Rating: 
Summary: First, Read the Book
Review: There is a race for talent in today's job market. Organizations are realizing more and more that their competitive advantage lies within those individuals interfacing with customers and other employees. A businesses' greatest asset is indeed the individuals of the organization. We, in training and development, have known this for a long time. Now, there is bottom line business language that helps others acknowledge and quantify the human asset. In my consulting practice I see more and more emphasis and investment in the developing and cultivation or leadership. In order for organizations to capitalize on their human assets, they must invest in the leadership teams who are managing talent. Recently facilitating a project for Innovative Training Strategies I was introduced to this book First, Break All the Rules. This book is rich with analogies, case studies, and practical information for any one who has more than one employee. Buckingham and Coffman present a business case for leadership development that is based on a Gallup survey of over a million employees and 80,000 managers from a vast range of companies and industries. I feel so strongly about this book for you as a business leader and in your organizations' success that I recommend it be a required reading for you and members of your leadership team. That said, my intent here is to share just a couple of the many learnings the book has to offer in order to peak your curiosity and hopefully intrigue you into making the time investment to experience this resource first hand. Today's companies are having a team of people look at benefit packaging and creating a company profile that is attractive to prospective employees-especially talented employees. One of the things that Buckingham and Coffman warn about is that many companies do things that are effective for all employees. From their research they were able to extract information that was especially true for talented employees. They determined "talented" employees as those who seemed to be the most productive in terms of productivity measures and customer feedback. (There is an intense appendix for those who require supporting facts and data.) What they found was this : talented employees need great managers. "The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor."
So, while your company is spending a lot of resources on employee retention and recruitment, for a return on investment your company would be wise to concurrently develop the leadership team to be talent savvy. Employee Satisfaction is now on everyone's radar. Organizations want satisfied employees because satisfied employees = satisfied customers. Now that that is understood, how does an organization gage employee satisfaction? There is much offered by Buckingham and Coffman to support this critical question. Through their research they have been able to extract the 12 most effective questions to gear how satisfied your talent pool is:
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 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 like my work 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, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow. At first glance, I was surprised the first time I saw this list. Yet, when I thought about what is meaningful to myself as an employee, I nodded my head in agreement. Buckingham and Coffman explain what they learned from the process of gathering data from employees and how they determined these questions as being most effective for evaluating talent satisfaction. So, First get the book and take advantage of the research and learning provided by Buckingham and Coffman in First Break All the Rules. If time is an issue, the book is also available on audio cassette. Enjoy making positive impact on your employees and co-workers.
Rating:
Summary: Crucial concepts
Review: This book shows us how crucial talented employees
as well as great managers are. Talented employees are those who can achieve excellence.
They are vital to sustained success. Great managers are
those able to select fot talent, motivate and develop
them which in turn can benefit the organisation as a
whole. Managers should learn this concept.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: This is a wonderful book, with wonderful info to help anyone with subordinates.
Rating:
Summary: A 'must read' for new managers
Review: This book takes the fact that we grow up always focusing on improving our weaknesses and proves through scientific data that we're dead wrong! It provides a well-lit path to execute the parts of the books you want to implement and gives great reasoning for why it is most important to focus on your employees' strengths, instead of trying to improve their weaknesses. A must read for all managers, but especially for new managers, before you get in too deep of a rut.
Rating: 
Summary: Cliche all the way
Review: This got so cliche that I couldn't even finish it! It's anecdotes only carry the concept so far before it gets ridiculous. Challenging the Stauts Quo is essential to staying on top of your business and there are some good concepts around that idea int his book but that could be captured in 100 pages. I'm afraid to start "Now discover your strengths."... Try "Management Challenges for the 21st Century" if you need some good ideas on where management is going...good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Key to Management Success
Review: I strongly recommend this book and "Winning at Mergers & Acquisitions" as two books that break the mold, open our eyes to new ways of doing things, and imbue the reader with actionable keys to success. The authors stress focusing on talent, defining goals, building upon strengths, and finding common ground for solutions (the right fit). Whether for management advancement or (in the case of Winning at M&A) leading change and integrating groups of people, the guidance in both of these books will help the reader drive corporate evolution. This is a great book that lets the genie out of the bottle in terms of staffing and hiring. If you read two books this summer, it should be these.
Rating:
Summary: Practical, focused, and based on a solid study
Review: This is a must for anyone who manages people. Lots of the book is common sense, but it's made practical by examples, organization, and the large, empirical study backing up the authors' recommendations.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book for Great Managers
Review:
What rules do the great managers break? Identify an employee's strengths and weaknesses, and then try to develop and "pull up" the weaknesses. Wrong.
Marcus and Curt say to do four things differently:
1. Hire for talent (not experience).
2. Define the goals.
3. Focus on strengths (not weaknesses).
4. Find the right fit.
It sounds obvious, but it hasn't been for decades of management and leadership development.
