“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.”
Good Morning Folks,
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.
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.
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. 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.
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 to motivate people – by building on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix weaknesses; and, finally, how great managers develop people -- they find the right fit for each person who don’t spend their days wondering why things went wrong, but how to find positive elements of the day. Like I tell our employees, “avoid the B.S. and drama, and focus what will make you happy.”
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.
The essence of the findings lie in the 4 Keys of great managers and the 12 Questions that give organizations the information they need to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.
The 4 Keys of Great Managers:
1. Select for Talent -
The authors define talent as "recurring patterns of behavior" and state that great managers find the match between talents and roles.
2. Define the Right Outcomes -
Managers needs to turn talent into performance. This can be done by defining the right outcomes and letting people find their own route toward the outcomes.
3. Focus on Strengths -
Managers need to concentrate on strengths and not on weaknesses.
4. Find the Right Fit -
Managers need to assign roles to employees that give the employees the greatest chance of success.
I give this book five stars because it’s consistent with my “Happiness-Centric” perspective. I call it hiring for “the twinkle in their eye, a skip in their step, the fire in their belly.” Any manager can train off the company manual, but you cannot train for the right attitude, one where an employee means it when he says, “How are you doing today?”
Our mantra at FSO is to always improve the customer’s business – no matter what; always take care of people, through better incentives, training and career pathing; and always save the customer money. For FSO itself, our model isn’t about profits; it’s about results.
Have a GREAT Day,
Love Life!
Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer
