First, Break All the Rules

by Marcus Buckingham

  “Put yourself in my shoes. We’ve been the number one region for the last four years. Every year I get to the end of the third quarter and all my people have hit their 20 percent growth targets. They have a whole quarter to go, but they’ve already reached their target. You try motivating this group to give it all they’ve got for the final three months. To them, it makes much more sense to save all their sales for next year, so that, come January, they’ve got themselves off to a rolling start. You can’t blame them for slowing down. The quota system encourages it. Every year I have to fight against the very system that was designed to help us all excel. I have to hunt for other ways to keep everybody fired up.”

  How does he do it? Jeff happens to have an intense and conceptual style, so he resorts to writing thoughtful letters to all of his people, cajoling them to look inside themselves and deliver one last ounce of effort. Here’s an example:

  October 29

  People:

  With only two months remaining it is imperative that you stay focused on your goals for this year. It has been a long, well-run race so far this year, and for many of you, you could just coast the rest of the year and still make quota. That decision is yours; I can’t make that for you — and I will not pound or threaten for more.

  However, if we want and you want to be the best you are capable of being and you want to develop your abilities to their maximum, that goal is a never-ending one. You must understand that success is achieved through a never-ending pursuit of improvement — personally, professionally, financially, and spiritually. Like it or not, that is what is involved, and that is the commitment you made to yourself when you accepted the challenge to be the best.

  Remember, stay focused. Never lose your commitment to your own standard of excellence. Push a little every day, and a lot over time.

  Sincerely,

  Jeff

  P.S. You are the best the company has and the best I have ever had the privilege of managing.

  Jeff is fortunate. With his sincere personal appeals and his mantra that each person should “push a little every day, and a lot over time,” Jeff has managed to break through the restraints of the quota system. He has found a way to keep everyone focused on excellence. Despite the limits imposed by quotas, Jeff has now led his region to the company’s top spot four years in a row.

  Other great managers, with their unique talents and styles, will have devised their own routes to excellence. But despite their success, it is still a shame that they have had to waste so much creativity maneuvering around performance evaluation schemes that unwittingly place a ceiling on performance. It is still a shame that they have had to exert so much energy railing against “average thinking.” This energy and creativity would be much more valuable in the unfettered pursuit of excellence.

  However, if you face the same “average thinking,” you should rail against it just as energetically. Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward that right-hand edge of the bell curve. It’s fairer. It’s more productive. And, most of all, it’s much more fun.

  How to Manage Around a Weakness

  “How do great managers turn a harmful weakness into an irrelevant nontalent?”

  Of course, none of this means that great managers ignore nonperformance. They don’t. Focus on strengths is not another name for the power of positive thinking. Bad things happen. Some people fail. Some people struggle. And even your star performers have their faults. Poor performance must be confronted head-on, if it is not to degenerate into a dangerously unproductive situation. And it must be confronted quickly — as with all degenerative diseases, procrastination in the face of poor performance is a fool’s remedy.

  The most straightforward causes of an employee’s poor performance are the “mechanical” causes — perhaps the company is not providing him with the tools or the information he needs; and the “personal” causes — perhaps she is still grieving from a recent death in the family. As a manager, if you are confronted with poor performance, look first to these two causes. Both are relatively easy to identify. Both also happen to be rather difficult to solve — the former will almost certainly require some careful job redesign and better cooperation between individuals or departments; the latter will demand understanding and patience. But at least you will know what is causing the performance problems.

  However, many performance problems have subtler causes. Causes like this are more difficult to identify, but fortunately, with the right mind-set, their solutions are all within a manager’s control.

  The great manager begins by asking two questions.

  First, is the poor performance trainable? If the employee is struggling because he doesn’t have the necessary skills or knowledge, then it almost certainly is trainable. Jan B., a manager in an advertising agency, gives us a simple example:

  “One associate was supposed to turn all of my handwritten notes into killer presentations. But it wasn’t happening. Her turnaround was slow, and the finished product wasn’t that great. I sat her down and subjected her to one of my heart-to-hearts, during which she confessed that she had never learned PowerPoint properly. She was a brilliant art student, but no one had taught her the detailed mechanics of putting that brilliance onto a computer. Well, that’s easy. I just set her up with some intensive PowerPoint training and now she’s a star.”

  Laurie T., a manager in a petrochemical company, describes a slightly more subtle approach to imparting knowledge:

  “Jim was a young man, very talented, who always used to come in late. We talked about it, and he said that he was just terrible at organizing himself to arrive on time. Every morning something would happen to throw him off. He said I shouldn’t worry because he always stayed late and completed his assignments. I told him that I was worried. I was worried about how others were perceiving him. I asked him what he imagined other people’s perceptions of him were. He confessed that they probably associated his lateness with laziness, a lack of responsibility, a poor team player. ‘But that’s not me,’ he said. ‘I know that’s not you,’ I replied. ‘But they don’t. I’m not saying that you must come in on time from now on. I am saying that you must manage your teammates’ perceptions better. Otherwise they won’t trust you, you’ll drag the team down, and I’ll have to ask you to leave.’

