- Published on
First, Break All the Rules
- Authors
- Name
- Josh Haines
- @joshhaines
Introduction
When I saw the book recommended on Audible, I had reservations as it was connected to Gallup. Our company uses Gallup for employee engagement surveys and the experience, in general, has been mediocre. The questions felt strange, and never felt tied to things that would improve the business.
Having now finished this book I can say with more confidence that the problem wasn't the questions or the survey methodology. I enjoyed the book and think it is one of the better books on management I've read. The book focuses more on management rather than leadership, but there is a healthy application of both at various points.
At the core of the book is a method description and results discussion of a massive survey effort of more than 80,000 managers across 400+ companies. The book essentially details their findings on what sets the best managers apart from the rest.
Four Keys
The middle of the book revolves around the Four Keys which are outcomes from the study. The keys are:
Select for Talent
The first key is about recognizing and hiring for talent. They feel talent is something that can't be created. The focus here is how to find talented people, how to ensure the people in the right roles have the right talents, and how to recognize this pattern. In the book they also discuss the idea of spending more time with your top performers which is the opposite of standard practice. The thought is the best people will benefit from more support and more roadblock management. Spending all your time as a manager on the poor performers will do little to improve them while removing the support system from your top performers. This is a very interesting idea and seems paradoxical. I would like to practice and try this a bit to see if I notice benefits working this way.
Define the Right Outcomes
This key is about setting the outcomes you want as a manager and finding ways to influence them semi-remotely rather than trying to have direct influence. They teach us to set up the outcomes and get out of the way. A manager's time is better spent helping employee performance and keeping focus on the goals rather than trying to be too heavy on micromanagement.
Focus on Strengths
This key discusses the idea of avoiding the trap of trying to fix employees. Good managers try to grow the strengths and skills that are already part of each employee and allow weaknesses and missing skills to exist. Poor managers try to fix and grow people with personality features they don't have. This feels a bit controversial, but also innately correct. Good managers find ways to manage around weaknesses and the book offers many examples and methods to make this work.
Find the Right Fit
This sections spends a lot of time discussing career paths, career trajectories, and ensuring that people aren't pushed up the rungs of the career ladder into a bad spot for them. They mention and put some thoughts around The Peter Principle which I had heard of before, but had never really understood. They mention companies finding ways to keep people in the level they're most productive at and finding compensation strategies to support this.
They also discuss the idea of Broadbanding which is where salary bands are very large to enable individual contributors to earn a high enough salary they don't need to move into management. I've heard of this concept, but never of this phrase for the practice.
Wrap-Up
I'm happy to report this book is just another example in a long list of things where I found out I was wrong. I've sort of trashed on the Gallup survey for a number of years, but it's clear to me now they were really on to something and the research behind it is solid. I plan to revist this book as a reference in the future when dealing with tough people-management and team management situations.