SST^® Newsletter

Breaking the Rules of Management

Much management literature is gimmicky, based on one guy’s opinion, or written by a winning coach appealing to a prominent male fantasy that winning at work is just like winning on the field. First Break All the Rules is not about gimmicks, is anchored in tons of data and is written by two researchers from the Gallup Organization, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Buckingham was the leader of a twenty-five year Gallup Organization study that sought to identify the common practices of effective managers. The Four Keys to effective management that summarize their work are derived from surveys of millions of workers. They complemented their research on the workplace with a follow-up study with eighty thousand managers representing a cross-section of industries and sizes.

The title is not only catchy, it also speaks to the central message of the book: the conventional rules of management don’t work. For example, Buckingham and Coffman found that great managers don’t focus on helping staff overcome weaknesses. Instead, they focus on strengths. Even more heretical, they don’t follow the Golden Rule. Instead, they lead people the way they like to be led.

The Four Keys are:

1. Select talent
2. Define the right outcomes
3. Focus on strengths
4. Find the right fit

Select Talent

On the face of it, selecting talent doesn’t sound like a rule breaking concept. It is Buckingham and Coffman’s definition of talent where the envelope gets pushed. In hiring, conventional wisdom emphasizes “experience”, “academic performance” and “motivation”. The research supporting First Break All the Rules found that great mangers always put “talent” over “experience”, “academic performance” and “motivation”.

They go on to offer this simple yet elegant definition of talent:

“Talent is any recurring patterns of behavior that can be productively applied.”

Now, what’s significant about this definition is that it’s different than the common association we make with the word talent. Typically, we associate “talent” with athletes and celebrities. We think of Tiger Woods as a talented golfer, Meryl Streep as a talented actress and George Benson as a talented jazz guitarist.

As managers of profit driven businesses, we need to identify those behaviors that need to be demonstrated on a recurring basis for profitability. Buckingham and Coffman take the definition down to ground level where every job is characterized by distinctive “talents”.

Talents are different than skills because they are accidents of birth. They cannot be learned any more than a basketball player can learn to be taller. Skills on the other hand can be learned. With enough practice anyone can lean basketball skills like shooting and dribbling.

The take-away from First Break All the Rules, is that “talent” is one of the keys to effective leadership. Further, every position has patterns of behaviors that need to recur for profitability. Key number one from First Break All the Rules is to determine what those behaviors are then choose people who have the “talent” to do them.

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden put it this way:

“Although not every coach can win consistently with talent, no coach can win without it.”

Define the Right Outcomes

Like “Choose Talent”, “Define the Right Outcomes” seems straightforward and even consistent with conventional rules. Yet, when we at PfP (Harry Koolen and Arnie Tilden) conduct Exemplary Performer research we often find people who are unclear on what is expected of them. Further to the point, it is not unusual to find a sizable gap between management’s expectations and what the staff will indicate they think management expects of them.

Not surprisingly, our experience in doing Exemplary Performer analyses parallels what Buckingham and Coffman found in their mammoth study. It is key number two:

“Effective mangers define the right outcomes and then let each person employ his or her own style in reaching them.”

This is another way of saying that sales leaders need to lay out a common selling method that identifies each important milestone along the way to the win. However, leaders need to recognize that styles vary by individual and an effective performer may reach a milestone in a way different from the manger’s own.

Some sales people like to send a carefully crafted letter and follow it with a call when prospecting for new business. Others just like to pick up the phone and call. Still others like to call for an appointment when they know they will be visiting the city or region of a key prospect.

The takeaway is that the right outcome is getting in front of the right prospects in an efficient manner. Whether it is accomplished by letter, phone or personal visit is a matter of personal style and that does not matter.

Focus on Strengths

Key three is management practice heresy. Common practice is to latch onto data, perhaps gathered by the in vogue 360 process, to isolate the low scores and to embark on a course of improving weaknesses. Months later the worker is evaluated and rewarded on the progress he or she has made in overcoming weaknesses. Sound familiar? We see it every day.

