2008 Woodie Awards
Finance writer to offer advice in Mays lecture
By: Melissa Appel
Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: News
Best-selling author Marcus Buckingham will come to Mays Business School Tuesday to promote his book, "The Truth About You."
Buckingham teaches others how to find strengths and apply them to careers.
Although he spends most of his time speaking to employees in the business world, Buckingham recognized a need in the minds of college graduates.
"When you actually ask people 18 to 30 years old, 'What should you focus on in order to be successful in life-building your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?' 31 percent of Generation Y said 'build strengths' and 69 percent say 'fix my weaknesses,'" Buckingham said. "So you have a whole generation going into the workforce that believes in order to be successful they have to fix themselves."
Buckingham said the problem especially needed attention because it is one not often addressed.
"Since colleges clearly don't do the best at getting the most out of people at work, let's talk to people before they enter work," Buckingham said.
"We go to career counseling, but we don't often get much good advice. And we talk to our parents. So our parents and our teachers, frankly, tell us a lot of things we should do - 'You should do this because it looks good on a résumé'; 'you should do this because it's what I did'; 'you should do this because it's your major. There's an awful lot of 'shoulds' that come out of students."
Buckingham's response to this problem is straightforward and revolves around the central message in all of his books, he said.
"What I'm trying to do is make sure your voice inside your head is louder and more coherent than those other voices," Buckingham said. "You know yourself really well. Often, we don't have the eyes to see it or the confidence to act on it."
This is the second time Buckingham has spoken at a Texas A&M event - the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) in Mays Business School had Buckingham speak at the Envision '08 last spring in San Antonio.
Buckingham teaches others how to find strengths and apply them to careers.
Although he spends most of his time speaking to employees in the business world, Buckingham recognized a need in the minds of college graduates.
"When you actually ask people 18 to 30 years old, 'What should you focus on in order to be successful in life-building your strengths or fixing your weaknesses?' 31 percent of Generation Y said 'build strengths' and 69 percent say 'fix my weaknesses,'" Buckingham said. "So you have a whole generation going into the workforce that believes in order to be successful they have to fix themselves."
Buckingham said the problem especially needed attention because it is one not often addressed.
"Since colleges clearly don't do the best at getting the most out of people at work, let's talk to people before they enter work," Buckingham said.
"We go to career counseling, but we don't often get much good advice. And we talk to our parents. So our parents and our teachers, frankly, tell us a lot of things we should do - 'You should do this because it looks good on a résumé'; 'you should do this because it's what I did'; 'you should do this because it's your major. There's an awful lot of 'shoulds' that come out of students."
Buckingham's response to this problem is straightforward and revolves around the central message in all of his books, he said.
"What I'm trying to do is make sure your voice inside your head is louder and more coherent than those other voices," Buckingham said. "You know yourself really well. Often, we don't have the eyes to see it or the confidence to act on it."
This is the second time Buckingham has spoken at a Texas A&M event - the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) in Mays Business School had Buckingham speak at the Envision '08 last spring in San Antonio.
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