First, Break All The Rules - Marcus Buckingham , Curt Coffman
First, Break All The Rules : What World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
The wisdom of great managers — a revolutionary insight that breaks conventional rules
Contrary to popular belief, great managers all over the world have very little in common. If you were to have them all file into a straight line, you would see different sexes, races, ages, and physiques. Each of them has different styles of motivation, direction, and relationship building.
Deep within all these variations, however, there is one thing they all have in common. After interviewing tens of thousands of great managers, Buckingham and Coffman discovered that there was one insight, one shared wisdom, to which all of these managers kept returning.
Here is the revolutionary insight that distinguished the best managers from their less successful colleagues who follow conventional rules:
• 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
They ignore the conventional school of thought that says a manager's job is to identify worker weaknesses and work out a plan to correct and overcome those weaknesses. Instead, they operate on the belief that people don’t and probably can’t change most of the traits they carry. Good managers know that it's futile to demand change or perfection and concentrate instead on developing employee strengths.
The difference between a manager and a leader is much more profound than most people believe. Any company that overlooks this difference will suffer for it. Great managers need to be recognized for what they do best: reaching inside employees and encouraging excellent performance. That is not the same as being a great leader.
Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs, and motivation of each person. They then find the right way to release each worker's unique talents into great performance.
By contrast, great leaders look outward. They look out at the competition, out in the future, and seek alternative routes forward. They are visionaries, strategic thinkers, and activators. Undoubtedly, the role of a leader is critical in any company. But it doesn't have much to do with the challenge of turning people's individual talents into performance.
Great managers are not mini executives waiting for leadership to be thrust upon them. Also, great leaders are not simply managers who have developed sophistication. It is entirely possible for someone to be a brilliant manager and a terrible leader. In the same vein, it is just as possible for someone to excel as a leader and fail as a manager.
If your company wants great managers, it must stop expecting every manager to be a leader, and stop defining “leader” as simply a more advanced form of “manager”. Managers must be allowed to concentrate on their tasks as catalysts that turn employees' talents into performance.
• Good managers understand the futility in demanding change or perfection. Instead, they concentrate on developing employee strengths.
• Any company that overlooks the difference between a great “manager” and “leader” will suffer for it.
• Great managers look inside the company and find the right way to release each worker's unique talents into great performance.
• Great leaders look outward, at the competition, out at the future, and seek out alternative routes forward.
“Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things.' Conventional wisdom is proud of maxims like this.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Great managers don't have much in common at all.
Deep within all these variations, however, there is one thing they all have in common. After interviewing tens of thousands of great managers, Buckingham and Coffman discovered that there was one insight, one shared wisdom, to which all of these managers kept returning.
Here is the revolutionary insight that distinguished the best managers from their less successful colleagues who follow conventional rules:
• 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
Great managers break all the rules.
They ignore the conventional school of thought that says a manager's job is to identify worker weaknesses and work out a plan to correct and overcome those weaknesses. Instead, they operate on the belief that people don’t and probably can’t change most of the traits they carry. Good managers know that it's futile to demand change or perfection and concentrate instead on developing employee strengths.
For a company to succeed in developing great managers, it has to begin by breaking the conventional rule that managers are just leaders in waiting.
The difference between a manager and a leader is much more profound than most people believe. Any company that overlooks this difference will suffer for it. Great managers need to be recognized for what they do best: reaching inside employees and encouraging excellent performance. That is not the same as being a great leader.
Great managers look inward. They look inside the company, into each individual, into the differences in style, goals, needs, and motivation of each person. They then find the right way to release each worker's unique talents into great performance.
By contrast, great leaders look outward. They look out at the competition, out in the future, and seek alternative routes forward. They are visionaries, strategic thinkers, and activators. Undoubtedly, the role of a leader is critical in any company. But it doesn't have much to do with the challenge of turning people's individual talents into performance.
The core activities of a manager and a leader are very different.
Great managers are not mini executives waiting for leadership to be thrust upon them. Also, great leaders are not simply managers who have developed sophistication. It is entirely possible for someone to be a brilliant manager and a terrible leader. In the same vein, it is just as possible for someone to excel as a leader and fail as a manager.
If your company wants great managers, it must stop expecting every manager to be a leader, and stop defining “leader” as simply a more advanced form of “manager”. Managers must be allowed to concentrate on their tasks as catalysts that turn employees' talents into performance.
