FIRST, BREAK ALL THE RULES

(What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently)

      Author:  Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman

About the Authors: Marcus Buckingham is the leader of The Gallup Organization’s twenty year effort to identify the core characteristics of great managers and great workplaces. He is also a senior lecturer in Gallup’s Leadership Institute.
Curt Coffman is the global practice leader for the Gallup Organization’s workplace management practice. He consults regularly on the development of productive and customer-oriented workplaces.

For more than sixty years, The Gallup Organization has been a world leader in the measurement and analysis of human attitudes, opinions and behavior. The company has numerous clients they consult for which includes Audi, Bank America, Best Buy, Citigroup, Delta Air Lines, Sears and Toyota

INTRODUCTION
Buckingham and Coffman make the point that the greatest managers in the world may differ in many different ways - but they all have one thing in common: they do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom.

The sub-title is "What the world's greatest managers do differently". It is therefore a modeling book, with real examples of application – immensely practical and research based. It just makes sense. First there's Gallup's research pedigree (in this case more than a million interviews over twenty five years), then there's the basic premise: if you want to know how the world's greatest managers get exceptional performance from their people, don't just ask the managers - ask the people.

The book is based upon a detailed analysis of interviews by the Gallup Organization of over 80,000 managers at different levels of seniority – and all had one or more employees reporting to them. They focused their analysis on those managers who excelled at turning the talent of their employees into performance.

Key findings are that great managers do not help people overcome their weaknesses. They do not believe that each person has unlimited potential. They do play favorites and they break the 'Golden Rule' book everyday! The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous the pay structure, or how renowned the training, the company that lacks great, front-line managers will suffer.

Great managers are the heroes of this book. Vivid examples and interviews show how, as they select, focus, motivate and develop people, great managers turn talent into performance. Finally, the authors have distilled the essence of good management practice into 12 simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. These represent an excellent measuring stick to assist you with the link between employee engagement and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and turnover. Hundreds of companies have now embraced these questions as their “barometer” within their employee opinion surveys.

If your employees can answer positively to all 12 questions, then you will have built a great place to work and will undoubtedly have highly motivated, highly productive people.

     What do I get?

     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?

     What do I give?

     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 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?

     Do I belong?

     7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
     8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
     9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
     10. Do I have a best friend at work?

     How can we all grow?

     11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
     12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?"

Manager is a role, not a rank! Only people with the "talent" for being managers should be managers. It should not be an expected career path for all.

One talented employee is easily more valuable than 10 of her peers, across the board. This book provides sufficient examples that should make any decent manager rethink their methods of using their employees like cogs in a giant "process machine.

" A good manager should look for "talent," and not "skills" or "knowledge" during an interview... and then figure out a way to help their employees harness their latent talent. If so, then you will see 10 times more productivity out of a talented employee, compared to an average one.

This has nothing to do with knowledge, skills, or process... the talented ones just "get it." They see the problem, they know inherently how to solve it, and it brings them tremendous joy to solve it. Don't promote these stars to management; that's not their talent. Instead, let the exceptional employees -- like exceptional baseball players -- make more than an average manager. They call these “broad band” pay scales, and in practice they work pretty well to make sure everybody is exceptional at their role.

Some questions answered by great men in this book are:

• As a manager which would you rather have: an independent, aggressive person who produced $1.2Million in sales or a congenial team player who produced about half as much?

Great Managers replied that they would prefer an independent aggressive person rather than half as productive team player. The team player was probably less talented for the role but much easier to manage. Great men are not looking for people who are easy to manage. They are looking for people who have the talent needed to be world class.

• You have an extremely productive employee who consistently fouls up the paperwork, how you would work with this person to help him be productive.

Great Managers would find out why this employee is fouling up the paperwork. Perhaps she is new to the role, perhaps she could benefit from some training. But If they find out that the problem is lack of talent for paperwork, they will work to find a solution that enables the employee to manage around her weakness for administration and focus on her productivity instead.

• You have two Managers, one has the best talent for management you have ever seen. The other is a mediocre. There are two openings available, the first is a high-performing territory, the second is a territory that is struggling. Neither territory has yet reached its potentials. Where would you recommend the excellent manager be placed and why? 

Great Managers would always place the most talented manager in the higher performing territory. The key phrase in the question is ‘neither territory has yet reached its potentials’. Great managers use excellence as their measure, they know that only the talented manager working in the higher performing territory has a chance to help that territory reach its potential.

