Book Review

Team 5
EMP 5330 E

Marcus
Buckingham

Anand Raaj Krishnamoorthy

Gokul Chander Bakthavatsalu

Prem Jawahar Pitchiah

3
4
51S

Sunil Kumar Purushothaman

Syed Arshad Viquar

Curt Coffman

Agenda
Introduction
Book Summary and Critique
Employees Expectation
Managers Role
Great Managers Way

Implications to the Management for Human

Resource
Recommendations to current Managers
Q&A

Introduction
This book is the outcome of the research by Gallup organization which
took them almost 25 years to conclude the research work

Employees- Gallup surveyed

over 1 million employees of
different organizations to
identify what they expect
from their work place.

Managers- Gallup surveyed

over 80000 managers and
observed their best practices

Organization- Gallup surveyed many

companies to identify how their managers
retain their skilled workplace. Organizations
performance, customer satisfaction, attrition
rate are taken into account for this research.

Fact: The book

appeared on theNew
York Timesbestseller
list for 93 weeks

12 Questions-Mountain
Climbing
How can we all
grow?

Do I belong
here?

What do I
give?
What do I get?

12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and

grow?
11. In the last six months, have I talked with someone
about my progress?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?

9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

8. Does the purpose of my company make me feel like
my work is important?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my
development?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care
about me as a person?
4. In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise
forAt
good
work?
3.
work,
do I have the opportunity to do what I do best

every
2. Do Iday?
have the materials & equipment I need to do my
work right?
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
4

4 Keys of Great Managers

Select the
Person

Select for TALENT

Not simply experience, intelligence or
determination

Set
Expectations

Define the right OUTCOMES

Not the right steps

Motivate the
Person

Focus on STRENGTHS
Not on weaknesses

Develop the

great manager is a CatalystPerson

ility to do four key activities well

Find the RIGHT FIT

Not simply the next rung on the ladder

Select the Right Talent

There are 3 Basic Categories of
Talent
1. Striving the WHY of a
person

2. Thinking the HOW of a

person

3. Relating the WHO of a

person

How managers find great talent

Know what talents they are
looking for

Study their best people

What Great Managers Know

People dont change that much. Should not waste time trying to put in what can be
left out. Try to draw out what was left in.

Define the right outcomes

What is
right for
your
customers?

Define the right outcomes and then let

each person find his own route toward
those outcomes
Forcing employees to follow required
steps only prevents customer
dissatisfaction

While
Selecting
Outcome
s
What is right
for
the
individual?

What is
right for
your
company?

If goal is truly to satisfy the customers

and make them your advocates,
Managers must select employees who
have the talent to listen and to teach. The
manager must then focus them towards
simple emotional outcomes like
partnership and advice.
7

Focus on strengths
Focus on each persons
strength and manage
around his weaknesses
Dont try to fix the
weaknesses.

Dont try to perfect each

person.
Do everything you can to
help each person cultivate
his talents.
Help each person become
more of who he already is.

Great managers try to understand

each individuals needs, preferences,
passion and collect all information to
completely understand the individual,
recognize their strength and
weakness and assist them
accordingly.
The great managers spend more time
with their best performers as it is
extremely productive and also fair to
spend time with the top performers
Casting-They have different set of
expectations for each individual,
accommodate them in a profile that
suits them more and assist them in
achieving the agreed outcomes.

Managing Weakness

et

er
pe
is rf po mi
tr orm or ne
ai
if
na an
bl c e
e

Determine if poor
performance is not
due to you as
manager tripping
the wrong
trigger!!

Identification of
Weakness

D
et

e
w
ea it rm
no kn s in
n- es a e i
f
ta s
le or
nt a

c
o
m
p
l
e
m
e
n
t
a
r
y

s
support systemk Devise
Find ana alternative
rolei around an individuals weakness and
Managing
This is used
as a last resort where neither the
l more on their strength by providing
focussing
support system nor the complementary
l
the required
training
partnerassistance/support
option can help thelike
individual
s
overcome his non talent and weakness.
e
t
a
n
d
t
a

10

Ensure Fit while Promoting

Employees
One rung
rung does
does not
not
Conventional way of
One
Management
necessarily lead
lead to
to
necessarily
another.
another.
Most employees are promoted
The conventional
to their level of incompetence
career path is
condemned to create
Managers usually promote
competitiontake
and time toemployees
managers
weighbased
theon span and
conflict
experience rather than
Conventional
wisdom

But great
fit between the
Demands of the role
relatingand
talentsthe
needed to
programmes
excel in the role.
Talent
of to
the
employees
huntperson
for
marketable skills and
experience to climb to
the next rung. This
thinking is often flawed.

Since each person is highly

complex, Managers still end
up promoting someone into a
position where he struggles.
No manager finds the perfect
fit every time.
11

Great Managers Way

Simplicity

Great managers dont use complicated appraisal systems.

Instead, they concentrate on what to tell each employee and
how to tell them.

Frequent
interaction

Great managers frequently interact with each worker, not just

once a year at review time. One clear advantage to frequent
feedback is that poor performance can be corrected earlier
rather than be left for a bombshell discussion at annual
review time.

Focus on
the future

All reviews should focus on the future. Great managers ask

workers to identify where they want to go and how they are
going to go about getting there.

Selftracking

Great managers also ask workers to track their own

performance and write down successes, goals and discoveries
throughout the review period.
12

Is it all easy?!?!?
In real time world there are some practical difficulties in implementing
the ideas explained in book,
In todays globalised world, managers and employees are not always co-located.
They work from different parts of the world and hence meet only a couple of
times in a year. So it is hard for a manager to completely understand his
employees.
Skills and knowledge can be easily identified in the interview sessions whereas
it is not easy to identify the required talent during the interview process.
Identifying talent based on strength and weakness needs lot of time and
frequent interaction. Also, a candidate can project himself to possess the
required talents, skills and knowledge during an interview process whereas he
might not genuinely possess them.

13

Implications to the Management of Human

Resources
Best performers should be managed well. Best employees dont leave
because of the company. They leave due to their immediate managers. The
company that lacks excellent managers will bleed talent. Research shows that
the length of time an employee stays and how productive he is depends on
his immediate supervisor or manager.
Poor performance should be confronted head-on if it is not to degenerate to
dangerously unproductive situation. Not doing so will demotivate the talented
performers to excel. Motivation also depends on what happens to other
people. If poor performers and best performers are treated the same, then it
would demotivate the best performers.
Great managers define the right outcomes (goals) and then let each person
find his own route toward those outcomes (goals). Assigning employees
specific and difficult goals will result in higher levels of performance. Also,
Great managers act as moderators, provides feedback and updates on
employee progress toward goal attainment.

Herzbergs
Motivation
Hygiene
Theory

Equity
theory

Goal
setting
theory
Needs
theory &
Expectancy
theory
14

Recommendations for Current Manage

Great Managers need to BALANCE the competing interests of the
company, the customers, the employees and their own.
Become Great managers by
Developing the unique attributes of each employee.
Prioritizing talent over skills and knowledge.
Increasing employees performance.
Emphasizing fit over experience and longevity.
Creating graded levels of achievement and rewarding them suitably.
Spending quality time with the best performers and fulfilling their needs
Running strong work places

It might be a struggle but Great managers make it seem all

SIMPLE.

15

Q&A

16

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