Finally, after having the book sit on my shelf for years I got around to reading “First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently” over the holiday break. For anyone who is either a manager, or being managed by a manager, I’d highly recommend reading the book.
In the event, however, that you don’t heed my advice, here are a couple key points worth thinking about as a manager.
First, take the time to really get to know your people — starting with your direct reports, but also take the time to get to know as many people on your team as possible. And by “get to know”, this means taking the time to understand the true talents of the individuals on your team. As the book points out, and I firmly believe, everyone is wired with distinct and different talents (which are different from their skills and knowledge).
This is a truism I learn a little more each year I manage. In the past, as much as I would have liked to “change” somebody or get them “trained” to improve in a certain area, the reality is that people through both nature and nurture come to the party prepared to excel in certain areas and struggle in others.
Understanding that talent is somewhat hard-wired in people leads to the second key take away. That is focus on enriching key talents inherent in the people you manage and make sure they are put in roles that are the best fit for those talents. Don’t waste your time trying to “round out” your people trying to make everyone the same type of player across the board. That’s just not realistic. Instead, embrace the different talents and spend your time putting your “players” in the right positions on the field (to steal a bit of sports metaphor).
And finally, the glue that connects all of this for managers is making sure to be clear on defining the right outcomes for your people. Again, these outcomes or goals may be different for each person on your team — based on their role, function and talents — but ultimately all of the individual outcomes point toward a single set of goals for the business.
At this point it’s important to note here that once you’ve laid out the goals for your team members, your job as a manager is to do everything you can to clear a path that allows them to utilize their unique talents to achieve these goals. This last piece is typically most challenging for managers who feel that they need to control the methods or process by which their people achieve the defined outcomes.
My advice here is simple. If you aren’t comfortable with the notion that you pick the team, put the players in the right positions, layout the goals for the team and each player, and then let your players “play” to the best of their abilities, then you will find managing an almost impossible endeavor.
Originally published on Medium on January 1, 2009. This Substack version is maintained as the canonical archive.