Last week I had the privilege of attending the annual International Spa Association (ISPA) conference at The Venetian in Las Vegas. There were many highlights, including reconnecting with spa friends, listening to Susan Cain speak about introverts, dinner at Morel’s, and more. Yet what I can’t stop thinking about is the presentation Marcus Buckingham gave on the topic of his latest book, Nine Lies About Work.

Here are the nine workplace misconceptions (aka lies):

• People care which company they work for (they care which company they join).
• The best (strategic) plan wins (forget about them, yet planning is a great activity to engage in)
• The best companies cascade goals (yet alignment is a good thing)
• The best people are well-rounded
• People need feedback
• People can reliably rate other people
• People have potential (everyone can get better)
• Work / life balance matters most (balance is stasis and we don’t want stasis)
• Leadership is a “thing” (there is no such thing as leadership, if you look at great leaders, they are all different)

I am still wrapping my head around these misconceptions and can’t wait to dig deeper with Buckingham’s book. I also jotted down a few other amazing one-liners from his presentation:

• Average is homogeneous; excellence looks weird quickly
• Define a job by the outcome not the method
• Your strengths are your key areas of development (your weaknesses are not)
• Your future greatness is based on your current goodness
• Strength replays (stop saying “stop that” but “keep doing that,” not to celebrate but to interrogate)
• Good job is not the end of the sentence; good job is the start of a sentence (a sentence that includes these questions) what were you thinking? what was going on? what worked?)
• Love is the precursor to contribution
• Burnout is the absence of love
• Don’t do what you love but find love in what you do – a little love goes a long way to fight against the feeling of burnout

Thank you Marcus Buckingham, and thank you ISPA!