Customer Reviews

First, Break All The Rules: What The Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently

5 star:		(123)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

This book appears to be written by a couple young guys who are very well educated but not so well experienced in management. Right up front (p. 11) they support the title of their book by stating great managers "consistently disregard the golden rule" (do onto others as you would like others to do onto you). That is nonsense and that is exactly what got the executives of Enron and numerous other corporations in BIG trouble.

This book was written in 1999 at the height of the deception going on by executives at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco International and multiple others before their inflated bubble burst. Leadership authors and speakers like these do a great disservice to those who earnestly want to learn how to succeed in business and those who want to trust the corporations they invest in.

This book of course isn't focused on how to break rules and has some good leadership tips. But so do a lot of good leadership books.

I didn't care for the cases the authors made. Maybe it's because I jumped into it right after "Good to Great" from Collins. I mean who can stand next to Jim Collins right? This book seemed amateurish and made poor cases in comparison. Although not exactly the same topic, I was overall not impressed with the fact or hard examples and specifics that were sprinkled here and there.

It's like listening to a Sermon without any biblical context. Ha ha... I think that describes it well.

I began reading this book with an open mind. I am an HR VP with over 20 years of experience at Fortune 500 organizations. This book tries to be iconoclastic and innovative for line management, however, any good manager should see through its marketing and catchy title. This book is based on the "strengths" concept which has no empirical data other than that done by those on the Gallup payroll.

I strongly recommend sticking with more trusted and proven business advice from better publishers and authors with degrees in the field in which they are writing about.

Overall, "Break all the rules" is a decent book. While I have believed that it is okay to follow what works, I also believe in independant "maverick" type thinking as well. In some ways, "Break all the rules" reminds me of the popular self help book, "Your Erroneus Zones." With business people that I consult with, I see a lot of "erroneus" beliefs being practiced only because it is the popular way to doing things.In another regard, I disagree with the authors in feeling that "anybody can't do anything." As a manager and business owner, I have always pushed my people to push beyond their limits and continue ongoing training.Another book that I recommend is Customers come Second, Employees comes first.

There are a few good common sense ideas in this book. For example: 1.It's hard to change people; 2. Make the most of an employee's talents instead of trying to fix their weaknesses; 3. Don't micro-manage; 4. A good way of doing something is not simply the opposite of a bad way. The authors then contend that these ideas go against conventional wisdom. I don't know what conventional wisdom they are talking about since it agrees with most of mine. But then again I went to an engineering school, not a business school. After presenting these ideas there is not much else in the book except a series of disconnected management anecdotes. Curiously most of these anecdotes are examples of bad management. This is in direct contradiction to idea 4 above, which the authors spent several pages discussing. I think the first example of good management was about halfway through the book when they started to talk about Southwest Airlines. (Actually if someone wants to write a good management book, do a case study on Southwest Airlines.) Also most of the examples deal with restaraunts, hotels, and banks with almost none from a high tech or software business. Finally I think (and this is conventional wisdom again) a good manager must be able to 1.Prioritize; 2.Organize. The authors say nothing of these abilities and obviously know little about them.

This book has its pros and cons. The cons, unfortunately, outweigh the pros. On the positive side, the Gallup data that Buckingham and Coffman present are intriguing. It is interesting that high-performing business units can be distinguished from those that perform poorly based on employees' responses to certain questions. But the responses of the employees or, more appropriately, their opinions, are not the reason for the good performance. Recognizing this, the authors appropriately move on to describe the management style that makes for good business performance. This, however, is where the book breaks down into an obtuse, vague, and unrealistic personality theory that is justified (as if to impress) with a reference to a study of exorbitant sample size (as if the sample size is what makes for a quality study ... Gallup folks should know better than that). Besides a few reasonable points, the message is essentially that managers should look for "striving", "thinking" or "relating" talents of various kinds (e.g., "relating individualized perception talent") and make sure people who posses those talents are cast in jobs that require such talents. As with most theories of personality, such speculations are of little value and are exceedingly impractical. Assuming for a second that these personality traits do exist, how does that help? First, how do we identify employee's personality traits? The authors pay lip service to this issue (at best, see for example p. 218 and 219), but with the loosely defined personality traits that they invented, how could a tool for identifying those traits be expected. Second, how do we know which jobs require which personality traits? The answers, after reading this book, are not immediately clear. Worse yet, there probably aren't any answers to those questions. Personality theories are not useful tools... especially not for managers. What is clear, however, is that in writing this book the authors extrapolated well beyond the tremendous amounts of data they had. It is commendable that someone is doing research on the ingredients of effective management and that there is some willingness to present those data. The data are of interest. The theory presented in this book, supposedly based on the data, is not.