Key points:
• Great managers share a revolutionary insight that distinguishes them from their peers.• Good managers understand the futility in demanding change or perfection. Instead, they concentrate on developing employee strengths.
• Any company that overlooks the difference between a great “manager” and “leader” will suffer for it.
• Great managers look inside the company and find the right way to release each worker's unique talents into great performance.
• Great leaders look outward, at the competition, out at the future, and seek out alternative routes forward.
“Managers do things right. Leaders do the right things.' Conventional wisdom is proud of maxims like this.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Hire for talent — when selecting for new employees, talent should be the major factor
Conventional managerial school of thought says that when you are recruiting, you should select a person based on their experience, intelligence, and determination. But if you want to be an excellent manager, Buckingham and Coffman say you have to break this rule!
To regular managers recruiting new employees, experience, willpower, and brainpower are what make the difference. They place a special emphasis on experience and pay the closest attention to a candidate's work history.
These managers put their faith in raw intelligence. They say that as long as you are smart, most roles can be“figured out.” To them, applicants with high academic records simply“figure it out” better than the rest. They totally leave talent out of the equation; even if talent is somehow considered, it's an afterthought.
The reason for this bias is that we normally associate talent only with celebrated excellence — with a strong emphasis on the word “celebrated”. We look at Cristiano Ronaldo, dribbling his way past other soccer players and scoring astonishing goals, and we know that neither his training nor his dogged determination is the prime source of his brilliance.
Ronaldo may have both of these, but then, so do most other soccer players. Alone, this cannot explain why he shines. Deep down we know that Ronaldo's secret weapon is his talent.
We look at other talented people like Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, Lebron James, and so on, we see the same thing — they are all part of the talent club. They are blessed with a secret gift. For most of us, talent seems a rare and precious thing, bestowed on special, far-away people. These people with talent are different. They are “not us”.
To great managers, the standard definition of talent is too narrow, too specialized. Instead, they define talent as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. To them, the right talent is essential — much more than experience, much more than brainpower, much more than willpower.
Great managers know that excellence is impossible without talent. They understand that every role performed with excellence requires talent, because every role requires certain recurring patterns of thought, feelings or behavior.
Moreover, while skills and knowledge can be easily taught, talent cannot be taught. Skills are the how-to of a role. They are capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another.
Take for instance, for accountants, arithmetic is a skill and a love of precision is a talent. If for some strange reason, the neophyte accountant doesn't know how to do arithmetic, he can still be taught. If the accountant lacks the love of precision, however, there is very little a manager can do to inject it.
Buckingham and Coffman break talent into three categories:
Striving talents — the “why” of a person. Why they get out of bed every day, why they are motivated to push and push just that little bit harder.
Thinking talents — the “how” of a person. How they think, how they weigh up alternatives, how they come to their decisions.
Relating talents — the “who” of a person. Who they trust, who they build relationships with, who they confront, and who they ignore.
To recognize these talents, look beyond the job title and description. Think about the culture of the company and choose someone with relating talent. If your company is the kind that uses scores to drive performance and makes heroes out of those with the highest scores, then striving talent is your target.
Think about the other people on the team. Think about the total work environment in which this person must fit. Also, think about who you are as a manager and who will mesh with your style. If you like working with ambitious and goal-driven people, then striving talent is your target. If you prefer logic and like to set short-term goals, then thinking talent is the best.
To make talent spotting easy, Buckingham and Coffman suggest you identify one critical talent in each of the three talent categories. Use these three talents as your foundation and focus on them during the interviewing process. Do not compromise on them, no matter how alluring a candidate's resume might appear.
Key points:
• Great managers hire for talent; not for willpower, brainpower, or experience.
• To outstanding managers, the right talent is essential — much more than experience, much more than brainpower, much more than willpower.
• Great managers know that excellence is impossible without talent.
• Skills and knowledge can be easily taught. Talent, on the other hand, cannot be taught.
“The key to excellent performance, of course, is finding the match between your talents and your role.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Great managers select for talent.
To regular managers recruiting new employees, experience, willpower, and brainpower are what make the difference. They place a special emphasis on experience and pay the closest attention to a candidate's work history.
These managers put their faith in raw intelligence. They say that as long as you are smart, most roles can be“figured out.” To them, applicants with high academic records simply“figure it out” better than the rest. They totally leave talent out of the equation; even if talent is somehow considered, it's an afterthought.
