Want to discover the secret sauce that distinguishes great managers from the rest? Ever wondered how they spot talent and channel it into productivity? How do they navigate the complex process of career growth and ensure employees find roles that align with their natural talents? And most importantly, what can you learn from their strategies to unlock the full potential of your team? Dive into this captivating exploration of the unique approach of great managers and the transformative power of focusing on strengths.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

In October 1707, Admiral Clowdisley Shovell miscalculated his fleet’s position in the dense fog off the Scilly Isles, leading to the tragic loss of four warships and 2,000 lives. The root cause? A lack of accurate longitude measurement. Fast forward to today’s business world, and companies face a similar challenge, knowing that attracting and retaining talented employees is crucial but lacking precise ways to measure their effectiveness.

James Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, and Leonard Schlesinger argue that creating a work environment that attracts and keeps talented employees is vital for enduring profits. Managers understand this truth, which is why companies like GE, AlliedSignal, Starbucks, and Eddie Bauer offer perks from stock options to in-chair massages. But do these perks effectively attract and retain the best employees, or do they merely appeal to everyone, including the less productive?

Institutional investors like the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and CalPERS, managing trillions in assets, have started paying closer attention to how companies treat their employees. They recognize that a company’s value lies significantly in its employees, making employee satisfaction a critical metric. However, traditional measures like financial statements and employee retention figures fail to capture this intangible value.

The Gallup Organization embarked on a quest to develop a simple and accurate measuring stick for workplace strength. They analyzed responses from over a million employees, sifting through a mountain of data to identify the core elements of a strong workplace. Through rigorous statistical analysis, Gallup distilled these elements into twelve critical questions that measure the strength of a workplace:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?

5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?

9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

These questions are designed to be discriminative, highlighting differences between the most engaged and productive employees and everyone else. Surprisingly, issues like pay and benefits didn’t make the cut—not because they’re unimportant, but because they matter equally to all employees. 

For instance, at Lankford-Sysco, a food distribution company in Maryland, employees are highly engaged and committed. The company, founded by Stanley E. Lankford Jr. and his sons and later merged with Sysco, excels in growth, sales, and customer satisfaction, boasting low turnover and absenteeism. President Fred Lankford attributes their success to daily practices like recognizing individual achievements and fostering a respectful environment.

In conclusion, while perks and pay matter, the true essence of a strong workplace lies in creating an environment where employees feel valued, recognized, and engaged. By focusing on these twelve questions, companies can build a workplace that not only attracts but also retains top talent.

Can These 12 Questions Truly Determine the Strength of Your Workplace?

Imagine you're a manager, trying to understand what makes a workplace thrive. Gallup set out on this journey in 1998, aiming to find a way to measure strong workplaces that draw in productive employees and repel the unmotivated ones. They crafted a measuring stick with twelve questions, hypothesizing that positive answers would correlate with higher-performing departments.

Gallup's massive investigation involved 24 companies from 12 industries, covering over 2,500 business units and 105,000 employees. They looked at four key business outcomes: productivity, profitability, employee retention, and customer satisfaction. Employees answered the twelve questions on a scale of 1 to 5, where "1" meant strongly disagree and "5" meant strongly agree.

The results were eye-opening. Employees who responded positively to the twelve questions indeed worked in higher-performing units. This was the first concrete evidence linking employee engagement with positive business outcomes across various industries. Moreover, the study revealed that employees' opinions were more influenced by their immediate managers than by the company's overall policies.

The standout discovery? Managers are the linchpin of employee engagement. Pay, perks, and even charismatic corporate leaders took a back seat to the role of the immediate manager. This was illustrated through the story of Sharon F., a bright and ambitious employee who left a media giant because of a poor manager. Despite the company’s efforts to retain her with better pay and a bigger title, they missed addressing the root cause—her relationship with her manager.

Gallup’s study also highlighted stark differences within companies. For example, in one retailer with 300 stores, employee engagement varied dramatically. Store A's employees felt cared for and valued, while Store B's employees did not, despite both stores having the same resources. This variation showed that each store's culture was shaped more by its manager than by the company’s policies.

The study underscored the importance of focusing on foundational needs first. Gallup's metaphor of a mountain climb illustrated this well. Employees need to have their basic needs met at "Base Camp" (knowing what’s expected and having the right tools), before moving up to "Camp 1" (individual recognition and development), "Camp 2" (sense of belonging), and finally "Camp 3" (growth and innovation).

The message is clear: it's better to work for a great manager in an average company than for a poor manager in a great company. If companies want to improve retention and performance, they need to cultivate and support great managers. The journey to a thriving workplace starts with the manager-employee relationship, making it the cornerstone of any successful business strategy.

Managers: Cornerstone of Employee Engagement and Business Success - Insights from Gallup's Study

In the quest to understand what makes a great manager, Gallup took a revolutionary approach. Instead of relying on impressions and personal anecdotes, they embarked on a massive, systematic study, interviewing over 80,000 managers across various fields to uncover the secrets of effective management.

The research revealed an insightful truth: Great managers don't try to change their employees. Instead, they focus on harnessing each individual's unique strengths. This idea is beautifully illustrated by the parable of the scorpion and the frog, where the scorpion stings the frog despite the consequences, simply because it's in its nature. 

Great managers recognize that, like the scorpion, people have intrinsic traits that are hard to change. They don't waste time trying to fix weaknesses but rather draw out and amplify inherent strengths.

This approach, though simple, is profound. It explains why great managers break conventional rules. They don't believe everyone has unlimited potential, and they don't focus on fixing flaws. Instead, they understand that each person is unique and aim to make the most of those unique qualities.

Great managers play a crucial "catalyst" role in an organization. They are the ones who unlock the potential of each employee, transforming talents into performance. This role is vital, especially in times of great change, as it helps companies remain robust and adaptable.

To excel in this catalyst role, managers must master four key activities: selecting a person, setting expectations, motivating the person, and developing the person. Each of these activities is critical and must be performed with a clear understanding of what can and can't be changed in a person. The best managers select for talent, define outcomes rather than steps, focus on strengths, and help employees find the right fit within the organization.

An example of the pitfalls of ignoring this approach is a hospitality company that experimented with self-managed teams. The initiative failed because employees were forced into roles they were not suited for, leading to confusion and poor performance. This story underscores the importance of the manager's role in selecting, motivating, and developing each individual based on their unique strengths.

Can Focusing on Employee Strengths Rather Than Changing Them Be the Secret to Great Management?

Let's explore the first key activity of great managers: Select for Talent. They have a unique talent for spotting talent, which they define as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. 

This broader view of talent means that it isn’t reserved for celebrated figures like Michael Jordan or Maya Angelou; it’s just as crucial for nurses, truck drivers, and teachers. The key is in matching these recurring patterns to the right role.

Conventional wisdom emphasizes experience, intelligence, and willpower when hiring, but great managers prioritize talents like empathy in nurses or assertiveness in salespeople. Consider the Mercury Space Program where seven astronauts, all selected for their experience and intelligence, performed differently. Their unique filters—how they reacted to stimuli—explained these differences. For instance, while Cooper remained calm and slept through orbits, Carpenter's excitement led him to almost run out of fuel.

The 1990s, dubbed the Decade of the Brain, illuminated how our synaptic connections shape our talents. By our early teens, our brains have pruned these connections, creating a unique network of strengths and weaknesses. Neuroscience shows that while we can develop new skills, our core patterns, or talents, are largely set. This is why the best managers focus on honing innate talents rather than trying to instill what was never there.

Great managers understand the importance of selecting for these inherent talents. For instance, in a retail company, store managers with the right talents outperformed others significantly. Similarly, the best truck drivers and customer service reps excel not just due to experience or intelligence, but because their filters naturally align with their roles.

This understanding of talent and how it shapes performance is what sets great managers apart. They know that while training and experience matter, it’s the recurring patterns of behavior—our unique filters—that truly determine excellence in any role.

Unlocking Success: The Art of Spotting and Harnessing Talent by Great Managers

Great managers understand that while they can't rewire someone's brain, they can help people discover and channel their unique talents into productive behavior. They distinguish between skills, knowledge, and talents, knowing that while skills and knowledge can be taught, talents are inherent and must be identified and nurtured.

For instance, Gallup's studies show that a great accountant has a talent for precision, which can't be taught but is crucial for excelling in that role. Similarly, housekeepers with a particular set of talents find joy and strength in their work, which others might see as drudgery.

Talents fall into three categories: striving, thinking, and relating. Striving talents explain why a person is motivated, thinking talents explain how they process information, and relating talents explain how they build relationships. Great managers use these categories to identify the right fit for each role.

Anecdotal evidence from Gallup's research in various industries underscores the importance of matching talent to role. For example, the best nurses use their empathy to ease patients' pain, while great housekeepers create a welcoming environment by paying attention to details that resonate with guests.

To find the right talent, managers must look beyond job descriptions and consider the company's culture and the specific demands of the role. They should study their best performers to identify the talents that contribute to their success.

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA coach, emphasized that while talent is crucial, it needs the right environment to flourish. Great managers are those who can create such an environment, turning potential into performance.

In essence, great managers don't try to change who people are. Instead, they focus on understanding and leveraging their unique talents to achieve outstanding performance.

Can Great Managers Unlock the Secret to Nurturing Inherent Talent?

Gerry C., a superintendent of a large public school district, perfectly encapsulates the manager's challenge: how can you ensure your team performs well when you're not there to oversee every step? This dilemma, faced by all great managers, underscores the importance of the second key activity of great management: setting clear expectations. They understand that they have less control than it seems, and their primary tools are influence, motivation, and setting clear expectations.

Great managers, therefore, focus on defining the right outcomes rather than micromanaging every step. By setting clear performance goals, they align their team's diverse styles, needs, and motivations towards a common objective. This approach harmonizes the manager's belief that people don't change much and that the organization's purpose is performance.

Take Madelaine Hunter's story as an example. She developed a widely embraced seven-step teaching method, initially intended as a guideline. However, her method was later rigidly applied, leading to criticism and lower student achievement scores in some districts. This illustrates how the "one best way" approach can be detrimental. Great managers avoid this by respecting individual styles and focusing on outcomes, not methods.

They understand that trying to make people work in a uniform way often results in resentment and dependency, which are counterproductive. Instead, successful managers harness each individual's unique talents and guide them towards the desired outcomes.

Consider also the temptation to mistrust employees or to believe that certain roles don't require talent. Managers who fall into these traps become overly controlling, which stifles creativity and demotivates employees. Trust and careful talent selection are crucial for fostering a productive environment.

Defining outcomes, even for intangible goals like customer satisfaction and employee morale, is essential. For instance, Gallup's research highlights how emotional outcomes, such as feeling cared for by a supervisor, drive workplace strength. Companies should focus on these outcomes rather than rigid competencies.

Great managers also know when to rely on required steps, particularly for accuracy and safety, but they ensure these steps don't overshadow the ultimate goal. For instance, an airline focused on on-time departures rather than customer satisfaction is a case in point. Steps should support, not hinder, the desired outcomes.

In the quest for customer satisfaction, Gallup found that customers have hierarchical expectations: accuracy, availability, partnership, and advice. The first two prevent dissatisfaction, while the latter two create advocates. Employees must be empowered to meet these higher-level expectations through their unique talents.

Finally, defining the right outcomes involves considering what's best for the customer, the company, and the individual. Companies must align their strategies with customer expectations and adapt to changing business climates. Tailoring outcomes to individual strengths, as demonstrated by Dennis Rodman's incentive-laden contract with the Chicago Bulls, can lead to exceptional performance.

In summary, great managers focus on defining and measuring the right outcomes, trust their employees, and respect their individuality. They balance necessary steps with the flexibility to achieve these outcomes, fostering a motivated and productive team.

Mastering Management: The Art of Defining Outcomes and Harnessing Individuality

Great managers have a unique approach: they focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. This highlights the third key attribute of great managers: motivating the person. This approach is driven by the understanding that every individual is different, with unique talents and behaviors. Instead of trying to fix weaknesses, great managers help individuals cultivate their strengths, allowing them to become more of who they already are.

Consider Peter L., who runs a capital equipment rental company. He has two exceptional managers: one excels at sales through networking, while the other is an extraordinary asset manager who runs the most efficient workshop. Both are successful because they are allowed to play to their strengths.

Similarly, Guy H., a school superintendent, manages two exemplary principals. One is a reflective practitioner who stays current with educational theory, while the other operates on instinct and passion for teaching. Both are effective because they utilize their unique talents.

Great managers see their employees as unique characters in a novel, each with distinct strengths and weaknesses. They focus on understanding what drives each person and how they can best support them. This approach is not about generalizing but about recognizing individuality and leveraging it for performance.

Conventional wisdom often tells us to fix our weaknesses, but great managers reject this notion. They believe that focusing on nontalents is a waste of time and persistence. Instead, they focus on identifying and cultivating strengths, leading to more satisfying and productive relationships.

Casting is crucial for great managers. They know that everyone has talents, but those talents need to be in the right role to shine. For instance, someone who might struggle in a strategic role can thrive in business development once they are repositioned to use their natural strengths in building relationships.

The best managers reject the Golden Rule of treating people as they would like to be treated. Instead, they treat each person as they would like to be treated, based on their individual needs and preferences. They gather information about their employees' goals, preferences for recognition, and learning styles, using it to create a more focused and supportive environment.

Can Focusing on Strengths Rather Than Weaknesses Make You a Great Manager?

Ever wondered why great managers seem to play favorites? It's not about bias but strategic investment. Imagine listing your team by productivity on one side and the time you spend with each person on the other. Do your lines crisscross? 

Most managers spend more time with their least productive people, thinking they need the most help. However, top managers flip this script. They spend the most time with their best performers. 

Why? Because they see their role not as controllers or instructors but as catalysts, turning talent into performance. Their focus is on setting unique expectations and perfecting individual styles. Take Robert T., a branch manager at a brokerage house, who says, “My brokers don’t work for me. I work for them.” By helping his top performers clear administrative hurdles, he ensures their talents shine.

Ignoring your best can be destructive. "No news is good news" doesn't work here. Attention is a human need, and if your stars aren't getting it, they might alter their behavior negatively to get noticed. A lack of attention kills the productive behaviors you want to multiply.

Great managers also see fairness differently. It's not about treating everyone the same but as they deserve based on their performance. Jimmy Johnson, coach of the Dallas Cowboys, put it bluntly: better performers get more leeway. This approach ensures that your top talents feel valued and motivated.

Spending time with your best also offers a learning opportunity. Observing excellence firsthand gives you insights that studying failures never will. For instance, Gallup found that great nurses thrive on seeing patient responses. Yet, a healthcare provider ignored this, leading to demoralized nurses and unsatisfied patients. Companies like Disney and GE have long understood this; they study their own top performers to decode excellence.

Even when managing around weaknesses, great managers focus on strengths. They might set up support systems, like buying a second phone line for a salesperson struggling with work-life balance. Or they might pair employees with complementary partners to balance out each other's weaknesses.

When all else fails, sometimes the best move is to find an alternative role for an employee. If you spend most of your time managing around someone's weaknesses, it's a casting error that needs correcting.

In essence, investing time in your top performers fosters a culture of excellence, fairness, and continuous learning. It's not just productive—it's transformative. So go ahead, rehire your best people, tell them why they are great, and watch them soar.

Reversing the Script: The Power of Investing in Top Performers for Transformative Management

The challenge every manager faces is an ambitious employee wanting to climb the career ladder, seeking more money, prestige, and responsibility. The manager's task isn't just to push for promotions but to help employees find roles that align with their natural talents, emphasizing the fourth key attribute of great managers: developing the person.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, which suggests a linear upward career path, great managers know that not every rung leads to the next. For instance, an exceptional salesperson might not make a great manager. Talents required for different roles can vastly differ, and promoting someone out of their strength zone can lead to failure.

Consider Marc, a brilliant foreign correspondent whose career faltered when he was promoted to a Washington bureau chief. His talent for contextualizing real-life drama didn't translate to spicing up political stories. His success in one role didn't guarantee success in another, leading to his ultimate removal.

Great managers advocate creating heroes in every role, recognizing excellence at all levels. This isn't about making everyone climb the ladder but about finding fulfillment and success within one's strengths. Companies can support this by defining levels of achievement within roles, offering broadbanded pay plans, and ensuring that the top performance in any role can be as rewarding as managerial positions.

Managers need to provide constant, constructive feedback, helping employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement. This means holding up a mirror, encouraging self-discovery, and guiding employees towards roles where they can excel. It's about knowing your people deeply, caring about their personal and professional lives, and creating a safety net for career missteps.

