First, Break All the Rules

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM AND CURT COFFMAN

Reviewed by Todd

Caricatures that appear on the big (and small) screen portray managers as either tyrants or buffoons. In Pixar’s The Incredibles, Bob Parr’s manager, Gilbert Huph, exemplifies all of the prescribed attributes of a tyrant, right down to his pivotal demand, “Stop right now or you’re fired!” Organizational vocabulary still draws strongly from its militaristic roots, but the “manager as major” fades as a new generation fills middle management. The business media reports on fallen leaders and inevitably points to the desire for power as their downfall when the real fall was a company’s market valuation.

For a fresh idea of what a manager should be, First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman is your guide. Both authors worked for Gallup Inc., and the book was the result of a massive project to determine what good management looks like. The research starts at the logical beginning: “Do managers matter?” Managers have incredible influence over the success of a company, but Gallup wanted to prove this common wisdom analytically. And it did. When Gallup looked at individual business units within larger companies, great managers delivered greater sales, greater profitability, and lower turnover than poor managers.

Separating good management from bad came in the form of Gallup’s keystone Q12 survey. Gallup’s history as a polling company came in handy; it had over one million workplace interviews to draw from for this survey. The researchers looked for a set of applicable questions and found twelve that “capture the most information and the most important information.” The queries linked directly to business outcomes like productivity, profitability, retention, and customer satisfaction:

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?

These twelve questions were given to over 105,000 employees at 2,500 business units in 24 separate companies. Employees who gave more favorable responses to the questions worked in higher-performing business units. The correlation gave Gallup the methodology to identify good managers. Gallup went ahead and interviewed 80,000 highly rated managers, generating over 120,000 hours of tape.

Over and over, in one form or another, researchers heard: “[Great managers] help each person become more and more of who he [or she] already is.” The managers Gallup interviewed consistently recognized that the development of their employees came through focusing on their natural strengths as opposed to shoring up their weaknesses. This insight runs completely counter to conventional wisdom. Their research points to a change in managerial focus from making an employee fit into a position to finding the right position for the employee. Three words, “manager as coach,” best describe Buckingham and Coffman’s findings.

The process starts with hiring, where talent becomes the primary criterion in the selection of a new employee. Take the seven men chosen for NASA’s Mercury space program, and consider how the most important human endeavor of the twentieth century missed the mark. All the candidates had the most applicable experience possible as military test pilots. The initial cadre spent two years acquiring the skills necessary for space flight. But when those astronauts were put into the capsule and shot into orbit, each performed very differently, despite the common experience. Their performances in the new environment ranged from problematic to flawless. What the hiring manager didn’t consider were the individual abilities of each astronaut. Everyone has natural tendencies and reacts differently to the same stimuli. During liftoff, for example, the pulse of one topped out at 150, whereas Neil Armstrong’s never got above 80, an indictor of how much each astronaut would struggle later in the mission.

Behavior-based questions (“Tell me about a time when . . . ?”) during an interview can provide insight into a person’s talents. Listen for quick responses that indicate the recurring use of a talent. Asking a candidate what he or she finds satisfying also can lead an interviewer toward where the person projects strength and finds fulfillment. For example, the best truck drivers will describe the constant assessment of surrounding traffic and the natural enjoyment they feel from anticipating potential problems.

“The energy for a healthy career is generated from discovering the talents that are already there, not from filling oneself up with marketable experiences.”

Matching an employee’s natural talents with the right job can produce remarkable results. Consider Jean P., a character in one of the authors’ scenarios. This data entry clerk was averaging 560,000 keypunches a month, over 50 percent higher than the national average of 380,000. Recognizing her innate talent, the manager sat down with Jean and created a series of goals and rewards. Over the next several months, Jean improved her performance to 3.5 million keypunches, ten times the industry standard. Equally important, her manager created a talent profile for hiring, and now has Jean surrounded by people who average over a million keypunches a month. By spending time with the best people, managers learn what makes them different and how their strengths can be applied to the whole team.

Talent is not distributed equally, but everyone possesses unique skills and abilities. First, Break All the Rules shows the changes managers need to make in their approach to draw the greatest potential from the people who work for them. TS

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Simon & Schuster, Hardcover 1999, ISBN 9780684852867

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for how management is about more than IQ Here for a research-based approach to leadership Here for how metrics meet management | EVEN MORE: 12 by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter; Vital Friends by Tom Rath