First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
by Marcus Buckingham (Author), Curt Coffman (Author)
Strengths Management (1)
On This Page
Description
The Gallup organization has been at the forefront of measuring and analyzing opinions and behavior for over 60 years. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, prominent leaders within the organization, have taken their considerable knowledge and applied it to a comprehensive study of successful managers across the country. In today's job market, companies often use impressive benefit packages to entice employees. Buckingham and Coffman have found that no matter how generous a company is, it won't show more retain its most valuable workers without good managers. Using in-depth interviews conducted with small businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies, they have developed a guide to what all the best managers have in common. Included in this is a set of 12 questions that will help managers find and retain the most talented employees. First, Break All the Rules gathers varied, but tried and true, methods of managing the most exceptional people for the job. Narrator Richard Rohan will energize listeners with the experience of attending an instructive private seminar. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
7 Rules of Power: Surprising--but True--Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career by Jeffrey Pfeffer
onuryn Both talk about how to be an effective leader without the typical feel-good advice of other books
Member Reviews
This is a management book written by Gallup, often known as a polling agency, in the mid-1990s. It stems from the insight that an employees experience at work is heavily determined by their direct manager, and the book explorers not just what good managers do, but what excellent managers do.
The most interesting aspect of reading the book for me was their conception of "talent." Gallup defines talents not as our skills or capabilities, but rather as the innate and unique ways in which we see the world, our umwelt. Special or notable skills and capabilities are downstream effects of worldview and sensory perception.
I've done a fair bit of hiring over the years, and one series of questions I always ask are—what are your strengths in the show more role you're applying for, and where are the areas you'll need support? This book points out that managers need to focus on the strengths of their employees—not their weaknesses. I ask these questions because I know there will never be a perfect one-to-one match between a person and a role, and a good employer finds a way to leverage an employee's strengths while mitigating and minimizing their weaknesses.
Along these lines, the book implies, but never gets around to mentioning the eighty-twenty rule. This rule states that eighty percent of value creation comes from twenty percent of your time and resources (although it isn't always easy to answer which twenty percent). The eighty-twenty rule is about a focus on strengths.
While you're in the genre, check out Carol Sanford's "No More Feedback." show less
The most interesting aspect of reading the book for me was their conception of "talent." Gallup defines talents not as our skills or capabilities, but rather as the innate and unique ways in which we see the world, our umwelt. Special or notable skills and capabilities are downstream effects of worldview and sensory perception.
I've done a fair bit of hiring over the years, and one series of questions I always ask are—what are your strengths in the show more role you're applying for, and where are the areas you'll need support? This book points out that managers need to focus on the strengths of their employees—not their weaknesses. I ask these questions because I know there will never be a perfect one-to-one match between a person and a role, and a good employer finds a way to leverage an employee's strengths while mitigating and minimizing their weaknesses.
Along these lines, the book implies, but never gets around to mentioning the eighty-twenty rule. This rule states that eighty percent of value creation comes from twenty percent of your time and resources (although it isn't always easy to answer which twenty percent). The eighty-twenty rule is about a focus on strengths.
While you're in the genre, check out Carol Sanford's "No More Feedback." show less
This is truly a fantastic book, and one of the better business/leadership books I've read. I love its sheer practicality!
Sure, it gets in the weeds sometimes with #allthedata (and I defo love me as much data as possible, it just reads a bit dry at times), but man ... I'd love to see more companies implement the strategies included here.
I also love that my current boss exemplifies many of the qualities Buckingham uses to describe a "great manager." :)
Sure, it gets in the weeds sometimes with #allthedata (and I defo love me as much data as possible, it just reads a bit dry at times), but man ... I'd love to see more companies implement the strategies included here.
