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| First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently | 
 enlarge | Authors: Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $3.31
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (263 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1054
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 255
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0684852861
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.409
EAN: 9780684852867
ASIN: 0684852861
Publication Date: May 5, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why.Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small, entrepreneurial companies. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup's research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee's talent into performance. In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer. Buckingham and Coffman explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations for him or her -- they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps; how they motivate people -- they build on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people -- they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. And perhaps most important, this research -- which initially generated thousands of different survey questions on the subject of employee opinion -- finally produced the twelve simple questions that work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. This book is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.
Amazon.com Review
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management, such as "treat people as you like to be treated"; "people are capable of almost anything"; and "a manager's role is diminishing in today's economy." "Great managers are revolutionaries," the authors write. "This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place." The authors have culled their observations from more than 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. Quoting leaders such as basketball coach Phil Jackson, Buckingham and Coffman outline "four keys" to becoming an excellent manager: Finding the right fit for employees, focusing on strengths of employees, defining the right results, and selecting staff for talent--not just knowledge and skills. First, Break All the Rules offers specific techniques for helping people perform better on the job. For instance, the authors show ways to structure a trial period for a new worker and how to create a pay plan that rewards people for their expertise instead of how fast they climb the company ladder. "The point is to focus people toward performance," they write. "The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this." Written in plain English and well organized, this book tells you exactly how to improve as a supervisor. --Dan Ring
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| Customer Reviews: Read 258 more reviews...
 Indispensable Management Advice December 2, 2008
While a very busy category with a depth of choices, this is one of the better books I've read for analyzing how to manage others. It helps to develop keener abilities into why some in management excel and achieve superior results and others never build on what they inherit. There is a buffet of statistics to back up the analysis and add credibility. This is a fine addition to anyone's library of self-improvement books to be more efficient and effective in business.
Likewise, the employee can intuitively reverse engineer the information and make his performance more in tune with superiors, and set himself up for moving up the ladder. Great book.
Very Pleased December 1, 2008
I was very satisfied with the quality of the book shipped. The package also did not take extremely long to deliver, and the price was fair and the book of great quality.
 Good Guide for an Introspective November 21, 2008
This book presents allot of pertinent data, which I as a reader found very useful in my understanding of proven positive work habits. The resonating theme is to work smarter and recognize that your business is unique and your solutions always need to be tailored to fit your business needs.
For tech geeks managers, a good addition to "The Mythical Man Month." November 1, 2008
Geeks have said for a long, long time that there is easily a 10-to-1 ratio of productivity between the best developers and an average developer. There is tons of evidence to this fact... however it is still a difficult reality to swallow for some folks. In many cases, you're better off with a team of 3 good developers, than a team of 20 average developers. This book not only validates this claim, but also provides proof that this productivity ratio exists in every job role!
This was based on data from a 25-year survey by Gallup... they interviewed over 100,000 people, trying to find out who were great managers, and what they knew. Almost uniformly, they knew that the standard rules about managing people were completely bogus. They break down what attributes your employees have into 3 buckets:
* Knowledge: Basic information; "book learning." People with knowledge interview well, and test well, but that doesn't always translate into productivity. Training people "knowledge" is fast and easy.
* Skills: This is applied knowledge. A great deal of accounting and data entry is applied high-school math, but that doesn't mean any high schooler can do it. They need the skills to know when to apply what knowledge and when. Training people a "skill" takes time, and not all people are cut out for every skill.
* Talent: The most important of the bunch... somebody not only with skills and knowledge, but their brain is wired to be exceptional at this task! You can have a talent for sales, accounting, data entry, development, bartending, housekeeping, management, anything! Training people a "talent" is extraordinarily difficult, but you can find it during an interview.
This book validates what I have said for a long time: 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 this "broad band" pay scales, and in practice they work pretty well to make sure everybody is exceptional at their role.
What about developers? They had a few things to say about them... somewhat oversimplified, but they said a common career path is from developer to systems analyst. In other words, go from designing one system, to designing integrated systems that work together.
This is a HUGE mistake.
Why? Because both roles require different talents! Developers are problem solvers, but in general they need ALL the pieces of the puzzle before they want to try to solve it. There is no feeling more frustrating to them than not being able to solve a problem because you weren't given sufficient data... or a complete specification.
To illustrate... Imagine you work at a software company. If you ask a talented developer a technical question, but you don't give sufficient information, you might have just cost your company a full day's worth of developer productivity. Why? Because the developer will seethe, and stew, and gather his buddies for a hallway bitch-session about you... which will cause others to likewise seethe and stew, and grumble about how "nobody ever gives them enough information." It all adds up to a full day lost.
It happens. I've seen it.
In contrast, a systems analysts (or architect) thrives on incomplete information. They know they are designing a system with a lot of people, a lot of requirements, a lot of needs, and thus a ton of moving parts. People don't know what they want, because nobody really knows what is possible. An architect can't wait around forever to create a specification: he needs to experiment a little. This means iteration, agility, extreme programming, and all that garbage.
It is certainly possible for one person to have both skills... but usually the best developers have a mild weakness at integrated systems, and vice versa.
Getting your manager to read this book might be tricky... "you suck! read this so you suck less!" Nevertheless, its a good book that will help you make the case that there is talent in every role... you're not asking for special treatment when you ask to play to your strengths. You're asking that your manager let you do what all great managers do.
Simple as that...
I did, and it works! September 18, 2008
Definitely on my recommended book list. A must read for women in business.
Susan Bock
The Success Coach for Women in Business
www.SusanBockSolutions.com
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