A quick review of the classic book by Buckingham and Coffman on what makes for a great workplace. And how managers can become catalysts for change.

1. Alex Grech
Week #19 Alt-MBA
www.Alt-MBA.com

2. Measuring strength of Work Place
How do you measure the core elements needed to
attract, focus and keep the most talented
employees?
“Business Units were measurably more
productive when employees answered positively
on a scale of 1 to 5 to the following 12
questions.”
Gallup
Analysis of performance data from over 2,500 business units and over
105,000 employees

3. 12 Questions
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
Most powerful Questions
2. Do I have the materials & 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 7 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 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?

4. Mountain Climbing
Getting great at what you do
Yes to all
12
Questions Summit
How can we
Questions
11 to 12 all grow?
Questions Do I belong here?
7 to 10
Questions What do I give?
3 to 6
Questions What do I get?
1&2

5. A great manager is a
CATALYST
1. Select the Person
2. Set Expectations Catalyst:
3. Motivate the Ability to do four
Person key activities
4. Develop the REALLY well
Person

6. 4 Keys of
Great Managers
1. Select the • Select for TALENT
Person • Not simply experience, intelligence or determination
• Define the right OUTCOMES
2. Set Expectations • Not the right steps
3. Motivate the • Focus on STRENGTHS
Person • Not on weaknesses
4. Develop the • Find the RIGHT FIT
Person • Not simply the next rung on the ladder

7. TALENT
A recurring pattern of THOUGHT, FEELING or
BEHAVIOUR that can be productively applied.
FILTER
A characteristic way of responding to the world around us.
It tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore;
which to love and which to hate.
It is UNIQUE to you.
Your filter and your recurring patterns of behaviour are
enduring.
Your filter more than your race, sex, age or nationality is
YOU.
Key 1: Select for Talent

8. WHAT GREAT
MANAGERS KNOW
“People don’t change that much. Don’t waste
your time trying to put in what can be left out.
Try to draw out what was left in. That is hard
enough.” Key 1: Select for Talent

9. Elements of Performance
• Cannot be taught
• 4-line highways of your mind
Talents • Recurrent patterns of thought, feeling or
behavioural
• Difficult to transfer
• Can be taught by breaking total performance
into steps
Skills • “How to do” of a role
• Transferable
• Can be taught
• What you are aware of
Knowledge •
•
Factual knowledge – things you know
Experiential knowledge – understandings
picked up along the way
• Transferable
Key 1: Select for Talent

10. There are 3 Basic Categories of Talent
1. Striving – the ‘WHY’ of a person
2. Thinking – the ‘HOW’ of a person
3. Relating – the ‘WHO’ of a person
Key 1: Select for Talent

11. “The implication is not that people cannot change.
Everyone can change. Everyone can learn. Everyone can get a little better.
The language of skills, knowledge and talents simply helps a manager
identify where radical change is possible, and where it is not.”
Key 1: Select for Talent

12. How managers find
great talent
Know what talents you are looking for
Study your best people
Key 1: Select for Talent

13. How to manage by remote control
Manager’s dilemma: how
do you retain control and
focus people on
performance – when you
know that you cannot force
people to behave in the
same way?
Define the right
outcomes and then let
each person find his
own route toward those
outcomes
Key 2: Define the right outcomes

14. I want perfect people
My people don’t have enough talent
Some outcomes defy definition
Trust is precious: it must be earned
the temptation to Control!!
Key 2: Define the right outcomes

15. “Forcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer
dissatisfaction.
If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step
approach alone cannot get you there.
Instead, you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to
teach, and then you must focus them towards simple emotional outcomes
like partnership and advice.
If you manage to do this, it is something that is very hard to steal.”
Key 2: Define the right outcomes

16. How do you know if the outcomes are right?
What is right for
your customers?
What is right for What is right for
your company? the individual?
Key 2: Define the right outcomes

17. Let them become more of who they already are
Focus on each person’s strength and
manage around his weaknesses.
Don’t try to fix the weaknesses.
Don’t try to perfect each person.
Focus on each person’s strength and
manage around his weaknesses.
Do everything you can to help each
person cultivate his talents.
Help each person become more of
who he already is.
Key 3: Focus on strengths

18. Casting is everything
If you want to turn talent into performance, you have to position each
person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to
do. You have to cast her in the right role.
Everyone has the talent to be exceptional at something. The trick is to
find that ‘something.’ The trick is in the casting.
Key 3: Focus on strengths

19. Spend the most time with your best people
‘No news’ kills behaviour
It’s the fairest thing to do
It’s the best way to learn
It’s the only way to reach excellence
And the best way to break through the ceiling
Key 3: Focus on strengths

20. Managing around a weakness
Devise a support system
Find a complementary partner
Find an alterative role
Determine if poor performance is trainable
Determine if poor performance is not due to
you as manager tripping the wrong trigger!!
Determine if it’s a weakness or a non-talent
Key 3: Focus on strengths

