Focus on Strengths and Find Your Role

Today I want to share some brief comments about a book I'm reading entitled, "First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently" by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

It's sort of a "pop-business" book - having spent some time on the "best sellers" list - and although the authors would probably not consider their findings to be "revolutionary", they attempt to challenge the status quo.

The authors come from the Gallup organization and have set down a summary of findings from numerous in-depth surveys of great managers in a variety of industries. It's easy to assume that great leaders do things a bit differently than an average manager but this book tries to identify some of those practices.

"Breaking all the rules" generally refers to throwing aside conventional wisdom in many cases. For instance, the cliché that there is "No 'I' in team" gets spun on it's head into saying that, "there must be lots of strong, distinct I's". The authors more or less explain that a team of people with equal skills isn't always useful or desirable. It might increase productivity in the way that four people rowing a canoe may go faster than a single person propelling the same vessel, which could be the goal in some instances. Yet in many other cases, the ideal team is one that assembles members with different skills and strengths and pools them together effectively. A baseball team with 9 first basemen will probably lose most times against a team with specialists at each position.

Many of the concepts presented relate to this idea about focusing on role players and specialists with specific talents. They define talents as being innate. People can be trained in a variety of skills but most of us have certain talents that you might say are tied to our personality or our core being. You can teach these things to some degree but to really master them, they must be a part of your soul. Empathy is a good example. Some people just can't relate to others. Regarldless of how many ways you try to teach them to "walk a mile in anothers' shoes", they just don't connect in that way. As a result they may or may not be suited to a particular role that requires such a "talent".

The book goes on to explain that always wanting "well rounded" employees in fact often forces managers to focus on improving individual weaknesses. Instead the authors suggest that one should identify and build upon specific strengths and put people into roles where they may excel. Ignoring strengths and training for weaknesses or treating everyone as if they should progress through the same levels is a path to mediocre performance. (Which is not to say that being a "jack-of-all-trades" is a bad thing - in fact, it's how I often define myself. Learning many different skills and being able to adapt quickly may be an example of one person's particular "talent" and could mean that he/she is better suited to roles that are constantly changing rather than repetitive.)

Despite the catchy title, the point of the book is not to break every "rule". The message is that we must think critically about the roles for which a person may be best suited and consider compensation/promotion/management models that don't push good employees up to their level of incompetence. It's not just about finding the "right fit" but devising personal growth strategies that continue to build upon strengths and refine talents instead of directing the best "doers" into being poor "managers" as the only way to get ahead.