Marcus Buckingham

Curt Coffman

Provides insight into how great managers find, focus and keep talented employees.

What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

First, Break All the Rules

Dhrumil Patel

People leave managers, not companies. So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people— in the form of better pay, better perks, and better training— when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue. If vou have a turnover problem, look first to your managers.

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 person. Great leaders, by contrast, look outward. They look out at the competition, out at the future, out at alternative routes forward. They must be visionaries, strategic thinkers, activators.

What a company can, and should, do is keep every manager focused on the four core activities of the catalyst role— select a person, set expectations, motivate the person, and develop the person. No matter how many different styles are used, when managers play this role well, the foundations are laid.

• When selecting someone, they select for talent... not simply ex- perience, intelligence, or determination. 

• When setting expectations, they define the right outcomes... not 

• When motivating someone, they focus on strengths...not on 

• When developing someone, they help him find the right fit... not the right steps. weaknesses. simply the next rung on the ladder.

Great managers define a talent as "a recurring pattem of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied." The emphasis here is on the word "recurring.” Your talents, they say, are the behaviors you find yourself doing often. You have a mental filter that sifts through your world, forcing you to pay attention to some stimuli, while others slip past you, unnoticed.

Your filter is always working. Of all the possibilities of things you could do or feel or think, your filter is constantly telling you the few things you must do or feel or think. Your filter, more than your race, sex, age, or nationality, is You.

Your knowledge is simply “what you are aware of." There are two kinds of knowledge: factual knowledge—things you know; and experiential knowledge—understandings you have picked up along the way.

Simplifying diverse talents in 3 categories 

• Striving talents explain the why of a person. They explain why he gets aut of bed every day, why he is motivated to push and push just that little bit harder. 

• Thinking talents explain the how of a person. They explain how he thinks, how he weighs up alternatives, how he comes to his decisions. Is he a linear, practical thinker, or is he strategic, always playing mental "what if?" games with himself? 

• Relating talents explain the who of a person. They explain whom he trusts, whom he builds relationships with, whom he confronts, and whom he ignores. Is he drawn to win over strangers, or is he at ease only with his close friends? 

Every time you make a rule you take away a choice and choice, with all of its illumninating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.

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