Here’s what Buckingham and Coffman found in their research with effective managers: they don’t buy it. Rather, effective mangers acknowledge that, fundamentally, people don’t change. What you see is basically what you are going to get. If you see strengths capitalize on them. Everyone has weaknesses. If they are not too severe, manage around them. If you can’t, make a change because what you see is what you are going to have. Fundamentally, people don’t change.

Bitter sounding? We thought so on the first read. Then, reflecting back on the reclamation projects we have led as managers, after focusing on weaknesses and investing time and resources to change people, we always wound up with what we had. Along the way, we weren’t capitalizing on strengths and were less effective than we should have been.

If you are still managing by focusing on weaknesses, you are certainly not alone. Most managers still seek out the weak points and invest resources to change them. Buckingham and Coffman, not only assert, but they back it up with solid and extensive research, that this conventional and common approach is not a management best practice.

Instead, choose talent, set clear expectations and focus on strengths. Manage around weaknesses.

Key number three: Focus on strengths and manage around weaknesses.

Find the Right Fit

Key number four flows from the first three. Once we have selected talent, defined outcomes and leveraged strengths, we need to continue to help those we lead to find the right fit. For some, that means doing more of what they are doing and finding rewards to maintain people in their current roles. Not every high performing banker is cut out to be a sales person. Yet, some are.

Our ongoing role as leaders is to help people find the right fit, and once they are in it, to find ways to reward them. Law and higher education, two fields that are rarely cutting edge at anything, seem to have this right. In both fields people are encouraged to do what they are good at while being recognized with successive titles that hold increasing levels of prestige and financial reward.

But, good lawyers who become senior partners still practice law. Similarly, good college professors who become full professors, still teach.

If you have someone who is in a good fit role, help them see it and do all you can to reward them both extrinsically (money) and intrinsically (recognition). Avoid the common mistake of helping a star sales person become a mediocre manager.

Of course, there is the flip side of sustaining a good fit and that has to do with managing a bad one. Any seasoned manger will tell you that bad fits are something they face. They will also acknowledge that they are among their hardest challenges.

The wisdom from First Break All the Rules is to manage both the good and bad fit team member from the same perspective. Help the good fit stay and help the bad fit move to a good one.

It is easier said then done. But, First Break All the Rules, and the research behind it, should help provide the confidence that you are doing the right thing when you help a person in a bad fit find a good one.

The following matrix is a tool based on the principles of First Break All the Rules to help you determine how to manage your team.

Talents X Skills Matrix

Yes

Teach

Find a

better fit

No

Yes

No

Skills can be learned. In a sport like basketball, skills would include shooting and dribbling because just about anyone can learn to do them. In selling, skills include product knowledge, recognizing buyer modes and decision influences, asking good questions and customizing presentations.

Talents, on the other hand, are accidents of birth. By definition, you can’t learn a talent. In basketball, talents include speed, vertical leap and height. You cannot learn to be tall.

Using the definitions of Talents and Skills developed above, plot your team in the four quadrants. Due to the sensitive nature of this exercise please use code names for your team members that will ensure their anonymity.

Find a Better Fit (Low Talents/ Low Skills)

The lesson from First Break All the Rules is that you are not doing anyone a favor by retaining team members who lack both skills and talents. The right management solution is to help people in this quadrant find a position that is a better fit.

Loyal Soldiers (Low Talents/ High Skills)

This is the most challenging quadrant to manage. It is likely populated by hard working Loyal Soldiers. Often, they have been around for a long time and are well liked.

Fundamentally, there are two options in this quadrant: 1.) Accept moderate performance which is the best they can offer, or 2.) Guide them into a position which is a better fit.

Teach (High Talents/ Low Skills)

For team members who have native talents but lack the skills requisite to perform, the First Break All the Rules management prescription is to teach them the skills. This is a mix of training and coaching.

Leverage (High Talents/ High Skills)

The team members who fall in this quadrant are the true stars of our teams. The management trap we want to avoid is ignoring them while we focus on team members who lack the talents they will never learn. Instead, we should lavish our highly talented and highly skilled team members with resources and leverage their performance. If they have a weakness or two, rather than harping on it, manage around it and allow them to do what they do best: sell.