Page 14 - Getting to the Heart of High Performance

For the rest of the session I used chalk and lectured—about
personal accountability, the power of choice, and how they
could engineer positive relationships to change their lives.
That impromptu rant, decades ago, was the genesis of this
book. The ideas that bubbled up inside me that sweltering
summer day show up here as the core concepts for developing
deep strengths.

So what do I mean by the term deep strengths?

I’ll get there, but let me give you a little more background.
After getting the doctorate I aimed my career toward the busi-
ness world, building a consulting firm that was the first in the
world to specialize in merger integration strategy. Over the
years we’ve had the opportunity to work with the best of cor-
porate America as these companies wrestle with the
challenges of major organizational change. Our job? Guide
executives and their workforces through uncertainty, pain,
and upheaval…bring out the best in the people…help the
organizations adapt to a rapidly changing planet.

But I finally figured out that something terribly important is
missing: organizations are working hard to adapt to change,
but doing virtually nothing to develop deep strengths.

xii DEEP STRENGTHS