Some with interesting methods for improvement in business or self.
When I find a book that you should read, I’ll share.
Here is one.
The One Thing You Need To Know
…About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success
Marcus Buckingham
It all started with ‘First Break All The Rules’ in my opinion the best management book ever written. Marcus co authored with Curt Coffman and both were part of the Gallop Organization, you know, the Poll people.
Secondly, Marcus took chapter 5 of FBATR “Focus on Strengths” and with his mentor, Donald O. Clifton, head of the Gallop organization, wrote ‘Now Discover Your Strengths’ the most practical tool in understanding your own and other’s strengths.
It is Buckingham’s third book that we are looking currently.
In the movie, ‘City Slicker’ Billy Crystal’s character is told by Curly, played by, Jack Palance, “I’ll tell you the secret to life. This one thing. Just this one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean s**t.”
“What’s that one thing?” Billy’s character asks.
“That’s what you’ve got to figure out,” Curly replies.
But, in the movie we never discover ‘That one thing’.
It bugged Marcus that there was no answer, however, it got him to thinking. And he wrote this book.
‘The One Thing You Need to Know’
First, he reviews how he got there and what explanations are more powerful than others and what he calls ‘The one controlling insight’.
Buckingham focuses on two kinds of success.
- Sustained Organizational Success including:
- The difference between Managing and Leading
- What is great Managing?
- What is great Leading?
- Sustained Individual Success including:
- The twenty percenters -the 80/20 rule applied to ‘What does success look like?’ ‘What it isn’t’ and a clear definition.
- The three main contenders – Tactics, Flaws and cultivating your strengths.
I really feel that this part of the book is most helpful personally. If you pick up the book read pages 248-260. They alone are worth the price of the book. Especially, focus on page 257 and the concept – “Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it”.
Buckingham completes his thinking by exploring four barriers to success and offers some practical insights to combat and defeat our negative focus when we feel: Bored, Unfulfilled, Frustrated or Drained.
I use his first two books as a large part of my Business Navigator tools and perhaps one day, I will review them also.
You could also cruise YouTube where you can see and hear Marcus over one hundred times.
