First, Break all the Rules

So, firstly, I'm immensely upset with myself. I usually jot down key messages & thoughts when reading a book like this. After reviewing 6 years of back-ups, I've remembered that I had always planned to write those notes for this book, but never did. Therefore, I'm going to re-read this book and do those notes. :-)

I do remember two great take-aways that stayed with me:
"What great managers know" really resonated with me, as I had struggled in my early career with some, um, 'average' managers.

To quote: "great managers know that each individual is true to their unique nature. They recognise that each person is motivated differently, that each person has their own way of thinking and their own style of relating to others. They know that there is a limit to how much remolding they can do to someone. But they don't bemoan these differences and try to grind them down. Instead they capitalize on them. Then try to help each person become more and more or who they already are."

Simply put, great managers do not waste their time trying to change people.

Additionally, I find as a manager, I'm naturally drawn to spending my time with the best sales people - after all, how much leverage will you get with a great sales person versus an average one? Clearly, if you have poor performers you need to spend your time with them to either find their grove or to find them a new one, but you'll get better leverage from your time with the A-team.

A good tool you can use as a manager is the Gallup Q12 framework. Gallup identified 12 questions that measure employee engagement and link directly to critical performance outcomes, including productivity, employee retention, customer retention, safety, and profitability. These questions are now known as the Gallup Q12.

In fact, closer to my work, there was a good Crystal Xcelsius dashboard for the Q12, but in the upgrade to Xcelsius 2008 (which leverages Adobe Flex and LiveCycle Data Services ES), this seems to have disappeared. If anyone knows what happened to this, I'd love to know.


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posted by Lee Gale @ 3:09 PM,

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