I also love that my current boss exemplifies many of the qualities Buckingham uses to describe a "great manager." :)
I picked up this book because it was mentioned in some Forbes article I saw on things great managers do. On reading it, I saw that a lot of the stuff is things one would think are common sense. A lot of managers like to make like what they do is some mysterious, mystical thing or just something certain gifted people can do. It is not. It is dealing with people, and having the talent to deal with them well. So much of the advice in the book may seem common sense if you have such talent (or if you have been exposed to so many bad bosses and managers you just know they should be doing the stuff in the book instead). I did take a few notes, and I may write something a bit longer in my blog later. But in the end, the very simple gist of the show more book is this: hire the best people for their talent (not skills or knowledge. Those are important, but talent is the thing you need to look for since you can't teach talent), then do the best to make sure those folk can show you what they can do and let those talents flourish. Sure, set expectations and motivate, but if you select the wrong people, the rest will not fall into place. There is more, but there is the gist. show less
The Summary: Gallup interviewed thousands of managers to figure out who's great and who's average. What they found is great managers do not follow any rules and treat each case individually.
The Take Away: This was a tough book to read for two reasons -- it doesn't tell a story and better read in chunks and my personal circumstances.
The book stressed and emphasized that managers know their people, their situations at home and work. The circumstances that they face in each. Communication, trust and respect were core competencies of great managers -- and it went both ways.
Again and again it made me realize how bad things were in my own work life. There were twelve questions I wish I had jotted down. I meant to. But one of them was knowing show more your job and your role -- I know neither. And my newest supervisor seems reluctant to allow either to reach me. show less
The Take Away: This was a tough book to read for two reasons -- it doesn't tell a story and better read in chunks and my personal circumstances.
The book stressed and emphasized that managers know their people, their situations at home and work. The circumstances that they face in each. Communication, trust and respect were core competencies of great managers -- and it went both ways.
Again and again it made me realize how bad things were in my own work life. There were twelve questions I wish I had jotted down. I meant to. But one of them was knowing show more your job and your role -- I know neither. And my newest supervisor seems reluctant to allow either to reach me. show less
This is one of the best management books I have read. I really like that it is based on survey of many managers and employees --rather than just relating what happened to work for one manager in a particular situation.
The findings in this book would surprise many of us, who do self-development or others-development everyday. It would give you an effective framework in recruiting the right ones, setting the right goals, focusing on the strengths, and assigning the right roles to the subordinates. That'll help to bring the best out of them. What would surprise you is that you'll find many myths that you used to think it is right, but it is not from the findings of Gallup.
Where the book makes its bones is in understanding and measuring talent. The authors offer creative ideas on incentive-based pay and advise that companies tailor incentive plans to the individual.
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Non-Fiction Worth Reading
1,015 works; 261 members
Books With Numbers in the Title
308 works; 13 members
Pleasant Surprises: Books That Exceeded Our Expectations
418 works; 142 members
My List
302 works; 1 member
Author Information
British motivational speaker, trainer, and author Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University with a Master's Degree in Social and Political Science in 1987. He is internationally known as an authority on employee productivity and is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management. Buckingham worked show more as a senior researcher at The Gallup Organization for 17 years and founded TMBC in 2007 in order to create strengths-based management training solutions for organizations. He has appeared on television shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, The Today Show, Good Morning America, and The View. Buckingham has been profiled in the following publications: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review. He has written or co-written numerous bestselling books, such as First, Break All the Rules; Now, Discover Your Strengths; The One Thing You Need to Know; and Go Put Your Strengths to Work. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Work Relationships
Has as a reference guide/companion
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
- Original title
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
- People/Characters*
- Frederick Winslow Taylor; Madelaine Hunter; Nick Leeson; Kevin Kelly; Herb Kelleher; Bran Ferren (show all 9); Dennis Rodman; Phil Jackson; Clowdisley Shovell
- Dedication
- To Janie, who found what was always there
- First words
- The greatest managers in the world do not have much in common.
- Quotations
- With the breakdown of other sources of community, employees are looking more and more to their workplace to provide them with a sense of meaning and identity.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The world's best managers have shown you how.
- Blurbers
- Norton, David P.; Nelson, Marilyn Carlson; Pfeffer, Jeffrey; Anderson, Bradbury H.; Morrison, Michael W.; Cuthbert, Kevin (show all 8); Brackey, Harriet Johnson; Marcus, Bernie
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 2,900
- Popularity
- 6,185
- Reviews
- 17
- Rating
- (3.98)
- Languages
- 11 — Chinese, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 38
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 24