We tend to put an aura of “celebrity” around talents. We see talent as a rare and precious thing, bestowed on special, far-away people.
The reason for this bias is that we normally associate talent only with celebrated excellence — with a strong emphasis on the word “celebrated”. We look at Cristiano Ronaldo, dribbling his way past other soccer players and scoring astonishing goals, and we know that neither his training nor his dogged determination is the prime source of his brilliance.
Ronaldo may have both of these, but then, so do most other soccer players. Alone, this cannot explain why he shines. Deep down we know that Ronaldo's secret weapon is his talent.
We look at other talented people like Tiger Woods, Lionel Messi, Lebron James, and so on, we see the same thing — they are all part of the talent club. They are blessed with a secret gift. For most of us, talent seems a rare and precious thing, bestowed on special, far-away people. These people with talent are different. They are “not us”.
Great managers disagree with this conventional definition of talent.
To great managers, the standard definition of talent is too narrow, too specialized. Instead, they define talent as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. To them, the right talent is essential — much more than experience, much more than brainpower, much more than willpower.
Great managers know that excellence is impossible without talent. They understand that every role performed with excellence requires talent, because every role requires certain recurring patterns of thought, feelings or behavior.
Moreover, while skills and knowledge can be easily taught, talent cannot be taught. Skills are the how-to of a role. They are capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another.
Take for instance, for accountants, arithmetic is a skill and a love of precision is a talent. If for some strange reason, the neophyte accountant doesn't know how to do arithmetic, he can still be taught. If the accountant lacks the love of precision, however, there is very little a manager can do to inject it.
Buckingham and Coffman break talent into three categories:
Striving talents — the “why” of a person. Why they get out of bed every day, why they are motivated to push and push just that little bit harder.
Thinking talents — the “how” of a person. How they think, how they weigh up alternatives, how they come to their decisions.
Relating talents — the “who” of a person. Who they trust, who they build relationships with, who they confront, and who they ignore.
As a manager, you need to know exactly which talents you want.
To recognize these talents, look beyond the job title and description. Think about the culture of the company and choose someone with relating talent. If your company is the kind that uses scores to drive performance and makes heroes out of those with the highest scores, then striving talent is your target.
Think about the other people on the team. Think about the total work environment in which this person must fit. Also, think about who you are as a manager and who will mesh with your style. If you like working with ambitious and goal-driven people, then striving talent is your target. If you prefer logic and like to set short-term goals, then thinking talent is the best.
To make talent spotting easy, Buckingham and Coffman suggest you identify one critical talent in each of the three talent categories. Use these three talents as your foundation and focus on them during the interviewing process. Do not compromise on them, no matter how alluring a candidate's resume might appear.
Key points:
• Great managers hire for talent; not for willpower, brainpower, or experience.
• To outstanding managers, the right talent is essential — much more than experience, much more than brainpower, much more than willpower.
• Great managers know that excellence is impossible without talent.
• Skills and knowledge can be easily taught. Talent, on the other hand, cannot be taught.
“The key to excellent performance, of course, is finding the match between your talents and your role.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Define the right outcomes rather than try to control your people by dictating how work should be done
As a manager, you might think that you have the most control, but you don't. The people who report to you actually have more control than you. Each person on your team can decide what to do and what not to do.
If you want to be a great manager, you must understand that management is not about direct control, but about remote control. All you can do is influence, motivate, berate, or cajole in the hope that most of your people will do what you ask of them.
No matter how carefully you selected for certain talents, each person on your team arrived with his own style, his own needs, and his own motivations. So how do you maintain direction and focus people on performance in spite of all this?
According to Buckingham and Coffman, great managers define the right outcomes and then let each member of their staff find their own route toward those outcomes. Each person can reach the outcome by the route most comfortable for them, and each worker takes responsibility for their results. In the end, by defining the right outcome, your employees will become more self-reliant and self-aware.
If you want to be a great manager, you must avoid the temptations to take control of the way your employees achieve the outcomes you defined. On the surface, these temptations seem justifiable, but if you give in to any of them, they will soon sap the life out of the company and shrivel its value.
In your attempts to get your employees to perform, never try to perfect them. Never try to impose the “one best way” to do things on them. The temptation may be captivatingly strong, but you must resist it. What looks like a miraculous cure-all is actually a disease that diminishes the role, demeans the people, and weakens the organization.
