Marcus Buckingham has dedicated his career to helping individuals discover and capitalize on their personal strengths.

Hailed as a visionary by corporations such as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Master Foods, Wells Fargo, Microsoft and Disney, he has helped to usher in the "strengths revolution," persuasively arguing that people are dramatically more effective, fulfilled and successful when they are able to focus on the best of themselves.

In his nearly two decades as a Senior Researcher at Gallup Organization, Buckingham studied the world's best managers and organizations to investigate what drives great performance. His research laid the foundation for a string of New York Times best-selling books that use empirical data to challenge preconceptions about achievement. First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) kicked things off in 1999, followed by Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald Clifton, 2001), The One Thing You Need to Know (2005), Go Put Your Strengths to Work (2007) and The Truth About You (2008).

In addition to "The Oprah Winfrey Show," Marcus Buckingham has been featured on "Larry King Live," "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," and "The View." He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review.

Buckingham founded TMBC in 2007 to create strengths-based management training solutions for organizations worldwide, and he spreads the strengths message in keynote addresses to over 250,000 people around the globe each year.

A member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management, Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University with a Master's Degree in Social and Political Science.

• What the World's Best Managers Do Differently - What sets great companies apart? Survey data gathered over decades' worth of interviews with thousands of managers and workers around the world reveals one simple truth: there are no great companies. Every company is made up of separate teams, and the performance of those teams, no matter how successful the company may be, varies widely. What makes the difference? The manager. Managers play a significant role in creating an environment within which individuals can thrive, discover their talents and use their best selves daily. Great managers help people to identify and leverage their unique strengths.
  
  Marcus Buckingham will discuss the four key demands a manager must fulfill in order to provide the kind of environment that enables people to achieve peak performance on a regular basis: Select the right people for the right roles; Clarify expectations of the manager and of the employee; Engage team members by paying constant attention; and Accelerate performance by maximizing strengths and neutralizing weaknesses. In short, his presentation will address how great managers turn talents into performance.
  
  
• Strengths-Driven Performance - During Marcus Buckingham's 17 years with the Gallup Organization, he helped to guide ground-breaking research on the world's best leaders, managers and workplaces. This research was used as a basis for his best-selling books First, Break all the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. His subsequent best-selling book Go Put Your Strengths to Work forms the foundation for the "Strengths in the Workplace" keynote address.
  
  Marcus will present key data from a number of different industries demonstrating the correlation between performance and engagement. He discusses the factors at play with engaged teams vs. disengaged teams and drills down to the specific level that recent research indicates most impacts engagement: the extent to which employees have the opportunity to play to their strengths. When employees have the opportunity to apply their greatest strengths at work, they turbocharge their careers and everybody wins. Companies find their employees are more productive and their teams are more effective. Despite this, research shows a majority of people do not fully use their strengths at work.
  
  Mr. Buckingham will examine current corporate levels of engaging the strengths of employees and look at the psychological and practical obstacles that can get in the way of creating a strengths-based organization. Throughout his presentation, he will offer a number of different strategies to support people in leveraging the best of themselves and others in the workplace.
  
  
• The Difference Between Great Managing and Great Leading - The many facets of great managing and great leading could be detailed endlessly, but Marcus Buckingham draws on a wealth of examples to uncover the single controlling insight that lies at the heart of each. Lose sight of this "one thing" and even your best efforts will be diminished or compromised. Success comes to those who remain mindful of the core insight, understand all of its ramifications, and orient their decisions around it. Buckingham backs his arguments with authoritative research from a wide variety of sources, including his own data and in-depth interviews with individuals at every level of an organization, from CEOs to hotel maids and stockboys. He cuts through the thicket of often-conflicting possibilities and zeroes in on what matters most, revealing the surprisingly different keys to great managing and great leading.