Ready, Steady, Manage: Book Review: The One Thing You Need To Know by Marcus Buckingham

285 pages to tell me the 'one' thing I need to know? Obviously Marcus plans to tell me a little more than one thing. But the basic message behind this book seems to be "there are a few things good managers/leaders do, which prevent them from failing. But there is One thing that the best do, to succeed." So how well do these principles get explained?

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The basic structure of the book examines the 'one' thing you need to know about:

Great Managing
Great Leading
Sustained Individual Success

Marcus differentiates between managers and leaders by classifying the managers as starting with the individual employee - looking at their particular, skills, knowledge, experience and goals and designing a specific future in which that employee can achieve success. The success of the employee remains the focus.

The leader starts with a vision of the future - persuading other people that they can achieve success in that future. The future remains the focus.

Manager/Leaders who adopt both roles have to switch between modes.

Great Managing

In order to 'not fail' as a manager, Marcus recommends the following actions:

Hire the best people
Define Clear Expectations
Provide praise and recognition
Care for your people

Advice on hiring: know what talents you seek, ask open ended questions and look for specific examples in the answers.

"the best predictor of future behaviour is frequent past behaviour"

The manager has to constantly filter the pressures and priorities from above to create a clear short-term focus with a clear (measurable) picture of success. The manager continually clarifies that expectation in every meeting and contact.

"What do you think you get paid to do?"

Carefully manage the consequences of behaviour through praise and recognition. The comments on the behaviour get describes as: certain, immediate and positive.

So that ends the presentation of those skills required to not fail - but the one thing to know to succeed reads:

"Discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it."

Instead of trying to transform the person - tweak the world so that their unique strengths can "be given free rein". The examples which follow then illustrate this point.

Build the employees assurance in their strengths
Praise them for the unique strengths they brought to achieving success.
Resolve weaknesses by: training and knowledge, or find a partner for them, or provide them with a 'trick' or technique, or change the environment so the weakness cannot manifest

Great Leading

Leaders succeed when they have extended empathy and can project that they feel what the employees feel. They tap into the generic and

"Discover what is universal and capitalize on it"

Marcus suggests a universal fear to focus on. "Fear of the Future" which manifests as a "Need for Clarity".

Clarity around knowing: who to serve, the core strength, what one 'score' to measure, and what actions to take.

Know who you need to serve and encourage the employees to devise novel and new ways of serving them.

"get your strength together and make your weaknesses irrelevant"

The leader needs to answer with clarity:

why will we prevail in this future you foresee?
why will we beat our competitors?
why will we overcome our obstacles (where others might fail)?
what edge do we have?

The 'One Score' notion recommends that the leader finds one score which will provide clarity into measuring or tracking the ultimate goal. The Q12 survey also receives a reference.

Take action - both systematic (towards a goal, disrupts the routine and forces change) and symbolic (distracts, representative of change happening).

And how does the Leader do this?

Take time to reflect
Select your "Heroes" and examples with care
Practise your descriptions of the future.

Sustained Individual Success

Marcus identifies the basic secret for a career of sustained individual success as

"Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it"

Ask yourself "What % of your day do you spend doing the things you like to do?"

If the answer comes in below 70% then take action to remove those other activities.

Conclusions

Apparently there a "strengths" movement exists. And this book forms part of that movement where you achieve success by focusing on and harnessing your strengths. I can easily see how that seems very attractive and if you can get to the point where you do constantly use and work with your strengths how much more empowered your work environment could become.

Unlike many management books this one has no 'fiction'. All the examples come from 'real' experiences.

I found a lot to like in this book and although some of the advice has come too late for me to use when I could have used it most - I plan to remember and use the items that I have pulled out above from now on.

Recommended.

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