Marcus Buckingham

I recently heard author Marcus Buckingham give a talk on successful managers. Here is a summary of some of the important things he said.

There are two primary differences that stand out in great teams. The first difference is they have a great boss.

Organizations do not have one culture; they have as many cultures as they have bosses. At a macro level the culture of one organization may be different than others, but in terms of the day-to-day experience of the people who work there, the culture is hugely different based on the boss.

People join organizations for different reasons, but how long they stay there and how productive they are during that time depends on the person they directly report to. People join organizations, and then physically or psychologically they quit their boss.

The second difference is these bosses have the same approach at getting the best out of people. Here are some of their characteristics.

• Great managers are catalysts; they speed up the reaction between the talent of the person and the goals of the team.

• Great managers focus on their people’s talent because they have an ability to see incremental growth in their employees.

• Great managers find out what is unique about each person and they capitalize on it.

• Great managers work on people strengths and help them manage their weaknesses; average managers maintain a person’s strength and work on their weaknesses.