First Break The Rules Analysis

In this in-depth work, First Break The Rules written in 1999, Marcus Buckingham and co-author Curt Coffman introduce how to be a great manager while creating your own style of managing. Marcus Buckingham, leader of the Gallup organization, has been fascinated since an early age, by individuality and finding the talents in each individual. Buckingham has been an outstanding leader who even hosted an extremely successful workshop on The Oprah Winfrey Show which lead him into his writing career. He defines the ultimate goal as “find what you love and excel at doing, and keep doing until you leave a mark on this world.” Co-author, Curt Coffman has studied hundreds of businesses and organizations where he would help leaders create a more engaging
One of them are about this conventional wisdom stated above. He talks about a revolutionary insight that is common to great managers and how it can be applied to the catalyst role. This section states that “When selecting someone, they select for talent… not simply experience, intelligence, and determination” (67). The idea that this is what ‘great managers’ do and that that those who do select based off experience, intelligence and determination are lesser than great managers is not completely correct. Especially determination is really what makes a great employee. There’s a quote that goes “Hard work beats talent”, this has been proven in so many ways. The influential Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder and actor, explains the difference between talent and motivation. He tells the story about how there are some people who do not have natural abilities but because of their determination they become so successful in their work. He takes a direct example from his skateboarder collective, between one young man that was very talented but had no motives to do as told and another who succeeded more than him out of his own determination. This is very common with athletes but I also think this could be applied to the workplace. An employee can’t initially be selected for their talent but rather their determination to reach their own goals as well as the company’s goals, and then maybe further along his or her career
It tells very clear statements and bullet points important lessons with the support of 25 years worth of research as well as first hand interviews. Personally, this is not a book that would grab my attention, but as I read through I did learn many new things and my idea of management was challenged as I found out I did have very ‘conventional’ way of thinking when it came to management