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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.409
EAN num: 9780684852867
ISBN number: 0684852861
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 255
Printing Date: May 05, 1999
Publishing house: Simon & Schuster
Sale Popularity Level: 520
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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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 subsequent 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 very 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:
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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Rated by buyers 
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First Break All the Rules provides a nice presentation of what managers can do "differently" to make themselves successful. The research in the book is ten years old but still mostly relevant.
For a more modern treatment of the topic, there's another book that was based on a recent study for more than 150,000 managers. It's also great and called Squawk!: How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results
Rated by buyers -
Of all the books I've read about leadership, this is the one that gave me the most. I've been able to use the information in this book every single day and guess what? It really works. If you're interested in management and leadership, start here!
Rated by buyers -
Very interesting perspective on how top managers operate. Plants seeds of change and presents how why what has been done in the past and currently practiced may have not been effective and ultimately successful as we have all been told it would be. Highly recommended reading for those wanting tho think out of the box.
Rated by buyers 
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Nutshell review - a good book with good insights and advice but, as is the norm for this type of book, filled lots of case studies as page fller.
Rated by buyers -
You can't take the title seriously (some Amazon reviewers do). The book is about what Gallup has found makes effective managers of people during its research for various clients over 10+ years. The central theme is that everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Nothing new there. What is new, is their research that shows (a) an individual's strengths are real workforce multipliers, (b) effort spent to develop strengths really pays off, while (c) effort spend to "fix" weaknesses at best will result in mediocrity and is thus wasted effort. Ergo, a company which focuses on improving what its employees do well will (financially) outperform a company that spends its efforts on "fixing" its employees flaws.
Unlike other top 10 business books, it tells you how to accomplish creating a company built on employee strengths. I really liked the chapter devoted to interviewing for finding a prospective employees strengths. Very pragmatic. Be warned - after reading it you will likely be even more disappointed with your own management than you could have thought possible.
The book provides a code which you can use to go to Gallup's site and take the Strength's Finder survey. I highly recommend you do this ASAP, before reading the book, and before reading too many reviews. I suggest this because I found I could infer what some questions were testing, and that had to have influenced my answers.
Obviously the target audience is the manager. The follow-on book "Now, Discover Your Strengths" fills in some gaps. For this reason I generally recommend reading the follow-on book very first if you have the time to read both books.
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