Book Summary: First Break All The Rules

This article is based on the following book: First, Break All The Rules ‘What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently’ By Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman Simon & Schuster, 271 pages

Based on a mammoth research study conducted by the Gallup
Organization involving 80,000 managers across different
industries, this book explores the challenge of many
companies - attaining, keeping and measuring employee
satisfaction. Discover how great managers attract, hire,
focus, and keep their most talented employees!

Key Ideas:
1. The best managers reject conventional wisdom.
2. The best managers treat every employee as an individual.
3. The best managers never try to fix weaknesses; instead
they focus on strengths and talent.
4. The best managers know they are on stage everyday. They
know their people are watching every move they make.
5. Measuring employee satisfaction is vital information
for your investors.
6. People leave their immediate managers, not the companies
they work for.
7. The best managers are those that build a work environment
where the employees answer positively to these 12
Questions:
a. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
b. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my
work right?
c. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do
best everyday?
d. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or
praise for doing good work?
e. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care
about me as a person?
f. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
g. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
h. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my
job is important?
i. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
j. Do I have a best friend at work?
k. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to
me about my progress?
l. This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to
learn and grow?

The Gallup study showed that those companies that reflected
positive responses to the 12 questions profited more, were
more productive as business units, retained more employees
per year, and satisfied more customers.

Without satisfying an employee’s basic needs first, a
manager can never expect the employee to give stellar
performance. The basic needs are: knowing what is expected
of the employee at work, giving her the equipment and support
to do her work right, and answering her basic questions of
self-worth and self-esteem by giving praise for good work
and caring about her development as a person.

The great manager mantra is don’t try to put in what was
left out; instead draw out what was left in. You must hire
for talent, and hone that talent into outstanding
performance.

More wisdom in a nutshell from First, Break All the Rules:
1. Know what can be taught, and what requires a natural
talent.
2. Set the right outcomes, not steps. Standardize the end
but not the means. As long as the means are within the
company’s legal boundaries and industry standards, let
the employee use his own style to deliver the result or
outcome you want.
3. Motivate by focusing on strengths, not weaknesses.
4. Casting is important, if an employee is not performing
at excellence, maybe she is not cast in the right role.
5. Every role is noble, respect it enough to hire for
talent to match.
6. A manager must excel in the art of the interview. See
if the candidate’s recurring patterns of behavior match
the role he is to fulfill. Ask open-ended questions and
let him talk. Listen for specifics.
7. Find ways to measure, count, and reward outcomes.
8. Spend time with your best people. Give constant
feedback. If you can’t spend an hour every quarter
talking to an employee, then you shouldn’t be a manager.
9. There are many ways of alleviating a problem or
non-talent. Devise a support system, find a
complementary partner for him, or an alternative role.
10. Do not promote someone until he reaches his level of
incompetence; simply offer bigger rewards within the
same range of his work. It is better to have an
excellent highly paid waitress or bartender on your
team than promote him or her to a poor starting-level
bar manager.
11. Some homework to do: Study the best managers in the
company and revise training to incorporate what they
know. Send your talented people to learn new skills or
knowledge. Change recruiting practices to hire for
talent, revise employee job descriptions and
qualifications.