FOREWORD:
THREE TRUTHS ABOUT TALENT
As I was reading Take Charge of Your Talent, I was reminded of something Melissa Poe Hood said about the work she had done in leading Kids For a Clean Environment (Kids F.A.C.E.), an organization she started when she was a fourth grader in Nashville, Tennessee. In accepting the Women of Distinction Award from the American Association of University Women and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators twenty years after her initial efforts, Melissa offered this advice:
Change does not begin with someone else. Change begins in your own backyard, no matter your age or your size. I had no idea that one simple action could change my life so much. Most journeys start this way, with simple motivation and a choice to do something or not. You never know where one step will take you, and you never know where the next one will lead. The difference with being a leader is that you take the step; you take the journey. The greatest obstacle you will ever encounter is yourself. Just like Dorothy never knew that she always had the ticket home, the Scarecrow always had a brain, the Tin Man always had a compassionate heart, even the Cowardly Lion had courage. Everything you need to be a successful leader you already have: your intelligence to see an issue and a way to fix it, your heart to stay motivated, and your courage not to give up. You can’t look for the man behind the curtain to solve your concerns. Everything you need you already have. It’s all about taking the first step.1
Melissa’s remarks go straight to the heart of what this marvelous little book is all about. She affirms—and is living proof—that each and every person has the power to make extraordinary things happen in his or her life. What is required, however, as Melissa implies, is that each and every person also take personal responsibility for using that power.
And that’s why this book by Don Maruska and Jay Perry is so important and so useful. They give us the methodology and the tools to bring out what is already there. This book offers you the keys to ignite your personal power.
Don and Jay talk about three keys—Power Up Your Talent Story, Accelerate through Obstacles, and Multiply the Payoffs for Yourself and Others. Each of these, I submit, is based on three fundamental truths about what it takes to perform at your personal best.
The first truth is that you make a difference. It is the most fundamental truth of all. Before you can take charge of your talent, you have to believe that you can have a positive impact on your own life and career. You have to believe that you have it in you to improve what you do and how you do it.
When Don and Jay talk about how you are the hero of your own story and you can reclaim the power of your story, they are saying, at least to me, that you have to believe your future is in your hands and not controlled by somebody or something else—a manager, a parent, your genes, the rotten hand that you were dealt. This doesn’t mean that context doesn’t matter, that you can deny the laws of nature, or that other people don’t also have something to say about what you do. What it does mean is that the hand turning the key is yours and not someone else’s. That’s where it all begins. You have to believe that you can make a difference. You have to believe that your life counts for something. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, you won’t even try. It begins with you.
The second truth is that challenge is the crucible of greatness. Barry Posner and I have been studying what leaders do when they’re at their personal best for over thirty years, and in every single case there is some element of challenge, difficulty, adversity, and uncertainty. There has never been a single case in the thousands we’ve analyzed in which someone did his or her best when keeping things exactly the way they were. Doing one’s best is never about doing the same thing just a little bit better. It’s always about doing different things, new things, and innovative things extraordinarily better. Whatever the function people are in, giving an Olympic-level performance is always about pushing the limits, exceeding prior records, dealing with adversity, and learning from failure.
Great achievements just don’t happen when you keep things the same. Change invariably involves challenge, and challenge tests you. It introduces you to yourself. It brings you face-to-face with your level of commitment, your grittiness, and your values. It reveals your mind-set about change.
In Take Charge of Your Talent, Don and Jay help you learn how to master frustration, overcome discouragement, and get past self-imposed or externally imposed limits. They talk to you about, for example, how to make your hopes visible, how to turn concerns into energizers, how to craft an inspirational personal story, and, my favorite, how to get your but out of the way. They offer checklists and resources that help you to take charge.
The third truth that’s evident in this book is that you can’t do it alone. No one ever got anything extraordinary done without the talent and support of others. You can graduate at the top of the class from the best schools in the world; reason circles around your brightest peers; solve technical problems with wizardlike powers; and have the relevant situational, functional, and industry experience, and still be more likely to fail than to succeed — unless you also possess the requisite personal and social skills. The mandate is very clear. You have to learn how to work well with others in order to become your best.
While you are the hero of this book and the central character in your story, you are definitely not the only actor. This is evident in the third key—Multiply the Payoffs for Yourself and Others — but it’s also a message that’s woven through the other two keys to taking charge of your talent. Throughout this book there is a requirement that you work with a Talent Catalyst to implement the tested process that Don and Jay have designed. That person could be a coworker, friend, family member, or acquaintance, but this is a process you can’t do alone. You have to do it with someone else. Don and Jay even offer you a handy sample of how a Talent Catalyst Conversation goes so that you can see how it’s been done before.
Studies of top performers strongly suggest that you have to have a supportive environment in order to develop expertise. A supportive family is very common in the stories of world-class performers. Supportive colleagues at work are critical. Leadership can’t grow in a culture that isn’t supportive of continuing development. You need to surround yourself with people who are going to offer you encouraging words when you try something new, understanding and patience when you fail, and helpful suggestions as you try to learn from mistakes.
Don and Jay ask you to go one step further. They ask you to apply the lessons you learn toward the goal of serving others. This reminds me of the hand-carved wooden plaque my wife and I saw nailed to the side of a store in the historic mountain town of Truckee, California. It was dedicated to the memory of Joseph Ignatius Firpo, and it read: “What we have done for ourselves dies with us. What we have done for others remains, and is immortal.” The legacy you leave lives on, not in what you have done for yourself; when you go, it goes with you. But what you do to teach others, engage others, inspire others, support others, develop others, and enrich others carries your legacy long after you’ve left.
There’s one other thing. To become your best self, you must have a passion for learning. You have to be open to new experiences and open to honestly examining how you perform. You have to be willing to quickly learn from your failures, as well as your successes, and find ways to try out new behaviors without hesitation. You won’t always do things perfectly, but you will get the chance to grow.
You’ll get a chance to do all of that when you put Take Charge of Your Talent into practice. Enjoy the adventure in learning … and success.
JIM KOUZES is the coauthor of the best-selling The Leadership Challenge and is the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. The Wall Street Journal has named Jim one of the ten best executive educators in the United States, he is the recipient of the Thought Leader Award by the Instructional Systems Association, and he is one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers.