally following his calling.

Norman began teaching as a Visiting Professor at Cooley in May 2005 and was promoted to a tenure-track Associate Professor position in January 2006. The second term he taught he received the highest ratings on student evaluations of any professor in the law school, and he has repeated that performance since. While the student ratings are somewhat meaningful to Norman, he says that the ultimate reward is "knowing you've made a difference in someone's life. You've helped them progress to be a better writer, a better lawyer."

We can view work in one of three ways; as a job, a career or a calling. A job is a means to an end, such as a paycheck. A career entails a greater investment of oneself and achievement is marked not only by wages, but advancement and prestige. A calling has deeper intrinsic meaning as performing in the service of a greater good.

Norman's work with the Attorney General's Office fit somewhere between a job and a career. His work with Cooley is a calling. He speaks of how quickly time flies; he never knows when it's payday. He is not working for the money, but the intrinsic rewards and he's in flow. The hours and days connect together weaving a meaningful web. Norman recalls a colleague expressing the same feeling, "I get to teach. But they pay me to grade papers."

Norman could have spent may more years practicing law and ignoring his calling to teach. It takes courage and sacrifice to step off the treadmill and follow our hearts. Norman gave up the Chief position at the Attorney General's Office to take his first teaching job at Capital. He also moved away from his life partner for a year to take the role at Cooley. He acknowledges the support of colleagues and loved ones as an important ingredient to making a transition.

Norman's story is evidence that when we find the courage to transform our lives, the rewards are great. When we are serving in the way we are meant to serve, from our strengths and passion, we find excellence.

As a leader, it is our prerogative to serve those we lead by helping them discover their calling. If it means that they need to leave us, no harm done. An opening exists for someone who is called to work with us. Imagine a workplace where all employees consider it their calling to serve there; everyone is in flow. What in energizing place that would be to work!

Happy Mother's Day!

This movie was sent to me by the wonderful mother of our two boys.

I thought it was an appropriate thing to share with every mother, son and daughter in celebration of the gift of birth we are all given by our mothers.

Happy Mothers day everyone! Enjoy the movie:

http://www.hasanyonetoldyou.com

Building a Strengths Culture Requires Letting Go

In my last blog I wrote that Gallup research reveals American employees feel they spend only 12% of their time playing to their strengths, yet working from strengths is a pathway to human flourishing. Employees who find "flow," the perfect intersection between skill and challenge, are maximizing their performance. Building a strengths culture is a missed opportunity for most organizations.

Author, Marcus Buckingham, who is at the center of the strength's movement concedes that little progress has been made on the strengths front. The majority of American workers still believe that fixing their weaknesses is the key to success and few employers have adopted practices that embrace capitalizing on employee's strengths.

What stands in the way of this movement?

First, employees will only begin focusing on their strengths when they see that it is desired and embraced by their leaders. Leaders who let go of their focus on fixing the weaknesses of their direct reports and transform to a style where they fully understand and utilize each individual employee's unique gifts will notice that their employees transform. This requires a great deal of direct communication and coaching from the leader.

Second, the organization must let go of rigid human resource systems. The human resource systems that support a strengths-based culture are more flexible than the traditional systems most large businesses use. Most organizations have a list of desired competencies that each person is evaluated against and the "competency gap" is scrutinized. Of course, the "gap" provides plenty of fodder for annual performance evaluations, where employees develop action plans to close the gap - a deficit approach.

Finally, job description development and its linkage to compensation has become such a finely tuned machine, it leaves little room for flexibility, creativity and appreciating the distinct gifts of each individual contributor. Employees are asked to fulfill all aspects of a job because "it's in the job description."

The strengths movement calls for leaders who are prepared to coach and mentor their direct reports in a way that inspires the greatest use of each individual's strengths. This provides some unique opportunities for leaders to maximize the potential of their combined talent pool. When supported by human resource systems that provide flexibility and encourage a focus on the best each person has to offer, leaders will find the performance of individuals, departments and the organization flourishing.