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FIRST, BREAK ALL THE RULES What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman Simon & Schuster, 1999, 271 pp. ISBN 0 684 85286 1 |
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Based
on 25 years of Gallup research, including surveys and in-depth interviews of
thousands of employees and managers, the book explains how to keep your top
performers. It is specifically about
management, as opposed to leadership.
The title reflects the discovery that most conventional wisdom about
managing is wrong. Simple
outline. Easy to understand. Extremely insightful. The “12 questions” are priceless. The
most insightful discovery from employees was that “talented employees need
great managers.” (11) Surveys of managers led to a dozen very significant
questions which measure the core elements of how best managers find, focus,
and keep talented employees. “Many
companies know that their ability to find and keep talented employees is
vital to their sustained success, but they have no way of knowing whether or
not they are effective at doing this.” (21)
“A great deal of a company’s value now lies ‘between the ears of its
employees.’ And this means that when
someone leaves a company, he takes his value with him….” (23) Here
are the 12 questions: 1.
Do I know what is expected of me at work? 2.
Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? 3.
At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? 4.
In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for
doing good work? 5.
Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a
person? 6.
Is there someone at work who encourages my development? 7.
At work, do my opinions seem to count? 8.
Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is
important? 9.
Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? 10.
Do I have a best friend at work? 11.
In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my
progress? 12.
This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow? Each question is somehow linked to productivity,
profitability, retention, or customer satisfaction. (32) A person’s relationship with their immediate manager is
the key factor in how long they stay and how productive they will be. (36) The first two questions are “base camp.” These are basic. If these needs are not addressed, then working on the others is
almost irrelevant. Questions 3 through 6 measure whether an employee feels
valued, whether he is making a contribution.
Questions 7 through 10 help an individual determine
whether he belongs here. Questions 11 and 12 indicate whether a person has the
opportunity to learn, grow and innovate.
Great managers work hard at the first six questions, which
are the core of a strong and vibrant workplace. An insight echoed by thousands of great managers: “People don’t change that much. Don’t waste time trying to put
in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left
in. That is hard enough.” (57) The manager role is the ‘catalyst’ role. (59) “A manager must be able to do four activities extremely
well: select a person, set expectations, motivate the person, develop the
person.” (59) These are the four activities of the catalyst role and they are
related to the questions. The authors make important distinctions between talent,
skills, and knowledge. “The most important difference between a great manager and
a great leader is one of focus. Great
managers look inward. They
look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style,
goals, needs, and motivation of each individual person.” “Great leaders, by contrast, look outward.” Their core activities are different. (63) The four keys to the four catalytic manager activities:
There is a chapter devoted to each of these keys. Talents are behaviors you find yourself doing often. Any recurring patterns of behavior that
can be productively applied are talents.
“The key to excellent performance, of course, is finding the match
between your talents and your role.” (71) You cannot teach talent.
Talents are the driving force behind an individual’s job
performance. (73) You cannot develop new talents in people, but you can help
them discover hidden talents and teach new skills and knowledge. Skills are the ‘how-to’s of a role. Knowledge is simply what you are aware of,
either factual knowledge or experiential knowledge. (83) “Talents are the four-lane highways in your mind, those
that carve your recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.”
(84) Appendix C lists a number of
different talents in the categories of Striving, Thinking, and Relating. Competencies are part skills, part knowledge, and part
talent. Habits are usually talents. Attitudes are all part of the person’s
recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior, i.e. talents. A person’s drive is not changeable. His drives are his striving talents. (89-91) “A manger can never breathe motivational life into someone
else. All she can do is try to
identify each employee’s striving four-lane highways and then, as far as is
possible, cultivate these.” (92) “The best way to help an employee cultivate his talents is
to find him a role that plays to those talents.” (93) As a manager you need to know exactly which talents you
want. (101) Study your best
performers and see what talents they have and select for similar talents.
(103) “Great talents need great managers if they are to be
turned into performance.” (105) Standardizing the ends, the outcomes, avoids having to
standardize the means, the steps.