As said earlier, every job, no matter how simple, requires some talent. Select for it and you won’t need to control every move or monitor every employee's performance. For instance, not everyone is suited for outbound telemarketing. No amount of training can make someone who is afraid of rejection and competition succeed, no matter what script they follow. Instead, select for the dual talents of competitiveness and ability to connect to others.
Even when they have selected for talent, some managers are hamstrung by their fundamental mistrust of people. While innate mistrust is vital for some jobs like layering or investigative reporting, it is deadly in management.
As a manager, your first instinct should be to trust the people you have selected. If you have a basic mistrust of people, you are likely to want to control the details of their performance rather than set the outcomes and let the employee find his or her way.
Here are some rules of thumb given by Buckingham and Coffman to guide you in turning talent into the performance as you set the right outcome:
• Employees must follow safety and accuracy rules for everyone’s protection.
• Employees must follow the required steps when those steps are a part of a company or industry standard.
• Required steps are only useful if they do not obscure the desired outcome.
• Required steps only prevent dissatisfaction. They cannot drive customer satisfaction.
All these rules of thumb form a framework that helps managers focus on outcomes. They will help you decide how much of the role should be structured and how much should be left up to the employee's discretion.
Key points:
• To be a great manager, you must understand that management is not about direct control, but about the remote control.
• Great managers define the right outcomes and then let each member of their staff find their own route toward those outcomes.
• While innate mistrust is vital for some jobs, it is deadly in management. You must learn to trust your employees.
“Great managers want each employee to feel a certain tension, a tension to achieve. Defining the right outcomes creates that tension.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
If you want to be a great manager, you must understand that management is not about direct control, but about remote control. All you can do is influence, motivate, berate, or cajole in the hope that most of your people will do what you ask of them.
Trying to control every aspect of someone’s performance is futile.
No matter how carefully you selected for certain talents, each person on your team arrived with his own style, his own needs, and his own motivations. So how do you maintain direction and focus people on performance in spite of all this?
According to Buckingham and Coffman, great managers define the right outcomes and then let each member of their staff find their own route toward those outcomes. Each person can reach the outcome by the route most comfortable for them, and each worker takes responsibility for their results. In the end, by defining the right outcome, your employees will become more self-reliant and self-aware.
Avoid the temptation to take control of the performance of your employees.
If you want to be a great manager, you must avoid the temptations to take control of the way your employees achieve the outcomes you defined. On the surface, these temptations seem justifiable, but if you give in to any of them, they will soon sap the life out of the company and shrivel its value.
Avoid the temptation to create perfect people.
In your attempts to get your employees to perform, never try to perfect them. Never try to impose the “one best way” to do things on them. The temptation may be captivatingly strong, but you must resist it. What looks like a miraculous cure-all is actually a disease that diminishes the role, demeans the people, and weakens the organization.
Avoid the temptation to declare that your people don’t have enough talent.
As said earlier, every job, no matter how simple, requires some talent. Select for it and you won’t need to control every move or monitor every employee's performance. For instance, not everyone is suited for outbound telemarketing. No amount of training can make someone who is afraid of rejection and competition succeed, no matter what script they follow. Instead, select for the dual talents of competitiveness and ability to connect to others.
Learn to trust people; avoid the temptation to believe that trust is precious and must be earned.
Even when they have selected for talent, some managers are hamstrung by their fundamental mistrust of people. While innate mistrust is vital for some jobs like layering or investigative reporting, it is deadly in management.
As a manager, your first instinct should be to trust the people you have selected. If you have a basic mistrust of people, you are likely to want to control the details of their performance rather than set the outcomes and let the employee find his or her way.
Here are some rules of thumb given by Buckingham and Coffman to guide you in turning talent into the performance as you set the right outcome:
• Employees must follow safety and accuracy rules for everyone’s protection.
• Employees must follow the required steps when those steps are a part of a company or industry standard.
• Required steps are only useful if they do not obscure the desired outcome.
• Required steps only prevent dissatisfaction. They cannot drive customer satisfaction.
All these rules of thumb form a framework that helps managers focus on outcomes. They will help you decide how much of the role should be structured and how much should be left up to the employee's discretion.