Tough love is crucial. It means confronting poor performance early, not compromising on excellence, and understanding that consistent underperformance is often a sign of miscasting rather than a personal failing. Great managers use this understanding to help employees find the right fit, maintaining high performance standards while genuinely caring for their team's success.

Ultimately, a manager's role is to help each person find their unique path to excellence, whether that means staying in their current role, moving laterally, or climbing the ladder. It's about making heroes in every role and ensuring that every step an employee takes is a step towards their strengths and long-term satisfaction.

Are You Helping Your Employees Find Their Unique Path to Excellence?

Every great manager has their own unique style, but they all aim to turn each employee’s talent into performance. They achieve this through four essential keys: selecting for talent, defining the right outcomes, focusing on strengths, and finding the right fit. These keys aren't steps but perspectives to help managers leverage their style effectively.

When interviewing for talent, the process should be distinct from other recruiting tasks. Focus on discovering whether the candidate’s recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior align with the job. Ask open-ended questions and listen carefully to their spontaneous responses. Trust these answers as they are highly predictive of future behaviors. Look for specific past behaviors as indicators of how they might perform in the future. Rapid learning and personal satisfactions are also strong clues to a candidate’s talent.

Great managers turn the last three keys daily through a structured performance management routine:

1. Simple Routine: Avoid complex appraisal schemes. Keep the format simple to focus on meaningful conversations.
2. Frequent Interaction: Meet at least quarterly to discuss performance and goals. Frequent meetings allow for vivid, productive discussions about specific successes and challenges.
3. Future Focus: Use past performance reviews to plan future goals and strategies. Focus on what the employee can achieve next.
4. Self-Tracking: Encourage employees to keep track of their own performance and learnings. This fosters accountability and self-discovery.

This routine helps managers stay attuned to each employee’s progress and needs, fostering a shared commitment to their success.

Effective career discussions with employees involve understanding their current performance, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and envisioning their ideal roles. Managers should facilitate these conversations with targeted questions, helping employees gain clarity about their talents and future paths.

Great managers expect employees to take responsibility for their development. They should reflect on their experiences, build on their strengths, and seek out productive relationships. If an employee works for a less effective manager, they can take proactive steps to manage the relationship, such as scheduling performance meetings or discussing preferred outcomes and praise methods.

Companies play a crucial role in creating an environment conducive to great management. They should focus on defining outcomes, valuing world-class performance in every role, studying their best employees, and teaching the language of great managers. By aligning policies and practices with these principles, companies can support managers in turning talent into performance, ultimately driving employee excellence and company growth.

In this evolving corporate landscape, the convergence of employees' search for identity and companies' search for value is reshaping organizational models. Managers are at the forefront of this change, acting as catalysts to unleash human nature’s unique power. By focusing on drawing out inherent strengths rather than fixing weaknesses, managers can create a dynamic and thriving workplace.

Unlocking Employee Excellence: The Four Essential Keys to Effective Management

Reflecting on the essence of creating a thriving workplace, it’s clear that the foundation lies in cultivating an environment where employees feel valued and recognized. Great managers understand the importance of focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, recognizing each individual's unique talents and fostering those qualities. This approach not only enhances job satisfaction but also drives productivity and retention.

The role of the immediate manager is paramount, more critical than perks and pay. Effective managers act as catalysts, unlocking each employee’s potential by setting clear expectations, offering meaningful recognition, and encouraging development. They are adept at selecting for talent, emphasizing the importance of recurring patterns of behavior that align with the job rather than just experience or intelligence.

Performance management is an ongoing, interactive process that prioritizes frequent, future-focused conversations. Great managers master the art of interviewing for talent, using open-ended questions to uncover genuine strengths and motivations. They also ensure that employees are in roles where their talents can shine, sometimes redefining career paths to fit individual strengths better.

In organizations, it’s essential to create prestige in every role and use systems like broadbanding to reward excellence without forcing traditional upward mobility. This strategy helps avoid the pitfalls of the Peter Principle, where individuals are promoted beyond their level of competence.

Ultimately, the goal is to build a workplace where employees are engaged and motivated, driven by managers who understand the profound impact of focusing on strengths, defining clear outcomes, and fostering a supportive environment. This not only benefits the individuals but also leads to higher productivity and success for the organization as a whole.

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