(110) “The most efficient way
to turn someone’s talent into performance is to help him find his own path of
least resistance toward the desired outcomes.” (111) This also encourages employees to take
responsibility. Attempts to impose one best way are doomed to fail. It is demeaning and it kills
learning. “The hardest thing about
being a manager is realizing that your people will not do things the way that
you would. But get used to it.” (115) Innate mistrust is deadly for a manager. (117) “The manager’s challenge is not to perfect people, but to
capitalize on each person’s uniqueness.” (121) “The most advanced level of customer expectation is
advice. Customers feel the closest
bond to organizations that have helped them learn.” “Learning breeds loyalty.” (131) How can you define the right outcomes? The first question is, “What is right for
your customers?” The second question
is, “What is right for your company?”
The third question is, “What is right for the individual
employee?” What plays to their
strengths? Find a way to count, rate,
or rank those outcomes and then let the person run. Go from the players to the plays. (131-137) To release a person’s potential, focus on their strengths
and manage around their weaknesses.
Talents are enduring and resistant to change. (141)
“One of the signs of a great manager is the ability to describe, in
detail, the unique talents of each of his or her people—what drives each one,
how each one thinks, how each builds relationships.” This shows respect for each person.
(142) Great managers try to identify each person’s talents and
help them to cultivate those talents.
“They manage by exception. And
they spend the most time with their best people.” (147) “If you want to turn talent into performance, you have to
position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally
wired to do. You have to cast her in
the right role.” (148) “The surest way
to identify each person’s talents is to watch his or her behavior over time.”
(149) “Each employee has his own filter, his own way of
interpreting the world around him, and therefore each employee will demand
different things of you, his manager.” (151)
Treat each person as he would like to be treated (not as you
would like to be treated). (152) The less attention a manager pays to productive behaviors,
the less of those behaviors they will get.
Human beings are wired to need attention. If they are not getting attention they will alter their
behavior until they do. “When you see
your stars acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention
to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors.” (155) Spend most of your time with your best people! A nontalent is weakness only when someone is in a role
where success requires that talent.
(167) Three routes to
overcoming such a weakness: “Devise a support system. Find a complementary partner. Or fin an alternative role.” (168) “Help each person find the right fit. Help each person find roles that ask him
to do more and more of what he is naturally wired to do.” (177) Don’t automatically promote your best performers. “One rung doesn’t necessarily lead to
another.” “Why not create heroes in
every role?” (180) Find ways to encourage some employees to
stay focused on developing their expertise in their roles, to become world
class. (185) “In most cases, no matter what it is, if you measure it
and reward it, people will try to excel at it.” (187) “Acquiring varied experiences is important but peripheral
to a healthy career. It is an
accessory, not the driving force.” (193)
“Self-discovery is the driving, guiding force for a healthy career.”
(194) Great managers excel at giving performance feedback. One manager meets with her 22 direct
reports once every quarter. They
review the last three months and then review plans, goals, and measurements
for the next three months. “We talk
about what they enjoy doing and how we can structure things so that they get
to do more of that.” Another manager
has 16 direct reports and spends about 20 minutes a week talking with each
one about their performance. (200) Feedback should be constant, in private, and include a
brief review of past performance followed by a focus on the future and how
the employee could use her style to be productive. (201-202) There is a helpful chapter on interviewing for talent, pp.
215 ff. Great managers have their own routine for interacting with
their employees. The routines are
individual, simple, frequent, and focused on the future. They ask the employee to keep track of his
own performance and learnings. (222-23) Career Discovery Questions – see p. 228 “In the world according to great managers, the employee is
the star. The manager is the
agent. And, as in the world of
performing arts, the agent expects a great deal form his stars.” (230) “Keep the focus on the outcomes: The role of the company
is to identify the desired end. The
role of the individual is to find the best means possible to achieve that
end. Therefore strong companies
become experts in the destination and give the individual the thrill of the
journey.” (236) Also by Marcus Buckingham, Now, Discover Your
Strengths.
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