Coaching for Leaders 778: How to Help People Flourish, with Marcus Buckingham
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Apr 13, 2026 
Marcus Buckingham, author and strengths researcher who co-created StrengthsFinder, discusses designing love into work. He explores why leaders should create experiences, how love in organizations fades, and the five sequential feelings that spark flourishing. Short, practical takes on control, harmony, significance, warmth of others, and growth.
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Leaders Must Design Experiences Not Just Processes
- Leaders are experience makers who must design upstream experiences to drive downstream behaviors like productivity and loyalty.
- Marcus found selling his company led to conversations about process over love, which caused the emotional richness to drift away and performance to fall.
Love Dies From Forgetting Not Attack
- Love dies from neglect and forgetting when organizations let operational machinery replace conversations about meaningful customer and employee experiences.
- Marcus sold his company and watched the buyer's machine focus on earnings and compliance, which eroded love.
Only Fives Actually Change Behavior
- The relationship between experience ratings and outcomes is curvilinear: only five-star experiences drive behavior change.
- Moving a two to three or a three to four yields no measurable change; focus on creating fives instead of optimizing middles.
