We’re about to dive into “First, break all the rules” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, G Media Bookclub’s first book. Traditionally, management crafts the ‘perfect’ mould for their ideal manager, recruit using this mould, lumps someone into it like play dough, then becomes frustrated when the manager’s magic wand does not yield the ultimate objective, whatever that may be – profitability, providing best service, technological advances and so on. The book questions the validity of doing so, by examining what makes employees tick.

Firstly, the authors distinguish between skills and knowledge, which can be taught and talents, an innate instinctive skill set that cannot be learned but will determine ultimate success or failure. The reason being that talents are ingrained in an individual, impulses they’ve grown up developing their entire lives. When applied in the business situations will, not only come naturally, but always garner the best results, because it is the person’s speciality. For example, this talent is easily recognisable in athletes, they’re at the top of their game because they are the best, due to their talent – they can run the fastest, hit the hardest, quickest reaction time and so on. Whilst most of us will concur that this makes logical sense, the same theory is lost on most in the business world.

Staff are hired based on their resume, a piece of paper that lists their skills and knowledge, gained from their educations, whether it be in schools or past work experience. While the ability to learn quickly is a talent, it’s the application of those skills learned that matters. It is HR’s responsibility to find that talent in staff, both existing and new, in order to foster business success. To do that, we need to sniff out talents at the interview stage by asking open ended questions, allowing the prospect to showcase their talents, which may or may not be suitable to the organisation.

We at G Media, have not veered too far from the traditional forms of recruitment thus have had varying degrees of success in hiring and retaining suitable staff.

Tags: Book Clucb, Curt Coffman, G Media, Garion Hall, gmedia, Management approach, Marcus Buckingham, recruitment, retaining staff
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