The best managers look for talent in their people and move people into the position where there talent can blossom. Knowledge and skills can be acquired, talent cannot. Also useful is their distinction between knowledge and skills and talent. The best managers: 1) select for talent 2) define the right outcomes 3) they focus on strengths 4) help their people find the right fit. In this book the key to their resulting framework is the following distinction between conventional wisdom and great managers: Conventional wisdom encourages managers to: 1) select a person 2) set expectations 3) motivate the person 4) develop the person. In this book some people with a background in the Gallup organization research the recipe of success for great managers.

There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the audiobook shows you how to apply them to your own situation. This audiobook is the first to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, and the rate of turnover. Buckingham and Coffman explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience how they set expectations for him or her - they define the right outcomes rather than the right steps how they motivate people - they build on each person's unique strengths rather than trying to fix his weaknesses and, finally, how great managers develop people - they find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder. No matter how generous its pay or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer. The front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. But these well-intentioned efforts often miss the mark.

In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. Whatever their situations, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup's research were invariably those who excelled at turning each employee's talent into performance.

Some were in Fortune 500 companies others were key players in small, entrepreneurial companies. In First, Break All The Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations.

First break all the rules author