The title of the book is a misnomer. If you purchase the book expecting to encounter an unconventional and original theory of management, you will be sadly disappointed. What you will find is a book full of cleverly presented platitudes.

For example, the authors really hammer home the point, 'Don't try to draw in what's been left out. Instead you should draw out what's been left in.' The authors explain that each person has his or her own unique talents. Instead of wasting energy getting people to overcome their weaknesses, great managers learn to get the most out the talents their employees already possess. (We merely good managers don't do this, only the great ones do). They go on to suggest that great managers then place people where their innate talents will do the organization the most good.

If a football coach were to apply this revolutionary bit of wisdom he might allow Kurt Warner to play quarterback instead of making him work on his blocking skills as an offensive lineman. Or he might let Randy Moss catch the ball instead of teaching him tackling skills he can use as the new middle linebacker. You get the idea. The rest of the insights into the thinking of great managers is much the same. There's nothing insightful about it.

And don't let all the research fool you. The authors certainly have done a massive number of surveys and interviews and some of this information is interesting. But the conclusions they draw are only loosely connected to the research. I'm left with the impression that they would have presented the same paradigm of management had the survey results been much different.

I often circulate my books and audio tapes among my management team. But I won't waste anyone's time with this one. The book's one redeeming feature is that it's good for the ego. Because if this book really identifies the behavior of great managers, you will read the book thinking to yourself, "Geez, I do that already. I must be a great manager, too!"

Overall, I'm quite disappointed about this book.

I think this book title and subtitle are great, especially subtitle - 'based on in-depth interviews by the Gallup organization of over 80,000 managers in over 400 companies - The largest study of its kind ever undertaken', and I bought this book because of this subtitle and Gallup brand name. Yet I found the content of this book has a huge gap vs. its subtitle, or I should say the book almost didn't provide any new learning for me. The key point of the book is 'poeple development is important'. It can be summarized as the mantra it quoted:

'People don't change that much. Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard enough.'

However, this is really nothing new. The four keys which authors suggested are not new either, such as focusing on strength instead of on weakness. I think the authors just used 80,000 manager interviews learning to endorse 'people development is important' and 'respect individuality'. Though it might be faithful to the research result, it didn't help me. It's kind of like telling you 'by interviewing 80,000 managers, we found innovation is important.' It's true but I knew it already.

Net, recommend NOT to buy.

This book was published once before under the name of "Soar With Your Strengths". This is the second 100 page + brochure selling Gallup's selection products.

I definitely rank this title among 5 best business books I have read. Its conclusions have two strengths: a/when implemented translate to a much improved business performance, b/are exceptionally well backed by a massive research.

This is the essence of my particular out-take from "First, Break Every Rule":

1/Select a person for talent (not for well-roundedness, lack of weknesses). Talent is any recurring pattern of bahaviour that can be productively applied. You cannot teach talent, ergo your time is best alocated when you use and further develop your and your subordinates existing talents rather than spend it on trying to change weaknesses into strengths. Weaknesses can be only neutralized which is a must when they are a major obstacle to talents.

2/Having selected employees, set expectations for them (which are right outcomes and not right steps!), motivate them (when motivating pople focus on their strengths not weaknesses) and develop them (the talents already existing in them).

3/Your employee will perform best when 6 fundamental conditions are met by you as his/her direct superior:

a/She knows what is expected of her at work (outcomes again).
b/She is properly equiped to do the job.
c/She is assigned in line with at least one of her best talents.
d/She has received praise in the last week (which, let us note, will not be difficult if conditions a/,b/ and c/ have been met by her manager)
e/She is convinced that her supervisor cares about her as a person.
f/She feels there is someone at work who encourages her development.

You manage around people's weaknesses focusing on their strengths, you choose jobs that play to your strengths, you spend most time with your best employees - there is a consistent streak in this book that calls for giving attention to the positive rather than negative as the way to produce results. A sequel to this book is a logical next step.

Finally, in the light of this reading a talent to identify talents seems to be the greatest of them all.