What If There Really Were 12 Magic Questions For Profitable Management?
When the John Wayne School Of Management Isn't Enough
I'm sure I'm not the only one that acts like they know it all when it comes to managing. "What would John Wayne do?" It's a cute approach, and I know it really does work for a lot of people, just doubt that I am one of them. I really need to study a reasonable amount to be barely passable, my "natural" skills are in other areas.
My girlfriend left one of her management books near the throne last week so I was just reading through it for a few minutes and this one really blew me away in the first chapter.
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
Soft Data as Emperical Reality
The short description goes like this. Gallup interviews over a million employees and 80,000 managers over 25 years and grinds the stats on the answers, combining also with empirical data on profitability. The net result is they glean hard data from what was before only though of as soft or undefinable assumptions. The most highly profitable managers and companies fit a specific profile, when it comes to the way humans are managed.
Soft data becomes hard data, which gets people like me very excited. I'm a hard data kind of guy, "woo woo" stuff is just that, a bunch of lame assumptions.
12 Questions That Define Profitability
Get the book, I'm only quoting directly from the book here as a teaser: When people under your management answer these questions positively, you're on the way to solid profitability.
[begin quote]
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Do I know what is expected of me at work?
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Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
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At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
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In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
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Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
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Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
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At work, do my opinions seem to count?
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Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
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Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
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Do I have a best friend at work?
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In the last six months, has somebody talked to me about my progress ?
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This last year, have I had opportunities to learn and grow ?
[end quote]
I'm barely into the start of the book, so I'm sure there are many jewels to follow. My take-away is this: If I can follow this path and know that there is an empirical, statistically proven path to getting good results, I'm going to take that path. It's just crazy to do otherwise.
The metric, not the prescription
You will note there is a bonus here for people like me - who are such control freaks that they feel they can't take advice from anyone. There is no advice here.
Because these questions don't tell me what to do, they only tell me how to measure the results of what to do.
I'm creative enough to experiment with the "how" on my own.