  “Jim now comes in on time 95 percent of the time. I didn’t change his behavior. What changed his behavior was his knowledge of how negatively others were perceiving him and his awareness that he didn’t like that.”

  These examples are probably familiar to you. You may have faced the salesperson who didn’t know the product well enough. Or the secretary who didn’t know how to process expenses. Or the recently hired business school graduate who hadn’t yet learned how to prepare a report for the real business world. All of these cases of nonperformance can be traced to the employee’s lack of certain skills or knowledge. Whether it’s as simple as teaching someone a computer program, or as delicate as helping someone gain a perspective on himself, all of these skills and knowledge can and should be trained.

  The second question great managers ask is this: Is the nonperformance caused by the manager himself tripping the wrong trigger? Each employee is motivated differently. If the manager forgets this, if he is trying to motivate a noncompetitive person with contests, or a shy person with public praise, then the solution to the nonperformance might well lie in his hands. If he can find the right trigger and trip it, perhaps the employee’s true talent will burst out.

  John F., a general insurance agent, needed a very public misstep to help him understand this. His most productive agent was an individual called Mark D. A repeat winner of the Agent of the Year award, Mark let it be known that he hated the banal plaques that accompanied the award. If he was going to be recognized, he said, he would prefer something other than anot
her meaningless plaque to shove in a drawer along with the others. John listened patiently, but believed he knew better. All salespeople love plaques, he thought.

  At the awards banquet, John announced Mark as the winner yet again, ushered him up onto the stage, and proudly presented him with his plaque. Mark took one look at it, turned to the audience, made an obscene gesture, and stalked off the stage, vowing to leave the company. The banquet was a disaster.

  John F. spoke to some of Mark’s colleagues to see if he could learn anything that would help recover the situation. Apparently on car journeys, in the hallways, and over lunches, or whenever the conversation inched toward life outside the office, Mark would bring up his two daughters. He and his wife thought they could never have children, so these two little girls were a particularly precious gift. Mark would describe their exploits and their triumphs and the funny little things they would say to him. He was so proud of them. They were his life.

  As quick as he could, John called up Mark’s wife and explained the situation. Mark’s wife had an idea. She brought the two girls into a photographic studio. A beautiful portrait was taken of them and mounted in a frame. Mark’s plaque was embossed on the frame.

  Two weeks later John held a luncheon. In front of all his agents and the guests of honor, Mark’s wife and daughters, John unveiled the portrait and presented it to Mark. The same prima donna who had flipped off the crowd now started to cry. Mark’s trigger was his two daughters.

  This would not have worked if Mark had felt that John didn’t genuinely care about him. But fortunately, over the years, trust had developed between the two of them. The only aspect that had been missing from their relationship was a full understanding, on John’s part, of what was truly important to Mark. Guided by the clues from Mark’s colleagues, John filled that gap. From now on he would respect, and play to, Mark’s unique motivational trigger.

  All managers can learn from John’s example. If an employee’s performance goes awry, perhaps you have misread what motivates him. Perhaps if you tripped a different trigger, the employee’s true talents would reengage. Perhaps you are to blame for his poor performance. Before you do anything else, consider this possibility.

  However, if you can genuinely answer “No” to both of these initial questions — “No,” it’s not a skills/knowledge issue, and “No,” it’s not a trigger issue — then by default the nonperformance is probably a talent issue. The person is struggling because she doesn’t have the specific talents needed to perform. In this case, training is not an option. Given the enduring nature of talent, it is highly unlikely that the person will ever be able to acquire the necessary talent. She is who she is, and left to her own devices, she will always be hamstrung by those few areas where she lacks talent.

  This situation seems bleak. But it’s actually rather commonplace. After all, no one’s perfect. No one possesses all of the talents needed to excel in a particular role. Each of us is a couple of talent cards short of a full deck.

  THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A NONTALENT AND A WEAKNESS

  As you might expect, great managers take a welcomingly pragmatic view of our innate imperfection. They begin with an important distinction, a distinction between weaknesses and nontalents. A nontalent is a mental wasteland. It is a behavior that always seems to be a struggle. It is a thrill that is never felt. It is an insight recurrently missed. In isolation, nontalents are harmless. You might have a nontalent for remembering names, being empathetic, or thinking strategically. Who cares? You have many more nontalents than you do talents, but most of them are irrelevant. You should ignore them.

  However, a nontalent can mutate into a weakness. A nontalent becomes a weakness when you find yourself in a role where success depends on your excelling in an area that is a nontalent. If you are a server in a restaurant, your nontalent for remembering names becomes a weakness because regulars want you to recognize them. If you are a salesperson, your nontalent for empathy becomes a weakness because your prospects need to feel understood. If you are an executive, your nontalent for strategic thinking becomes a weakness because your company needs to know what traps or opportunities lie hidden over the horizon. You would be wise not to ignore your weaknesses.

