World Famous Comics: First, Break All The Rules: What The Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently
First, Break All The Rules: What The Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently
By: Curt Coffman Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Average Rating: Binding: Audio CD Format: Abridged, Audiobook Label: Simon & Schuster Audio Number of Items: 3 Publication Date: November 01, 2000
Product Description: In First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive indepth study of great managers.
In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But 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', how they motivate people by building on each person's unique strengths; and, finally, how great managers find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder.
First, Break All The Rules provides vital performance and career lessons for managers at every level. This audiobook 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
I did, and it works! 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
It's not really about breaking any rules, but it's a good reading Outstanding managers know intuitively that one can obtain more from practicing and enhancing our stengths than by trying to overcome our weaknesses. This is the principle of this excellent book and the result of a survey done to a pool of outstanding managers. I bought the book just because it was the result of a Gallup study and it did not dissapoint me. The book contains an interesting but brief explanation of how the study was conceived and performed.
The introduction of this book led my interest to neurosciences, since the author made an analogy between brain circuitry and roads. He mentioned that each brain has differently developed neuronal links, which are developed in early childhood. Those links that are stronger (superhighways compared to small roads) represent our strengths. Access and communication using the superhighways will always be easier for us than struggling through unlevelled sidepaths (our weaknesses) or even to try to broaden these narrow roads, which requires tremendous effort and might be even imposible, since they were set in early childhood. Reading about neurosciences I found out about the plasticity of the brain's circuitry (which years ago was thought to be rigid and set), so with a lot of effort and practise we might overcome some weaknesses, but we would need to really evaluate the effort vs. the result. (See A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain.
I recently found out that had I read the classics, and specifically Aristotle, this idea would not have appeared new to me (so apparently Aristotle broke the rules long time ago), but since I haven't read him, it was good to read this book. Although one always prefers to do things at which one is good at, we sometimes force ourselves to do things at which we are not so good at, to improve our weak spots.
The content of the book is so good, that it makes you forget about the management book writing style and its being repetitive.
The sequel, Now, Discover Your Strengths is also quite good, it makes a summary of the main strengths that people have and to what type of work they can best be applied. It even contains a test (both inside the book or online) to help you discover your strengths.
Best book ever about leadership! 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!
First Break All The Rules 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.
Good but long winded 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.
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