21. A rung too far
Most employees are
promoted to their level
of incompetence. It’s
inevitable. It’s built into
the system.
Key 4: Find the right fit

22. The PROBLEM with climbing the ladder
One rung does not necessarily lead to
another.
The conventional career path is
condemned to create competition and
conflict. Why not create heroes in
every role?
Conventional ‘wisdom’ programmes
employees to hunt for marketable
skills and experience to climb to the
next rung. This thinking is often
flawed.
Key 4: Find the right fit

23. “BEFORE you promote someone, look closely at the striving, thinking and relating
talents needed to excel in the role.
After scrutinising the PERSON and the ROLE, you may still choose promotion.
Since each person is highly complex, you may still end up promoting someone into a
position where he struggles. No manager finds the perfect fit every time.
But at least you will have taken the TIME to weigh the FIT between the DEMANDS of
the role and the TALENT of the person”.
Key 4: Find the right fit

24. Create heroes in EVERY role
Set up levels of achievement
for EVERY role
For every role, define
pay in broad
ranges, with top-end
of lower-level role
overlapping bottom
end of role above
Set up ‘creative
acts of revolt’
(special projects)
Key 4: Find the right fit

25. What Great managers do
Level the PLAYING FIELD
Hold up the MIRROR
Create a SAFETY NET
Key 4: Find the right fit

26. The art of tough love
“Tough love is a mind-set. An uncompromising focus on excellence with a
genuine need to care. It focuses great managers to confront poor performance
early and directly. It allows them to keep their relationship with the employee
intact. Even if the employee has to be ‘let go’. Understanding that each person
possesses enduring patterns of thought, feelings and behaviour liberates
managers who have to confront poor performance. Because it frees the
manager from blaming the employee.”
Key 4: Find the right fit

27. The art of interviewing for talent
Ensure talent interview stands alone
Ask a few open-ended questions and
then try and stay quiet
Listen for specifics
Talent clues: rapid learning
Talent clues: personal satisfactions
Know what to listen for

28. The art of performance management
Keep the routine SIMPLE
Meet FREQUENTLY: minimum once a quarter
Focus on the FUTURE
Ask employee to keep track of HIS OWN performance and learnings

29. What great managers expect of every talented employee
Look in the mirror any chance you get
Muse
Discover yourself
Build your constituency
Keep track
Catch your peers doing something right

30. How to operate if your manager is not quite ‘perfect’
If she’s too ‘busy’, schedule a performance planning meeting
If you are forced to do things ‘her way’, tell her you want to
define your role more by outcome, than by steps
If you receive inappropriate praise, suggest alternative ways
If she constantly intrudes, ask if ‘OK to check in less
frequently than current practice’
If your ‘problems’ are of an entirely different
nature, if your manager consistently ignores
you, distrusts you, takes credit for your
work, blames you for her mistakes or disrespects
you… then get out from under her. You deserve
better.

31. What companies can do to create friendly climate for great managers
Keep the focus on outcomes
Value world-class performance in every role
Master keys that senior
management of a
company can use to break
through ‘conventional
wisdom’s’ barricades
Study your best
Teach the language of great managers

32. End thoughts
“Great managers make it all seem so simple.
Just select for talent, define the right outcomes, focus on strengths and then,
as each person grows, encourage him or her to find the right fit.
Completing these few steps with every single employee, your department,
division or company will yield perennial excellence.”

33. End thoughts
NOBODY said all this is EASY!
A great manager sometimes has to STRUGGLE to BALANCE
the competing interests of the company, the customers, the
employees and even her own.

34. End thoughts
“The needs of the COMPANY and
the needs of the EMPLOYEE,
misaligned since the birth of the
corporation over 150 years ago, are
CONVERGING.
The intersection of the company’s
search for VALUE and each
individual’s search for IDENTITY
are forces of change that have
seeded into the corporate
landscape for over 10 years.
The best managers are those who
know how to be CATALYSTS and
speed up these forces of change.”

35. Acknowledgements
All images from Flickr under Creative Commons licences
http://twitter.com/alexgrech
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendelsohn/532213817 http://www.flickr.com/photos/h-k-d/3437441877
http://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/3469322016 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugopan/72708544
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alele/2293155601 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpsfender182/3006123707
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28031327@N05/2615751976 http://www.flickr.com/photos/splorp/63656900
http://www.flickr.com/photos/foreby/2785429894 http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnandketurah/2886955130
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragesoss/2374914189 http://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/1154746963
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenore-m/359188253 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hazy_jenius/2268675201
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnian/2266798033 http://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/2962194797
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/233228813 http://www.flickr.com/photos/angelsk/3450497836
http://www.flickr.com/photos/splityarn/3428570139 http://www.flickr.com/photos/e3000/256560692/