Key points:
• To be a great manager, you must understand that management is not about direct control, but about the remote control.
• Great managers define the right outcomes and then let each member of their staff find their own route toward those outcomes.
• While innate mistrust is vital for some jobs, it is deadly in management. You must learn to trust your employees.
“Great managers want each employee to feel a certain tension, a tension to achieve. Defining the right outcomes creates that tension.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Learn to focus on strength and work around your people's weakness
To become a great manager, you must focus on each person's strengths and manage around their weaknesses. You must not try to fix the weaknesses or try to make each person perfect. Instead, you must do everything in your power to help each person cultivate their talents and help them become more of who they already are.
Each person's pattern of talents is enduring, resistant to change. Hence, each person has a unique destiny. Do not allow stereotypes about people blind you to this reality.
It is very tempting to try to fix people and force them to be perfect, but it just doesn’t work. Conventional wisdom tells you that everyone can be anything they want to be if they hold on to their dreams and work hard. This simply isn't true! If you get sucked into this school of thought as a manager, you're doomed to fail.
By focusing solely on fixing employees' weaknesses, you would only be setting yourself up for disappointment, just as you would if you were trying to fix a doomed relationship. If you insist that every employee awaken the sleeping giants in them and turn their nontalents into talents, it simply won’t happen.
As a manager, you must learn to work around weaknesses and encourage strengths. Here is how Buckingham and Coffman suggest you go about the following.
You must position each person so that you are paying them to do what they are naturally wired to do. Casting employees in their right roles is the key to turning talent into performance. That means you have to post your aggressive, ego – driven salesperson in a territory that requires a fire to be lit beneath it. And conversely, your patient, relationship – building salesperson should be offered the territory that requires careful nurturing.
Secondly, manage by exception. Each person on your team should be treated as an exception, as a unique individual. Some want you to leave them alone from almost the first moment they are hired. Others feel neglected if you don't check in with them daily. Some want to be recognized by you, “the boss”. Some crave their praise on a public stage.
The Golden Rule is to treat people as you would like to be treated. The best managers break this golden rule every day. Instead, they treat each employee the way that particular employee wants to be treated. But how do you know how your employees want to be treated? Ask. Ask each employee about their goals, where they see their careers heading and how often they want you to talk about their progress.
Lastly, spend the most time with your best people. Great managers play favorites; they spend the most time with the most productive members of their staff.
As a manager, if you pay the most attention to the struggling members of your staff and ignore your stars, you will inadvertently alter the behaviors of your stars. Thinking that you're ignoring them, your stars may start to do less of what made them stars in the first place and more of other kinds of behaviors that might net them some kind of reaction from you, good or bad.
When you see the star players on your team acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors. So always bear in mind that your misplaced time and attention is not a neutral act. Being indifferent to the stars on your staff kills the behaviors you want to multiply.
Key points:
• To become a great manager, you must focus on each person's strengths and manage around their weaknesses.
• Don’t try to fix people’s weaknesses or try to make each person perfect.
• Do everything in your power to help each person cultivate their talents and help them become more of who they already are.
• Great managers play favorites; they spend the most time with the most productive members of their staff.
• When you see the star players on your team acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors.
“Great managers know that the less attention they pay to the productive behaviors of their superstars, the less of those behaviors they will get.” ~ First, Break All The the Rules
Each person is different, with a unique set of talents, a unique pattern of behaviors, passions, and yearnings.
Each person's pattern of talents is enduring, resistant to change. Hence, each person has a unique destiny. Do not allow stereotypes about people blind you to this reality.
It is very tempting to try to fix people and force them to be perfect, but it just doesn’t work. Conventional wisdom tells you that everyone can be anything they want to be if they hold on to their dreams and work hard. This simply isn't true! If you get sucked into this school of thought as a manager, you're doomed to fail.
Don’t try to fix people’s weaknesses or demand them to be perfect.
By focusing solely on fixing employees' weaknesses, you would only be setting yourself up for disappointment, just as you would if you were trying to fix a doomed relationship. If you insist that every employee awaken the sleeping giants in them and turn their nontalents into talents, it simply won’t happen.
As a manager, you must learn to work around weaknesses and encourage strengths. Here is how Buckingham and Coffman suggest you go about the following.
First, casting is everything — make sure each worker is in a role where they can use their talents.