• Mark Kelly, coauthor of MASTERING TEAM LEADERSHIP: 7 ESSENTIAL COACHING SKILLS
Rating:
Summary: Great management book
Review: If you're a manager, if you work in human resources, or if your company hires managers and you are seeking criteria to hire great managers, you'll want to give "First, Break All The Rules: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently" by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman a read.
After extensive research, Buckingham and Coffman summarize the twelve key factors in retaining star employees. If employees can answer the below questions affirmatively, you probably have a strong and productive 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 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 like my work 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, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12) At work, have I had the opportunities to learn and grow?" ("First, Break All The Rules: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently")
What about stock options, high pay, and other more obvious benefits? Don't employees want those also? Yes. However, Buckingham and Coffman point out that those benefits attract all people, including what they classify as ROAD warriors (Retired While On Active Leave or unproductive employees). The above twelve factors attract and keep productive employees. So, can anyone become a great manager? According to the research of Buckingham and Coffman, probably not. They found that among great managers, those who are effective catalysts for turning employee potential into production, the motto is "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." Buckingham and Coffman found that the greatest managers make a clear distinction between knowledge, skills, and talent, where talent is defined as natural recurring patterns of thought within a person. While knowledge and skills can be taught, the greatest managers know that talent cannot be taught. A key of management success is finding the right kind of person for any given job. Each person has a unique set of talents and proclivities making them unique. This set of talents defines who the person is and, more importantly, the kinds of work the person will enjoy. What about the various self-help and self-improvement programs used by companies today? Buckingham and Coffman say that most great managers dismiss them as ineffective. You can't just teach employees "the nine habits of an effective life" and expect them to excel. Buckingham and Coffman explain that each individual's brain is uniquely wired. Performance is in the synapses, or the connections between a person's brain cells. This develops in early childhood. When a child grows, many brain cells exist. There are relatively few connections between the cells. Certain pathways between various groups of brain cells will be strengthened as the child grows. Other pathways will rarely be used. These seldom used pathways and cells will be pruned by the brain. The result? Some people will be great at strategic thinking. Others will struggle with strategic thinking. Some people will have a talent for mathematics. Others won't. Some people will be naturally empathetic and verbally fluent. Not so for others. Trying to make someone function in an area his or her brain hasn't developed will lead to stress, low satisfaction, and, probably, on-the-job failure. But, putting someone in a role where he/she is naturally wired will probably lead to satisfaction and competency. What about simple roles that "anyone should be able to do." Roles people are in only because they need a job and hope to leave as soon as possible? This is a flaw in manager thinking. Disparaging any role within an organization is wrong. Rather, great managers recognize greatness and excellence in any role, even if it is usually considered a common job. Some people will have the talent to do that job while others won't. Buckingham and Coffman criticize the conventional career path of promoting people out of roles in which they excel and moving them into roles in which they struggle. The authors say it is foolish to reward excellence in a role by removing the person from the role. For example, not everyone has the talent or the desire to be a manager. The talent to be a great computer programmer will not be the same talent needed to be a systems analyst or project manager. "First, Break All The Rules" gives solid advice about finding people suited to a given role and, then, managing them effectively. This applies to all roles, including management. Are you a potentially great manager? Do you have the talent and recurring patterns of thought to manage others effectively? I'll leave you with a question asked by Buckingham and Coffman: Do you feel respect and trust must be earned by your employees? Great managers and average managers answer this question differently. Don't feel bad if you get the answers "wrong" and answer differently from the greatest managers. Maybe, you're a better strategic thinker than a manager, for example. I highly recommend "First, Break All The Rules" Peter Hupalo, author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"
Rating:
Summary: Where most corporations are NOT
Review: In the interest of large corporations everywhere - buy this book/CD and make it mandatory for your VP and higher folks in the next year. Take small steps and reap the rewards! After getting this audio cd, I eagerly popped it into my CD player on my agonizing drive to work - along the highway and about 20 minutes into the first CD I had what can only be a religious experience. This is what the apostles must have felt like when hearing Jesus the first time - not to blatantly blaspheme; I can honestly say this is CD represents exactly where my philosophy of management is right now, and exactly where the rest of corporate America is NOT. By living in a very technical position, most upper managers do not think past "what has worked in the past" - what a shame. While Buckingham points out there are a "few right ways", my peers do not see things this way. We (big business) would rather spend millions on an outdated, hierarchical amalgomous glob of outdated methods, than hire the right people for the right job and give them the tools needed to DO that job. Take heed! You need not follow the 7 or 12 step methods of "blah-blah-blah" that Stu Whateverhisnameis says is essential - value the uniqueness of employees and managers. Don't push in what is not there, but draw out what IS there. The right person for the right job is the simplistic answer - so why don't we do it? Buckingham and Coffman identify the common sense values that we've been missing in big business - by good old-fashioned hard work with over 400 corporations. This isn't just a "must read" - this book should be subscripted with the title - "Thought processes for the mentally indigent corporate executive".
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