THE FOUR KEYS

More basic a discovery is that managers need to emphasis matching specific jobs with the right talent make-up. Talents are usually overshadowed by concentration on experience, skills, and determination when selecting candidates for jobs. Talents are here described as "simply recurring patterns of thought, feeling or behavior" and include the areas of striving, thinking and relating. Different positions require different talents – which may sound obvious, however managers typically follow different “rules” – as outlined in the “not” statements in the following;

 "Four Keys of Great Managers":

1.    Selection of Talent: When selecting someone, Great Managers select for talent not simply experience, intelligence, or determination. Normally we celebrate excellence with strong emphasis on the word ‘celebrated’. We look at Micheal Jordan, swaying and knifing his way to the basket and we know that neither his training nor his dogged determination is the prime source of his brilliance. Deep down we know that the secret weapon is his TALENT. Tiger Woods, Jay Leno, Maya Angelou are all part of the Talent club.

Great Managers have defined Talent as a “recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied.

2.    Right Outcomes: When setting expectations, Great Managers define the right outcomes and not  the right steps. Great Managers focus people towards performance, define the right outcomes and then let each person find his own route towards those outcomes.

3.  Focus on Strength: Great Managers focus on people’s strength and manage around their weaknesses. They don’t try to fix the weaknesses, they don’t try to perfect each person but rather they do everything they can to help cultivate each person’s talent.

     4. The Right Fit: When developing someone, Great Managers find him the right fit not simply the next rung on the ladder i.e being a successful customer service manager doesn’t necessarily mean that same person will do well if elevated to be the business development manager.

INSIGHT OF GREAT MANAGERS

What is the revolutionary insight shared by all Great Managers?

An old parable will serve to introduce the insight they shared:

There once lived a scorpion and a frog, the scorpion wanted to cross the pound, but being a scorpion, he couldn’t swim. So he scuttled up to the frog and asked: please, Mr Frog, can you carry me across the pound of your back?

I would, replied the frog, but under the circumstances, I must refuse. You might sting me as I swim across.

But why would I do that asked the scorpion. It is not in my interest to sting you, because you will die and then I will drown.         

Although the frog knew how lethal scorpions were, the logic proved quite persuasive. Perhaps, felt the frog, in this one instance the scorpion would keep his tail in check. So the frog agreed. The scorpion climbed onto his back, and together they set of across the pond. Just as they reached the middle of the pond, the scorpion twitched his tail and stung the frog. Mortally wounded, the frog carried out: why did you sting me? It is not in your interests to sting me, because now I will die and you will drown.

I know, replied the scorpion as he sank into the pond. But I am a scorpion. I have to sting you, its in my nature.

Conventional wisdom encourages you to think like the frog. Peoples nature do change, it whispers. Anyone can be anything they want to be if they just try hard enough. Indeed, as a manager it is your duty to direct those changes .Device rules and policies to control your employees unruly inclinations. Teach them skills and competencies to fill in the traits they lack. All of your best efforts as a manager should focus on either muzzling or correcting what nature saw fit to provide.

 Great managers reject this out of hand. They remember what the frog forgot: that each individual, like scorpion, is true to his unique nature. They recognize that each person is motivated differently, that each person has his own way of thinking and his own style of relating to others. They know that there is a limit to how much remolding they can do to someone. But they don’t bemoan these differences and try to grid them down. Instead they capitalized on them. They try to help each person become more of who he already is.

 Simply put, this is the one insight we heard echoed by tens of 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.

This insight is the source of their wisdom. It explains everything they do with and for their people. It is the foundation of their success as managers.

This insight is revolutionary. It explains why great managers do not believe that everyone has unlimited potential. Why they do not help people fix their weaknesses: why they insist on breaking the Golden rules with every single employee: and why they play favorite. It explains why great managers break all the rules of conventional wisdom.

Simple though it may sound, this is a complex and subtle insight if you apply it without sophistications, and you could quickly found yourself suggesting that managers should ignore peoples weaknesses and that all training is a complete waste of time. Neither is true, like all revolutionary messages, this particular insight requires explanations:

How do great managers apply it?

What does it take of employees?

What does it mean for companies?

What is Manager unique function in a company and what role do they play?   

The manager role is to reach inside each employee and release his unique talents into performance. This role is best played one employee at a time, one manager asking the question of, listening to and working with one employee. Multiplied a thousand fold, this one by one role is the company’s power supply. In times of great change it is this role that makes the company robust, robust enough to stay focused when needed yet robust enough to flex without breaking.  

The Authors critically analyzed the four keys to a Great Manager,

The authors also clearly stated that, managers are not leaders in waiting

“Managers do things right, Leaders do things right”. Conventional wisdom is proud of maxims like this. It uses them to encourage managers to label themselves “Leaders”. It cast the mangers as the dependable plodder while the Leader is the sophisticated executive than a dependable plodder.

The most important difference between a great manager and a great leader is FOCUS. Great Managers look inwards; they look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs and motivation of each person. These subtle differences guide them toward the right way to release each person’s unique talents into performance.

Great leaders by contrast look outwards. They look out at the competition, out at the future and out at alternative routes forward. They focus on broad patterns, finding connections, cracks and then press home their advantage where the resistance is weakest but it doesn’t have much to do with the challenges of turning one individual’s talents into performance.