The featured speaker for the final day of our conference was Gallup’s Vipula Ghandi.
Gallup has been studying human behavior for decades and Ms. Ghandi’s message was simple: if you want to be fulfilled and successful, bank on your strengths. You will learn faster, excel quicker, and enjoy every minute of it.
An important reality highlighted by Ghandi is that a person’s strengths can make them blind to another person’s strengths. For example, an “achiever” who must absolutely get something tangible done every single day (even while on vacation) may find a “learner” who prefers the process to the results absolutely maddening.
Reflecting on this reality, I can see how such differences in people’s strengths can lead to distrust and pressures in the workplace. Which makes for an interesting link between Ghandi’s message and what Stephen Covey had to say about trust on Day 1 and what Neel Doshi shared about performance drivers on Day 2.
From this, I am reminded of the importance of valuing differences, of seeking first to understand, of designing job roles carefully. And, more than ever, I am reminded of the strong relationship between ethical performance and business excellence.
ECI: well done.
The Ethical Leader 