More wisdom from First break all the Rules!

Back again for more wisdom from “First, break all the rules”, an unconventional look at how to manage staff. Managers must first find and address employees’ needs in order to build a nurturing work environment enabling company vision, mission and goals to be met. Buckingham and Coffman suggest the following 12 questions to measure the strength of a workplace. They are designed to produce positive answers, the more yes’ the better the workplace.

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and 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 seven 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 mission/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 past six months, have I talked with someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

While they may appear overly simplistic, they are actually designed in a bottom up hierarchy that highlights employees’ needs. Being a relatively new manager at G Media, I had a go answering these myself and my answers were almost all positive. I assure you there was no bias, knowing that my boss – Garion Hall can read this any time. This is not particular news to me in any case, as I am fairly happy going to headquarters everyday with my to-do list and leaving with some sense of job satisfaction at the end of each day. For comparison purposes, I applied the same questions to my last position and needless to say, my decision to move on was the right one.

Tags: book club, First Break all the Rules, Garion Hall, gmedia
Posted in IT

GMedia Bookclub is Launched!

Lead by Garion Hall, staff at G Media are always encouraged to research and develop, not only individually but for their team, company and industry alike, across all functions of the business. Thus the establishment of the G Media Bookclub, the rules of which are:

1. be armed and ready with a yellow highlighter

3. implement the lesson learned in our daily business decisions

Having completed almost 20 years of studying, it’s fair to say I’ve read about many management theories and “how to” guides, so I was rather dubious about rules number 2 and 3 above, when handed “First, break all the rules”. Luckily I had a 300 page guide on how to break all the rules in my lap.

Loathed to mark up a perfectly brand new book, this series of blogs will showcase the interesting bits I did find, somewhat to my surprise. Basically it’s a how to manage guide for managers. Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman looks at staff management from a different angle, backs it up with empirical research spanning over twenty five (that’s right 25!) years, completed by the Gallup Organisation. Their comprehensive research includes interviews with factory hands, receptionists to senior executives across thousands of companies spanning all industries.

Tags: Curt Coffman, First Break all the Rules, G Media, Gallup Organisation, Garion Hall, gmedia, Managing the managers, Marcus Buckingham
Posted in IT