  Great managers don’t. As soon as they realize that a weakness is causing the poor performance, they switch their approach. They know that there are only three possible routes to helping the person succeed. Devise a support system. Find a complementary partner. Or find an alternative role. Great managers quickly bear down, weigh these options, and choose the best route.

  DEVISE A SUPPORT SYSTEM

  Approximately 147 million Americans are incapable of seeing with twenty-twenty vision. Seven hundred years ago anyone cursed with farsightedness, shortsightedness, or astigmatism would have been seriously handicapped. But as the science of optics developed, it became possible to grind lenses that could correct for these conditions. These lenses were then mounted in frames to make spectacles or glasses. And with this one invention, the weakness of imperfect vision was reduced to an irrelevant nontalent. Millions of Americans still suffer from imperfect vision, but armed with the support system of glasses or contact lenses, nobody cares.

  The speediest cure for a debilitating weakness is a support system. If one employee finds it difficult to remember names, buy him a Rolodex. If another is an appalling speller, make sure she always runs spell check before she prints. Mandy M., the manager of the design department, describes one effective consultant who undermined her own credibility by always wearing trendy coveralls. Mandy took her shopping and made sure she had at least one presentable business suit that could be worn in front of clients. Jeff B., the sales manager for the computer software company, saw one of his salespeople’s performance slipping because of pressures at home — the salesperson’s wife was upset that he was receiving so many business calls on their personal line. Jeff bought him a second line and told him to designate one room in his house as an office, to define set hours when the office door would be shut, and to turn off the ringer during those hours.

  Marie S., a general insurance agent, had to contend with a superbly productive agent who not only wielded a huge ego, but also spread negativity around him every time he was back in the office. Her solution? Cut a new door in his office wall that opened directly onto the elevator hallway and then mount a plaque over the door announcing the agent’s name in classic gold lettering. With one stroke she not only fulfilled his ego needs, she also diverted him directly into his office and away from his negative wanderings.

  This solution may seem a little extreme, but whether they are cutting holes in walls or simply buying Rolodexes, these managers are all doing the same thing: they are managing around the employee’s weakness so that they can spend time focusing on his strengths. As with all focus on strength strategies, devising a support system is more productive and more fun than trying to fix the weakness.

  Occasionally a support system can serve a different purpose. A large restaurant chain had made a commitment to hiring a certain number of mentally retarded employees, believing that they could find these individuals some simple yet meaningful work. Their altruism occasionally proved rather difficult to execute in the real world. The president describes one individual, Janice, who was employed to unpack chicken, place each piece carefully in the fryer, and then lift them all out once the timer had sounded. Janice was fully capable of understanding the responsibilities of the role and performed its mechanics perfectly. But she couldn’t count. And unfortunately the fryer could hold only six pieces of chicken. More often than not Janice would overfill the fryer, leaving each piece of chicken dangerously undercooked.

  The company could have easily given up on Janice because of her inability to count. But they chose not to. Instead they devised a simple support system to manage around her weakness: they asked their chicken supplier to send the chicken in packages of six. This way Janice wouldn’t have to count. She co
uld just empty each packet into the fryer, and the chicken would be cooked to perfection every time. The supplier refused the request. “It will be too much work on our end,” they complained.

  So the company fired the supplier and engaged another that was willing to ship chicken in packets of six. Now nobody cares that Janice can’t count. Her weakness is irrelevant; it is now a nontalent.

  FIND A COMPLEMENTARY PARTNER

  Each year, buoyed by the hope that leaders are made, not born, tens of thousands of budding executives traipse off to leadership development courses. Here they discover the many different traits and competencies that constitute the model leader. They receive feedback from their peers and direct reports, feedback that reveals their unique leadership profile. Finally, after all the learning and reflection is complete, the hard work begins. Each willing participant is asked to craft a plan to fill in those valleys, so that he can reshape himself into the model leader, smooth and well-rounded.

  That last step, according to great managers, is an unfortunate mistake. They agree that leaders should know all the roles that need to be played. They agree that leaders should look in the mirror and learn how they come across to peers and direct reports. But that last step, crafting a plan to become more well-rounded, is in their view woefully naive. If the individual comes to the training class a poor public speaker, he will leave a poor public speaker. If he is nonconfrontational, he will always be tempted to shy away from battle. If he is impractical, he will forever struggle with bringing his ideas down to land. A training class might help him learn why certain talents are important and how they work. But no matter how earnest he is, a training class will not help him acquire them.

  This isn’t a depressing revelation. The most renowned leaders in the history of corporate America have always known it. As they struggled to carve out their success, the last thing on their mind was to become well-rounded. They may have been aware of their own shortcomings, but none of them worked at turning these shortcomings into strengths. They knew what a hopeless waste of time that would be. So they did something else instead: they looked for a partner.