You must position each person so that you are paying them to do what they are naturally wired to do. Casting employees in their right roles is the key to turning talent into performance. That means you have to post your aggressive, ego – driven salesperson in a territory that requires a fire to be lit beneath it. And conversely, your patient, relationship – building salesperson should be offered the territory that requires careful nurturing.
Treat each person on your staff as they want to be treated.
Secondly, manage by exception. Each person on your team should be treated as an exception, as a unique individual. Some want you to leave them alone from almost the first moment they are hired. Others feel neglected if you don't check in with them daily. Some want to be recognized by you, “the boss”. Some crave their praise on a public stage.
The Golden Rule is to treat people as you would like to be treated. The best managers break this golden rule every day. Instead, they treat each employee the way that particular employee wants to be treated. But how do you know how your employees want to be treated? Ask. Ask each employee about their goals, where they see their careers heading and how often they want you to talk about their progress.
Play favorites; spend more time with your star players.
Lastly, spend the most time with your best people. Great managers play favorites; they spend the most time with the most productive members of their staff.
As a manager, if you pay the most attention to the struggling members of your staff and ignore your stars, you will inadvertently alter the behaviors of your stars. Thinking that you're ignoring them, your stars may start to do less of what made them stars in the first place and more of other kinds of behaviors that might net them some kind of reaction from you, good or bad.
When you see the star players on your team acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors. So always bear in mind that your misplaced time and attention is not a neutral act. Being indifferent to the stars on your staff kills the behaviors you want to multiply.
Key points:
• To become a great manager, you must focus on each person's strengths and manage around their weaknesses.
• Don’t try to fix people’s weaknesses or try to make each person perfect.
• Do everything in your power to help each person cultivate their talents and help them become more of who they already are.
• Great managers play favorites; they spend the most time with the most productive members of their staff.
• When you see the star players on your team acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors.
“Great managers know that the less attention they pay to the productive behaviors of their superstars, the less of those behaviors they will get.” ~ First, Break All The the Rules
Always find the right fit for your employees’ talents: don't just dole out promotions
Sooner or later one of your employees will approach you as you the question “Where do I go from here?” The employee wants to grow; he wants to earn more money, to gain more prestige. He might feel underutilized and think he deserves more responsibility.
Whatever his reasons, the employee wants to move up and wants you to help. What should you tell him? Should you help him get promoted? Well, that depends on whether the employee's talents can be utilized in the role he seeks.
You must help each person find roles where their unique combination of strengths — skills, knowledge, and talents— match the distinct demands of the role. You must help your employees find roles that require them to do more and more of what they're naturally wired to do.
For one worker, this might mean promotion to a supervisor role. For another worker, this might mean termination. For another, it might mean encouraging her to grow within her current role. For yet another, it might mean moving him back into his previous role.
Understandably, this approach might be unpopular with employees — nobody wants to be demoted or fired when they think they deserve a promotion. Nevertheless, no matter how bitter the pill, great managers stick to their goal: Regardless of what the employees want, it is your duty as a manager to steer employees toward roles where they have the greatest chance of success.
Conventional wisdom advises that careers should follow a prescribed path: You begin in a lowly individual contributor role. You gain some expertise and so are promoted to a slightly more stretching, slightly less menial individual contributor role.
Next, you are promoted to supervise other individual contributors. Then, blessed with good performance, good fortune, and good contacts, you climb up and up, until you can barely remember what the individual contributors do at all.
The truth is, it doesn't have to be that way! The fact that someone has excelled on one rung of the ladder is not a sure sign that with just a little more training, he will be able to repeat his success on the rung above.
After scrutinizing the person and the role, you may then go ahead to give the promotion if you think they have what it takes. However, even if you thoughtfully examine the match between the employee and the role, you've still got a problem. No matter what conclusion you come to, the employee will invariably want to move up. He will still want to be promoted to another level.
This is because every signal sent by the company tells him that higher is better. A larger pay, a more impressive title, a roomier office with nice couches, all this and more awaits the lucky person to get promoted to the next level. Little wonder everyone always wants to move up the ladder.
The solution to this problem is to make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession. Many workers will still want to climb the conventional career ladder, and for those with the talent to manage others or to lead, this will be the right choice. Encouraged by meaty incentives, however, many other workers will choose to redirect their energies toward growth within their current role.
In a nutshell, it is your responsibility as a manager to help your employees find the right fit, rather than simply make them climb the next rung of the corporate ladder. Don’t do what most managers do, which is to promote everyone to their level of incompetence.
Key points:
• As a manager, you must help each person find roles where their unique combination of strengths — skills, knowledge, and talents — match the distinct demands of the role.
• Help your employees find roles that require them to do more and more of what they're naturally wired to do.
• To ensure your workers to give their best in their current role, make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession.
“Great managers envision a company where there are multiple routes toward respect and prestige.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Whatever his reasons, the employee wants to move up and wants you to help. What should you tell him? Should you help him get promoted? Well, that depends on whether the employee's talents can be utilized in the role he seeks.
As a manager, it's your primary responsibility to help each person find the right fit.
You must help each person find roles where their unique combination of strengths — skills, knowledge, and talents— match the distinct demands of the role. You must help your employees find roles that require them to do more and more of what they're naturally wired to do.
For one worker, this might mean promotion to a supervisor role. For another worker, this might mean termination. For another, it might mean encouraging her to grow within her current role. For yet another, it might mean moving him back into his previous role.
Understandably, this approach might be unpopular with employees — nobody wants to be demoted or fired when they think they deserve a promotion. Nevertheless, no matter how bitter the pill, great managers stick to their goal: Regardless of what the employees want, it is your duty as a manager to steer employees toward roles where they have the greatest chance of success.
The standard career path is for people to start at a low level and gradually work their way to the top.
Conventional wisdom advises that careers should follow a prescribed path: You begin in a lowly individual contributor role. You gain some expertise and so are promoted to a slightly more stretching, slightly less menial individual contributor role.
Next, you are promoted to supervise other individual contributors. Then, blessed with good performance, good fortune, and good contacts, you climb up and up, until you can barely remember what the individual contributors do at all.
The truth is, it doesn't have to be that way! The fact that someone has excelled on one rung of the ladder is not a sure sign that with just a little more training, he will be able to repeat his success on the rung above.
Before promoting someone, look closely at the striving, thinking, and relating talents needed to excel in the role.
After scrutinizing the person and the role, you may then go ahead to give the promotion if you think they have what it takes. However, even if you thoughtfully examine the match between the employee and the role, you've still got a problem. No matter what conclusion you come to, the employee will invariably want to move up. He will still want to be promoted to another level.
This is because every signal sent by the company tells him that higher is better. A larger pay, a more impressive title, a roomier office with nice couches, all this and more awaits the lucky person to get promoted to the next level. Little wonder everyone always wants to move up the ladder.
The solution to this problem is to make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession. Many workers will still want to climb the conventional career ladder, and for those with the talent to manage others or to lead, this will be the right choice. Encouraged by meaty incentives, however, many other workers will choose to redirect their energies toward growth within their current role.
In a nutshell, it is your responsibility as a manager to help your employees find the right fit, rather than simply make them climb the next rung of the corporate ladder. Don’t do what most managers do, which is to promote everyone to their level of incompetence.
Key points:
• As a manager, you must help each person find roles where their unique combination of strengths — skills, knowledge, and talents — match the distinct demands of the role.
• Help your employees find roles that require them to do more and more of what they're naturally wired to do.
• To ensure your workers to give their best in their current role, make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession.
“Great managers envision a company where there are multiple routes toward respect and prestige.” ~ First, Break All the Rules
Conclusion
Great managers routinely break all the rules. They take the conventional wisdom about human nature and managing people and turn it on its head. As a manager, there are four keys to unlocking the potential of each and every one of your employees and turning their talents to performance. The first key is to select employees based on talent rather than experience or intelligence. The second key is to set desired outcomes and evaluate performance based on them rather than try to control how workers do their jobs. The third key is to stop trying to fix people's weaknesses and focus on their strengths. The fourth and final key is to find the right fit for your employees’ talents.
Select the right person for the job! If you want to be an exceptional manager, you must select for talent when hiring. Talent is far more important than experience, brainpower or willpower. Great managers know that every role performed with excellence requires talent because every role requires certain recurring patterns of thought, feelings or behavior.
Select the right person for the job! If you want to be an exceptional manager, you must select for talent when hiring. Talent is far more important than experience, brainpower or willpower. Great managers know that every role performed with excellence requires talent because every role requires certain recurring patterns of thought, feelings or behavior.
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